It took a while, but there will be a contest for seats on the Keene School Board. A pair of filings with just hours to spare have pushed the field for the three expiring board seats to four candidates. Aspiring newcomers Marjorie Droppa and Susan Hay filed Thursday. They join a third newcomer, Diane Cyr, and the lone incumbent seeking another term, Carl Panza. Board chair Kathleen O'Donnell and Kristin Blais are not seking re-election. There remains one candidate for School District Clerk, Beth Zinn. The Board and Clerk elections take place in company with second-session school meeting warrant voting on Tuesday, March 13th.
Public input on Keene's acceptance of an armored military vehicle is on a fast track. City Councilor Terry Clark's formal request for a public hearing on the city acquiring the Bearcat from the Homeland Security Department gets a quicker response than even he probably imagined. Council Finance Committee chairman Mitch Greenwald used the occasion of Friday morning's Open Mic program on WKBK to announce that while there won't be a full-scale hearing, the committee will listen to public comment at its meeting next Thurday at 5:30. While Greenwald maintains his support for accepting the large vehicle, he says all options are on the table, including the council actually reversing field and turning the offer down.
The Winchester School Board has at least authorized the administration to sue the district's budget committee, over what the Board contends was an illegal cut of $2.5 million off the Board's budget recommendation for next school year. Superintendent Kenneth Dassau charges that the budget committee arbitrarily slashed the original budget proposal to $9.1 million, without required opportunity for public input. Dassau says the school and district can't function on that little money.
Based on turnout for a public hearing on the subject, it does not appear there is overwhelming public support in Winchester for reopening its high school. Only a half dozen residents spoke at a hearing about forming a feasability study of the idea of restoring local high school education at Thayer High. And some of them suggested the local kids probably would not get as good an education at a reconstituted Thayer, as they are getting in Keene. The Board took no immediate action on the proposal.
The Hinsdale fire chief is now serving a ten-day jail sentence after pleading guilty to driving drunk. Police say Chief Robert Johnson was involved in a hit-and-run accident in Northfield, Massachusetts and was later arrested in Winchester. He pleaded guilty to aggravated driving while under the influence of alcohol. Besides the jail time, Johnson is under order to pay a court fine and lose his driver's license for 18 months. His job in city government as fire chief is a one-year elected position, and town leaders are not saying if Johnson remains fire chief.
New Hampshire House Republican leaders have been accused of not listening to their caucus rank-and-file. But their 2012 legislative agenda released Thursday suggests that may not be completely true. The agenda is conspicuously lacking focus on social issues, even the repeal of same-sex marriage, which observers had assumed would come to an early House vote this year. Majority Leader DJ Bettencourt says surveys of the caucus were a major factor in focusing on fiscal matter and relegating the social issues to second-tier importance.
The Nashua division of an international firm is getting a 38-million-dollar contract from the U- S Army. B-A-E Systems will be expanding its work on the Army's Common Infrared Countermeasures system. That disrupts heat-seeking missiles by using lightweight, low-cost devices to protect anti-aircraft systems. A spokesman for B-A-E calls the contract huge for the company and New Hampshire.
If the area's leading Vermont Yankee opposition gets its way, restarting hearings on a certificate of public good to extend the nuclear plant's license for 20 more years won't be as easy as its owners would like. Entergy Corporation asked the Public Service Board to reopen those hearings, and stipulate as on the record much of what was presented in the original hearing. Enter the New England Coalition, who says the whole process needs to start over. The NEC argues that most of what was presented originally was tainted by the newly disqualified safety angle. A federal judge ruled two weeks ago that there is no state-level purview over nuclear power plant safety.
In-state Vermont college students, be prepared to shell out more to go to school. The Board of Trustees for Vermont Colleges approved increasing tuition hikes of four percent each for the next two years. The move is blamed on the growing cost of health care for college employees plus a lack of state funding for colleges. Three-percent of the four-percent hike actually goes to the college, while the rest will pay for health care for retiring college employees.
It took a very creative person to pull off a vandalism spree without even leaving her jail cell. The state symbol is on Vermont police cruisers, and now one of the spots on the cow on that decal looks like the shape of a pig The decals are made by prisoners in St. Alban 's. The public safety commissioner just became aware of the alteration, and says about three-dozen of the modified decals are on state vehicles.
