Windham News : selectman

Windham Selectman one of 31 vying for town job

Salem Editor — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:40:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

A fresh group of candidates for the newly created position of community development director, including a member of the Board of Selectmen, is undergoing interviews with town officials.

Chairman Galen Stearns has put in his resume for the job, along with 30 other applicants after the town was unable to fill the position earlier this year. At that time selectmen offered the position to three applicants, all of whom turned down the job. Stearns said members of the community approached him after the town was forced to restart its search and asked why he had not sought out the position himself.

“We went through the process once and we did not get anyone to fill position. A large number of people asked me why I didn’t apply,” Stearns said. “I’ve been involved in town government for over 20 years – 16 as a selectman – and I know the town. I know what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Stearns said his experience working with state agencies and members of the local business community in his capacity as an elected official qualified him for the position.

“The selectmen have the overview of the development of the town and where it’s headed,” he said. “I know our goals ... I think I know what we’re looking for in that position.”

Though serving as both a member of the board and as a town employee would not pose any legal problems, Stearns said he could foresee ethical dilemmas arising if he were offered the post. Reporting to the town administrator as the head of a department only to have the town administrator report back to him as an elected official would also be illogical, he said and pledged to step down from the board if offered the position.

According to a statement released by the town, Stearns has already been excluded from all discussion relative to the position and will not sit in on any interviews as a member of the board. He will also be barred from taking part in the candidate selection process.

Town Administrator David Sullivan said the board conducted a first round of interviews between June 15 and 19.

A second round of interviews for three to four finalists will begin sometime after the July 4 holiday, he said.

Selectmen started looking for a community development director after restructuring the town’s planning department and eliminating former planning director Alfred Turner’s position late last year. The move came after an independent review of the department found Turner and his staff to be out of sync with the economic development goals of the board. Though selectmen offered Turner a position as the town’s planner – a demotion for the 12-year town employee – and welcomed him to apply for community development director, he retired earlier this year.

Windham planning head will stay on for interim

Salem Editor — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:13:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Though Windham selectmen have asked Alfred Turner to stay on as interim head of a restructured Planning Department, the department head’s future remains in doubt after the board eliminated his position.

With a unanimous vote on Monday, Dec. 8, to adopt a job description for the newly created position of community development director, which would emphasize responsibility over the long-term economic development of the town, the board hopes to invigorate commercial growth in Windham. The move also replaces the position Turner has held for the last 12 years as the town’s director of planning and development.

“Windham is facing new challenges because of the new high school that we have committed to build and open,” said Selectman Charles McMahon. “And as a result, we have a substantial tax burden, and we need to change the past attitude and anti-business attitude that Windham has exhibited in going forward and broaden our tax base. We have a 3 percent commercial tax base. It’s wrong to look at homeowners to pay the burden of the substantial increase in a tax bill to support the high school on their own.”

McMahon said the tax burden associated with the construction of the new high school served as a catalyst to look at bringing more commercial development to town just as the projects to widen Route 111 and Interstate 93 – expected to bring more traffic to the town — are under way.

Selectmen began considering making a change after an independent review conducted earlier this year concluded that the planning department was out of sync with the board’s goals for the economic development of the town.

Turner said he was waiting to see what selectmen were looking for from his department.

“I know they want to emphasize economic development in town and, of course you couldn’t pick a worse time, but in my 12 years, what I’ve done here is $62 million of economic development of new or renovated businesses. That’s $5 million a year,” Turner said. “I don’t know how much more they want than that.”

According to Town Administrator David Sullivan, the newly restructured department would likely oversee the town planning and zoning boards with the community development director focusing more on economic growth by bringing in new businesses.

With a job description for the position decided upon, selectmen will now turn to focus on what the newly restructured department will look like in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Sullivan indicated that Turner will stay on as the interim head of the department for the next six months.

Despite the attempt to refocus on economic development, Turner said whoever held that position would face opposition from residents who had consistently voted against bringing business to Windham.

“The voters have turned down Lowe’s coming in here twice, and the voters have turned down the rezoning of major residential land into commercial land, the same piece of land twice,” Turner said. “I don’t know that if you don’t have the land zoned for business how a person could come in here.”

While selectmen have indicated that Turner could apply for the position of community development director and have also offered him the job of town planner – allowing him to maintain a spot within the restructured department – Turner has said that he will continue to assess his options.

“I’d have to evaluate my situation,” he said.

Windham planning director suspended for a day

Salem Editor — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:45:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Windham selectmen unanimously upheld the town administrator’s decision to levy a one-day suspension of Planning Director Al Turner despite his public appeal on Thursday, Oct. 9.

Turner was given the suspension for his actions, deemed “unbecoming” a town employee, on Sept. 18 after failing to notify Town Administrator David Sullivan of a meeting with representatives for developer Herbert Associates over a detention pond on Porcupine Road. Turner also took criticism for not passing along to the town administrator a fax addressed to Sullivan from the developers asking for the meeting that had wound up in Turner’s possession.

“This particular case is a violation against me,” Sullivan told selectmen. “Whether or not the discipline levied was appropriate is something this board needs to review.”

Sullivan called three witnesses, Dave Poulson, Al Barlow and Dana Call, all town employees, to testify on his management style and his expectations for the behavior and conduct of his employees.

“Do your job, keep me informed and don’t embarrass me,” Call told selectmen during her testimony of Sullivan’s three tenets of management.

Turner told selectmen that the punishment did not fit the infraction. He testified that he had thought Sullivan had known both about the meeting and the fax. Turner also said the suspension may have come as retaliation for an investigation he had asked the state Attorney General’s Office to conduct this summer.

The request for an investigation came after Selectman Charlie McMahon said during a public meeting in June that the planning director’s office used extortion to force developers to perform off-site improvements. Both men agreed that their working relationship in the past had been a good one, with Sullivan praising Turner’s past performance and ability to keep the town manager in the loop.

“Every department head is expected to keep me informed. Frankly, Al has done the best historically, as I can show through numerous evaluations,” Sullivan said. “I have kept him very much appraised of my request to keep me informed.”

Selectmen ruled in favor of Sullivan after concluding that Turner should have kept the town manager informed about the meeting and should not have held on to the fax addressed to Sullivan without informing him. Turner maintained that he received many faxes from a number of different sources, which may have led to the confusion, and that he frequently met with developers and their representatives.

“Mr. Turner was taking actions that I believed I should have been involved in, that I was in fact asked to be involved in by a complaining party,” Sullivan said. “Mr. Turner held meetings to resolve an issue and I was not involved.”

Access road and conservation easement to be discussed at Aug. 12 Windham deliberative session

Salem Editor — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:17:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Windham voters who want to weigh in on constructing a second access road to Windham High School, currently under construction, and a proposed conservation easement in the town forest area should attend a deliberative session on Tuesday, Aug. 12, at 7 p.m., at the Town Hall.

The two articles on the warrant will be included as part of the vote in the Sept. 9 primaries.

Article 1 asks voters to authorize the town to secure a $1.25 million bond to build a new town road over the existing London Bridge Road for the purpose of providing a second access to the high school.

The proposed plan includes extending the road to Castle Hill Road, allowing emergency vehicles to more easily access the western side of town, cutting down on emergency response time.

Earlier this month, the Board of Selectmen unanimously approved the plans for the 24-foot wide paved road after much debate on whether the road needed to be a standard sized paved road or a smaller gravel one. A similar ballot question was included on the school district ballot in March, but failed to get the 60 percent majority vote needed to pass.

Many residents at a public hearing on the parameters of the access road on Monday, July 21, said building a paved town road was going overboard.

Both the state Board of Education and Windham Fire Chief Tom McPherson have said the school needs a secondary access road before it can open in September 2009.

The Windham Fire Department has been a proponent of paving the road and making it full size to allow for emergency vehicles to pass easily and to ensure the road is properly maintained. Potholes would be prevalent on a gravel road, said Assistant Fire Chief Robert Leuci at the public hearing, making it difficult to plow and likely more expensive to maintain.

If voters approve the bond, the first payment would be made in September 2009 in the amount of $175,000, including the principal payment and interest. The amount of the payments would decrease by $5,000 yearly up until the end of the bond payment schedule in 2018.

Selectman Roger Hohenberger, charged with looking into the costs of a paved road versus a gravel one, said at the hearing a paved 24-foot road would only cost $150,000 more than a gravel road, adding the gravel would be much more expensive to maintain over the years due to erosion.

At the weekly meeting on Monday, Aug. 4, the board heard comments from the public on the second article on the ballot, regarding putting two parcels of land off of Goodhue road into a third-party conservation easement, which would be held by the Exeter-based Southeast Land Trust.

The Windham Conservation Commission currently owns the land, but if the land is placed with a third-party group it becomes eligible for a reimbursement for most of the purchase cost because of the land’s proximity to Salem’s water supply.

The parcels are separated by other town-owned pieces of land in the town forest, one of them about 53 acres and the other about 20 acres.

The question of whether to put the land in trust sparked debate among the selectmen, a couple of whom felt the parameters of the easement were too strict.

A conservation easement would limit the use of the land and prevent building residential or commercial/industrial structures on it, and getting out of the easement would be impossible without going through the eminent domain process.

The town would also have to reimburse Southeast Land Trust for part of the cost of the land in that event, something Hohenberger said was unfair despite his support of conservation.

“I think that restriction is going to potentially make a lot of people possibly vote the wrong way,” said Hohenberger.

Selectman Galen Stearns agreed, saying putting the land in a third-party trust would tie the hands of future town officials and voters.

“I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t know what the town’s needs are going to be,” he said.

Ellen Snyder, a representative of Southeast Land Trust, said the whole point of a conservation easement was to preserve it forever.

Resident Margaret Case said the town can do a good enough job of preserving the land without putting it in the hands of a third party.

“Why can’t we trust the people in this town to do the right thing?” she asked, reiterating Stearns’ point that no one could be sure of the town’s needs in the future. “We don’t know what we are going to need perhaps to survive in the next 30 or 40 years. My final word on this is, I hope the people vote ‘no.’”

Selectman Bruce McMahon, who helped get the article on the ballot, said the easement should have been part of the Conservation Commission’s purchase to begin with.

He added the easement was needed to get the state funding reimbursement, which would amount to about $177,000, in order to purchase other pieces of land for conservation. Typically, conservation land is purchased through money collected from current use penalties.

“What’s the purpose? It’s funds, because we’re running out of current use penalty land,” McMahon said.

Windham may put pipline in during I-93 work

Salem Editor — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:18:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

The Windham Board of Selectmen has about a week left to decide whether a utilities conduit should be installed under Interstate 93 by the weigh station.

The state plans to start the Windham portion of the largescale I-93 widening this summer, and needs to know whether the conduit will go in before getting too deeply into the improvements.

The conduit would include phone, cable and electricity lines, and a water pipe as well as fiber optics line for future developments, said highway agent Jack McCartney at the board’s last meeting on Monday, July 14. It would serve the Wall Street area by Route 111, providing the potential for future development of that area.

“In the infant states of doing the work on the (Route) 111 bypass, this item was brought up and fell on deaf ears,” said Vice Chairman Bruce Breton. “The question is, do we need this for the viability of Windham in the future, and the answer is yes.”

Chairman Dennis Senibaldi said the state has agreed to pick up the cost of installing the conduit as part of their improvements and would add the conduit work into plans before going out to bid on the Windham portion of the project. The town would pay for the cost of the piping and other materials, he said.

“Just to say whether we want it or not gives them the opportunity to put it in their bid package,” Senibaldi said.

McCartney said the I-93 construction provides an ideal opportunity to install the utilities and attract developers to the Wall Street area.

If the town waits any longer, it will be much more difficult and costly to dig up the highway and install the conduit later, he said. The cost of materials will likely go up as time goes by, he said.

“A lot of the trench work is going to be done in current construction. For the conduit, you just take some glue and put the pieces together,” McCartney said. “I don’t see it being ridiculous numbers.”

A sewer line that would serve the Wall Street area is also on the table, but can be worked around the widening project and wouldn’t need to be installed until much further down the road. McCartney reiterated that the utilities are not a need at this point, but would simply be installed for the future viability of development in Windham.

Selectman Roger Hohenberger said he wanted more information regarding the town’s financial liability for the conduit before making a decision.

“If it’s only an X amount of dollars and now’s the right time to do it, that might prompt a different decision,” said Hohenberger, adding the conduit discussion goes back 30 years and the town has not had a pressing need for the added utilities yet.

The board requested that Mc- Cartney put some cost estimates together and meet with them again on Monday, July 21.

“In my opinion, if the services are available ... we could attract development in the Wall Street area,” McCartney told the board.

Selectman Charles McMahon said the conduit discussion has been ongoing for decades, and it’s time for the town to follow through.

“There’s the potential now to at least do something for Windham’s future,” he said. “We really ought to make this happen. So many things have changed in now in our town. The future folks said wouldn’t happen has happened.”

Bad check trial set

Salem Editor — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:12:00 GMT

BY DARRELL HALEN

A former Windham selectman who is accused of writing a bad check to the town is scheduled to go on trial in February.

Christopher Doyle, 28, of 4 Hawley Road, Windham, is accused of writing a bad check for $333.50 when he registered a Toyota sedan in September.

The account had been closed since 2003 and Doyle did not respond to two letters asking him to make good on the check, according to police.

Doyle is scheduled to go on trial on Feb. 7 in Salem District Court. He is being represented by lawyer Gerard R. LaFlamme, Jr. of Haverhill, Mass.

The misdemeanor charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. Doyle was one of 13 Republicans who represented Windham and Salem in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. He did not seek re-election this year.

In a separate case, Doyle faces a felony assault charge. He is accused of striking poll worker Gail Webster in March 2005 after he lost a re-election bid to the board of selectmen.