Voters approve all in New Boston

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:41:00 GMT

BY STEPHEN BEALE

Turnout was low but voter satisfaction was high in the school and town elections earlier this week.

All the warrant articles on the town and school ballots passed on Tuesday. Most were by comfortable margins, including a $3.7 million operating budget for the town and a $10.2 million operating budget for the school district.

In the election for local offices, Christine Quirk edged out Peter Kucmas for a single seat on the Board of Selectmen and Monika Wright won an uncontested race for the School Board.

No candidate filed for a second open seat on the board. Joe Constance won that second seat with 70 write-in votes.

Other winning candidates were the following: Gregg Peirce for cemetery trustee, Candace Woodbury for library trustee, Lee Nyquist for town moderator, Cathleen Strausbaugh for supervisor of the checklist, Karen Johnson for town treasurer and Thomas Manson for trustee of the trust funds. Also, Wayne Blassberg beat George St. John for fire ward by one vote, 731 to 730.

Out of a total of 3,750 registered voters, 959, or 25 percent, showed up at the polling place, according to Town Clerk Irene Baudreau.

“It’s disappointing, the small turnout we had,” Baudreau said. In all, not counting the article for election of officers, there were 32 articles on the town ballot that got the nod from voters.

Nearly a dozen of them dealt with spending. The largest was $3,720,780 for the town operating budget.

The rest involved smaller expenses, such as $60,000 for the refurbishment of the town main water attack vehicle, $85,000 for improvements to Bedford Road, $55,000 installment for the future purchase of Highway Department trucks, and $65,000 to replace the bridge on Lyndeboro Road.

The items on the ballot were generally run-of-the-mill, according to selectman Gordon Carlstrom. “This year, there really isn’t anything that is a huge controversy out there,” Carlstrom said.

Most of the articles passed by wide margins. But a $150,000 proposal for a footbridge over the Piscataquog River squeaked through by only 15 votes, with 480 voting yes. The bridge will connect the Mill Pond Conservation area with land owned by the New Boston Tavern.

Of the total cost, $120,000 will be funded by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, $19,000 will be raised in taxes and the rest will come from the New Boston Foot Traffic Road Safety Committee.

Voters also took a stand on taxes Tuesday. They signed off on a statement, authored by the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition, declaring that the property tax has become unjust and unfair and calling upon state officials to have an open discussion on all revenue options.

The election further affected taxes on the local level. New Boston voters granted exemptions for solar and wind power systems and boosted the exemption limits on income and assets for elderly and disabled taxpayers.

New Boston Year in review 2007

Goffstown Editor — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 01:00:00 GMT

BY MICHELLE KIM

For many residents in Goffstown, Weare and New Boston, 2007 had a strong a sense of deja vu. Few would have thought a 100-year flood would happen two years in a row. But it did.

Here’s a look at a few events in New Boston:
Rose Meadow Farm, a residential care facility for clients 18 and older with brain and spinal cord injuries, opened up a second facility on Bedford Road, called Rose Meadow Gardens, with 13 more openings.

A fire broke out in January at 114 Pine Road, the home of Kelsiey Nippe and Jerrod Poliquin, who were awakened by the sound of their smoke detector. The Fire Department was able to locate and put out the fire before any significant structural damage was caused.

At the March Town Meeting elections, voters accepted the $3.4 million operating budget, a 9 percent increase over the previous year’s operating budget, and approved almost all the warrant articles, except for an article seeking money for a footbridge connecting the central village to the south commercial district, despite a heated campaign by the article’s proponents.

The article would have required $30,000 from the town and acquired the other $120,000 through state grants.

Voters returned six-year incumbent selectman and board Chairman Dave Woodbury over challenger Kim DiPetro.

The school operating budget of $9.4 million, which was close to the default level, easily passed, as did articles for a new teacher contract requiring about $120,000 in new spending. A $33,000 article to conduct a study on expanding the New Boston Central School that had sparked discussion at the deliberative session also passed.

Also during March, New Boston part-time resident Richard Hawes, 65, of Friendly Beaver Campground, who pled guilty to trafficking pornographic photos of his 2-year-old granddaughter, was sentenced in Concord District Court to 10 years in prison.

The floods from the April 15 and 16 nor’easter brought worse damage to local roads than 2006’s Mother’s Day floods, according to Police Chief Chris Krajenka. The main thoroughfares of Route 13, Route 136, Route 77 and Bedford Road were all closed, and several families were displaced from their homes, with about five staying overnight at the emergency shelter set up by the Greater Manchester Red Cross at the Central school.

Small brooks and streams became raging torrents that overflowed their banks and destroyed the pavement, and clear cutting 40 acres of forest for construction off of Bedford Road caused rushing waters to undermine a 12-foot section of the road. Gov. John Lynch visited the police station April 17. In all, there was about $400,000 worth of damage, according to Town Administrator Burton Reynolds.

New Boston was one of nine counties declared federal disaster areas, making it eligible for FEMA aid. FEMA representatives toured the area in June.

Reynolds said the town would apply for FEMA and state aid, which should reimburse about 88 percent of the damage. The Mother’s Day floods made the town much more familiar with applying for aid, he said.

The school district applied for a waiver for the time it missed because of flood-damaged roads that prevented school buses from getting to Central or to the Goffstown schools.

In May, builder Aaron Fielder was arrested in Londonderry and charged with felony forgery after he allegedly forged the certificate of occupancy for a $365,000 Hutchinson Lane home after it failed to pass inspection by the town building inspector. The Hutchinson Lane subdivision was being built by Front Line construction in New Boston.

Water from River Road Spring, a popular local landmark on Route 13, was declared unsafe after detection of an abnormal level of coliform bacteria, a naturally occurring organism that probably came from the flooding run-off water, according to health officer Shannon Silver.

Selectmen hosted information sessions on the transfer station April 30 and in July. The town achieved its goal of 40 percent recycling in May and discussed ways to increase that rate, such as an incentive program for haulers.

The Board of Selectmen adopted a new energy conservation policy in July to look for practical ways to save energy within the town’s means.

The Fourth of July celebration introduced rock climbing, in addition to the traditional favorites of mud volleyball, fiddler’s contest, chicken barbecue, parade and fireworks.

In September, the 50th anniversary Hillsborough County Fair went on despite heat and rain that reduced its attendance by half. The fireworks were canceled, but everything else continued as planned. Peter Carter of Goffstown won the giant pumpkin contest with a gourd weighing 1,101 pounds. The same pumpkin had won the grand prize at the Rochester Fair.

In August, Dave Woodbury donated a 100-year-old railroad passenger car he had been renovating for the last 15 years to the Contoocook Riverway Association to put on display.

The New Boston Police Department saw staff changes with the resignation of officer Josh Woehl and, after a long search, the hiring of a new candidate to be sent to the police academy.

A study conducted by the former police chief concluded the department needed 10 officers to function at full capacity; the department currently has four full-time officers, including the chief, and one part-time officer.

Chief Chris Krajenka put in a request for an additional officer for the 2008 budget, which would bring the number of spots for sworn officers to eight. The budget proposal also included a request for eight Tasers.

A delegation of teachers from Iceland visited the New Boston Central School in October to observe the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support (PBIS) program as part of a three-day trip to New Hampshire. The teachers swapped ideas with New Boston teachers and presented the Central School with a book and a flag from their school.

The New Boston Climate and Energy Committee organized a fair in November to promote awareness of climate change and energy efficiency in conjunction with a nationwide series of events called “Step It Up.” In the second half of the event, local politicians answered residents questions in a forum on policy, incentives and ideas on climate change.

The property tax rate for 2007 decreased 8.4 percent, despite a doubling of the town portion of the tax, mostly because of a larger than expected adequacy education grant that lowered the school portion of the tax. The overall rate was $14.02 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

Also in November, an enormous barn fire on a Bunker Hill Road barn killed 125 goats trapped inside, many of which were pregnant and due soon. The property and goats were owned by Steve Caggiano.

At one point, up to 75 firefighters from 10 different communities were fighting the barn fire, side house fire and spot brush fires. The cause of the fire is unknown but not suspicious.

A survey and architectural study concluded expanding the New Boston Central School to possibly bring back grades 7 and 8 would take up too much parking and playground space.

Only $3,000 of the $33,000 granted in the warrant article was used and the rest will be returned to the town, according to Principal Rick Matthews.

New Boston News : Board of Selectmen

Voters approve all in New Boston

New Boston Year in review 2007