Editorial:One more town considers SB2

Auburn residents have a big decision to make: whether to change from the old style of Town Meeting or move to the official ballot law, commonly called SB2 for the bill it began as.
For larger towns, the official ballot law makes more sense. It is simply impossible to gather a representative sample of voters into a single room and have them discuss the town or school district’s issues in a meaningful way. Opening up voting on warrant articles to the entire population of a town allows everyone to voice their opinion on issues and spending – or at least to those willing and able to travel to the polls or get absentee ballots. That’s only fair. Everyone should have a say.
But in smaller towns, like Auburn, it’s a little trickier. Yes, there’s the advantage under SB2 of not having to attend the Town Meeting or School District Meeting and still getting your vote. But towns like Auburn typically have a pretty good turnout at their traditional meetings, enjoy the chance to debate the issues and see this civic duty as a tradition they want to keep.
It is unfair to say people go to the polls and make uninformed votes under SB2. Under both forms of government, special interests can reword warrant articles so their intent is totally destroyed, and not all articles are explained at every meeting so voters are sufficiently informed at their public meetings. What SB2 offers, though, is an opportunity for greater participation in the process. That, alone, is reason enough for us. We’ll soon see if Auburn agrees.

Letters:

Please vote in favor of new middle school and kindergarten

To the Editor:
I am writing this to you to give you the heads up for the Auburn School District Meeting. The date is Friday, March 14, at 7 p.m., at Auburn Village School. I realize it is a few weeks away, but planning ahead is of the utmost importance.
There are six warrant articles to be voted on that night and your vote could be crucial to the education of Auburn’s children. I would like to recommend that all voting members of your household take part in this very important night. If babysitting is an issue, there will be babysitting provided. Hopefully this notice will give you enough time to make arrangements, if necessary.
Over the next few weeks, you will be receiving a lot of specific information about the warrant articles, so this letter is to merely stress the importance of to casting your vote. The new Auburn/Candia Middle School, the two-year teachers contract and the addition of the public kindergarten program are being voted on.
The new Auburn/Candia Middle School is a bond vote. This means that we need 67 percent to pass the article. This school plan was done with the due diligence that the Auburn community deserves and expects. It is a great plan. It gives the students a chance to be true middle school students. The programming and social opportunities are endless.
This school also gives the taxpayers the best benefit. It is financially responsible to merge with another community to share the costs and gain more state aid. It also gives the Auburn community a new building to use and be proud of.
Public kindergarten will also be a hot item for voting. The state has mandated the program to be offered by September 2008 and the School Board intends to comply with this law.
The board has looked at the current school and has decided to renovate the technology education area for the two classrooms needed to add the program. Tech. Ed. will not be eliminated but will be redefined and relocated to another area in the building.
The School Board has also applied for and been granted kindergarten construction aid. This aid gives the district 75 percent of the construction/renovation costs related to adding the program. This is the last year for the money and we need to take advantage of it while it is available.
Public kindergarten is extremely important to the children’s education. We are currently one of 11 districts in the nation without it and further, it has been 18 years since the other 49 states have required the program. It is high time for us to step up and start our 5-year-olds off on the right track.
Thank you for your continued support. The children of Auburn deserve it. I only can encourage you to mark your calendars and make Friday, March 14, an important night for doing your civic duty by voting. This may be a night where history in made in the community we love and will move Auburn’s educational system to new heights.

Elaine Hobbs
School Board Chairman
Auburn

It’s important to vote for Epsom’s selectmen this year 

To the Editor:
I would like to thank the residents of Epsom who made it out for the deliberative session. Many important things were discussed and some were modified.
My biggest surprise was that after the Budget Committee chair was quoted in the paper as saying the budget would probably be cut and slashed at the deliberative session, the town actually added $15,000! Why is this? It is because the town finally has a Board of Selectmen they feel they can trust.
So let’s review. The last three years, our town has voted for a default budget. The last three years our town has faced numerous lawsuits and, let’s just call it what it is, bad press about the Board of Selectmen. There were rumors of impropriety, conflicts of interest, violations of the code of ethics, and general bickering and mudslinging.
One year ago, Epsom overwhelmingly supported a vote of no confidence for Kitson, McKechnie and Bosiak, and also voted out the other two, Frambach and Weaver. Then you elected two new people who you felt might make a difference. And you told the selectmen you thought the new five-member board didn’t work, and reduced the number back to three.
Today, three people are running for the three selectmen positions, two who have worked hard for you and one who has worked many years in different capacities for the town for many years. All unopposed.
Does this mean you don’t need to show up on election day on March 11? No. Now you can do what you have been wanting to do for three years but hesitated. Vote “yes” on Article 1, the proposed budget. It’s time to get back to business.
Thank you!


Joanne Randall
Epsom

Check *** Snow’s votes; his colors show plainly

To the Editor:
Was that supposed to be return fire? It was rather bland and impotent, but “par for the course” with liberals. I will give Representative Snow a nod for answering, but must point out his patently partisan adhesion to the evil lock-step marching orders from the liberal masters on his side of the aisle. His voting record is “right in tune.” The state Web site www.NH.gov is an awesome tool. Check on your representative’s voting records; review the bills, compare the votes, etc. Check *** Snow’s votes; his colors show plainly.
The “Baby Tax” on milk was taking our money to save someone else’s cows! The “Bottle Bill” was an attempt at adding another new tax and department we would pay for. Those are broad-based taxes he has spent time on, and the difference between 3 percent and 17 percent is 14 percent, ***. They will not stop trying, folks. Anything “gambling” is getting fast-tracked, no pun intended. They also know better than to let the people decide about the definition of marriage, or to let them decide about prohibiting income taxes. No amendments will be allowed to our Constitution while he and his “demoncrat” friends hold the majority, unless it is to their benefit.
He agreed with those evil people that requiring parental notice of a minor child’s abortion (not approval, mind you), was bad and had to be repealed. He voted with them to limit debate to 10 minutes too! Ten minutes!? That is how important he thought parent’s rights were. He voted more than a couple times against any possible reconsideration, amendment, delay, etc. No, like the masters told him; repeal parental notification immediately. He also agreed that enhancing our minimal laws regarding abortion, to protect viable fetuses from destruction, (partial birth? birth by accident?), is too cumbersome to the contract killers at Planned Parenthood and elsewhere, to be considered, even though the bill specifically prohibited prosecuting the would-be mother.
They also decided that parents do not have the right to know when some reprobate organization plans to instruct children about (promote) homosexual sex acts. A common-sense bill requiring public schools to notify parents, and allow them to opt out before any “sexual orientation” classes (indoctrination) was effectively killed by him and his cohorts. Heads up, parents!
I am proud to be a partisan, on the right side. It’s not “bickering,” it’s standing and fighting for principles. To be non-partisan is to be AWOL, or in the way. Mr. Snow is living up to the old label quite well. How old is he anyway? The lies are older than us both. The truth is self-evident. Look it up.


David Ross
Hooksett

It’s the economy, not politics 

To the Editor:
I would like to thank the approximately 60 Epsom residents for coming out to the deliberative session. Among them were four from the select board, 10 from the Budget Committee, two secretaries, the police chief, the fire chief, the road agent, the town counsel, two supervisors of the checklist, and three members of the press.
It was the chairman of the ZBA, who made a motion to increase the line item for the legal fees $15,000 in anticipation of increased litigation expected this coming year. This increase had nothing to do with anyone trusting the present BOS or not trusting the previous one. Out of the 60 people, one third had to be there.
The reason that the town has been on a default budget for the last three years is economical and not political. It was a reaction to the change in the tax base to a 100 percent valuation. It has nothing to do with last year’s election.
Reducing the positions on the BOS is not going to change the fact that we all are experiencing a financial crunch. Even the Budget Committee has voted not to recommend Article 1.

Richard Frambach
Epsom

A job well done 

To the Editor:
I am writing to commend the Hooksett Highway Department for a job well done. In this year of record-breaking snowfall, our roads have been remarkably clear.
I have driven in other town and cities and their roads are terrible. They have ice grooves in lanes and the potholes could swallow up a small car.
Thank you again for a great job.
Alyssa Zapora Ehl
Hooksett

Pembroke’s school budget is one for the history books

To the Editor:
While it certainly will not be on the best seller’s list, this year’s Pembroke School District budget reads like a novel, with each page putting forth a new set of challenges, and the ending yet to be determined.
The Pembroke School Board’s requested operating budget, exclusive of the food service program, grant funded programs and warrant articles for specific additional items, shows an increase of $1,324,154. This number is arrived at despite the fact that the board added no new initiatives and has level-funded or actually decreased all discretionary line items within the budget. By now, any rational reader is probably asking the simple question, “Why?”
Major areas of increase include:
Special education expenses: $791,194 (60 percent of increase).
Insurance/salary-related expenses: $296,314 (22 percent of increase)
Teacher contract: $170,103 (13 percent of increase)
The common thread running through these line items is that they are all areas over which the district has essentially no control.
There’s even more to the story. The Pembroke School District is asking for a deficit appropriation to balance a serious shortfall in special education expenses in the current (2007-08) budget year. This request is not an easy one. In fact, the district has already frozen about $100,000 from other budget lines and plans to use its entire $267,458 special education trust fund, but it’s not enough.
As it stands right now, we will still fall short of balancing the budget. And, unfortunately, this is simply one chapter of this novel. We are also asking voters to discontinue the existing Roadway Trust Fund and re-appropriate the money it contains into the Special Education Trust Fund to help offset some of the additional special education expenses anticipated for 2008-09.
Compounding the problem is the fact that special education expenses are very difficult to estimate as they fluctuate with the needs of students. There is no way to know if a student with special needs will move in or out of the district, and the costs of that can, as we have seen this year, be staggering.
An out-of-district placement for one student alone can cost $200,000 or more, and because we don’t know if students will move in or out of the district, these expenses are both unanticipated and unbudgeted.
This year, we have seen students move in with very serious needs resulting in very expensive services. As you may or may not know, the federal government is supposed to fund 40 percent of special education costs. The reality of the matter is that they currently fund approximately 15 percent, making it, for all intents and purposes, an unfunded mandate.
Having served on the Pembroke School Board for 21 years, I can say with confidence that this year’s budget request is unusual. In fact, over the past three years, the Pembroke School District portion of the tax rate has averaged a zero percent increase.
The Budget Committee asked the School District to cut its budget by $310,000. The School Board made $80,000 in reductions in technology and the requested deficit appropriation. The result – a $23,154,452 budget that the School Board recommends. It is the Budget Committee budget that gets put forth for a vote at the annual School District meeting, however; and though the Budget Committee recognizes that the School Board has no control over special education costs, the committee feels that it cannot endorse such a large tax rate increase, thus their recommended budget of $22.9 million.
If voters approve the Budget Committee’s full decrease, the School Board will eliminate one instructional position each at Pembroke Academy, Three Rivers and Village/Hill, reduce co-curricular programs and reduce custodial time. No matter which budget total prevails, the School Board will also seek the lowest possible deficit appropriation amount.
What will be the ending of this story? Like any good reader, I wouldn’t want to jump ahead to the last three pages of the book. I would, however, want to pay close attention to the fundamental elements of the tale – understanding that this budget has as many twists and turns as a John Grisham novel.
In the end, the facts and the way that voters accept those facts will determine the conclusion of this story. Make sure you are present to help turn the pages at the annual School District Meeting, Saturday, March 8, at 10 a.m., at Pembroke Academy.
Clint Hanson
Chairman
 Pembroke School Board

We need to change status quo

To the Editor:
I have two big questions for Sen. John Sununu and Sen. Judd Gregg. Why, in these times of heightened awareness of the effects of global warming, would they vote against tax incentives crucial to renewable energy and energy efficiency in the Senate Economic Stimulus Package?
This initiative might have created over 820,000 new jobs worldwide, including 5,000 here in our state. This poor decision needs to be rectified – and quickly.
Senators! What will you do in the coming months to turn this negative vote into some positive action for our world and for our beautiful state of New Hampshire?
We need to change the status quo. It isn’t working!
 Judi Lindsey
Candia