I was truly proud to be a citizen of Weare that night. I watched as the board carefully outlined its plan for a new school, and brighter future, for our children. Matt Thomas, chairman of the school board, could not have been better prepared in his presentation of the details. He was thorough, honest and even funny at times, and really seemed to have taken rumor into consideration and set the record straight in many instances, which in a town like ours is no small feat. Questions were calmly clarified, additional comments welcomed, even the naysayers’ points were anticipated, and when the article passed as written, a cheer went up and I was so glad to have been a part of the process.

Now, with all glowing praise aside, I’d like to remind those folks who did not attend this meeting to please, please, make an informed decision about this project.

Attend a coffee hour, approach a school board member, even go online, but separate fact from rumor and have enough information to go in and vote intelligently this March. Let’s face facts.

No one particularly likes to see their taxes go up, but I cannot think of a more worthy cause than the one the school board has put before us. The time is now. Please support the middle school project this March.
Kathy Remillard, Weare

We should not wait until something is broke; that’s too late and means we already have problem. Good organizations implement continuous improvement to keep up to date. Goffstown should be no exception.

The proposed charter places many of the common laws governing Goffstown into one document easily accessible to the citizens, and puts in motion a set of rules and regulation as we move into the 21st century.

The council-manager form of government proposed by the Charter Commission has become the most popular form of government in the United States in communities with a population of 5,000 or greater. More than 90 million Americans operate under this a councilmanager form of government. The council-manager form of government is one of the few original American contributions to political theory.

In researching the town manager position, local governments found that overall costs actually have been reduced. Savings come from reduced operating cost, increased efficiency and productivity, improved revenue collection and effective use of technology.

A recent study shows 73 percent of managers have a master’s or professional degree and an average of 17 years in the local government management profession.

In the most recent issue of New Hampshire Town and City magazine, an article appeared titled “Town Meeting in New Hampshire: Will It Survive?” authored by Susan Slack, legal services counsel for the Local Government Center.

In the article, Professor Joseph F. Zimmerman of the State University of New York at Albany suggested the appointment of a professional town manager would eliminate managerial problems, provide professional advice to voters and by means of long-range planning alert them to the need to initiate action to forestall an emerging problem.

In 1967, a charter commission filed a report that echoes many of the findings of the current Charter Commission. It also recommend the town councilmanager form of government stating it is more efficient.

The council meetings are equivalent to 12 to 24 town meetings a year and important decisions do not have to be delayed for the annual meeting or special meeting.

The proposed charter does not affect the school district.

The council is elected by the voters. They are responsible for setting policy, approving the budget that goes to the budget committee, determining the tax rate and makes appointments to boards and commissions.

The town manager serves at the pleasure of the council and is responsible for preparing the budget and directing day-to-day operations of the town.

The manager also hire and fires personnel with the advice and consent of the town council.

This duty is limited with the police chief and fire chief following a different set of rules per state statute. The town manager’s job description contained in this charter is more than oneand- a-half pages long.

The charter proposes seven town councilors and a town manager, along with an elected zoning board of adjustment. It retains the requirements of SB2, which still grants the voters the ability to vote on budgetary and zoning issues.

The proposed charter continues the ballot determination meeting, Town Meeting, known as the first session. The second session also remains the same. Bonds will require a 2/3 vote vs. 3/5 vote to pass. The benefits of raising the threshold are: potential reduction in total appropriations and tax rate. It will also require more effort to sell the need to the voters.

The budget committee is reduced from 12 elected members to nine elected and will still have four ex-officio appointed members.

The petition process also changes. Through initiative and referendum petitions, the voters have the right to change any decision or propose an action to the council.

This eliminates having to wait until the March Town Meeting for decisions.

The proposed charter contains many pages and cannot be totally explained here.

If you would like to read the charter in detail, please log on to the town’s Web site, www.goffstown.com. Copies also available at Town Hall.

Don’t listen to the past – look to the future.
Charlie Carr
Al Desruisseaux
John Caprio
Jo Ann Duffy
Steve Crean
Peter Georgantas
Goffstown Charter Commission

First announcing that he is an abutter, a member of the town’s conservation committee, an alternate member of the planning board, a wetlands scientist and an ardent kindergarten supporter, resident Collis Adams quickly laid into the board of selectman for what he thinks was not following proper procedure. Although he stated that he was speaking as a concerned citizen, I find it hard to believe that Mr. Adams has no agenda.

While citing procedures under NH RSA 41:14-a, Mr. Adams did not read the title of the statute: “Acquisition or Sale of Land, Buildings, or Both.” The selectmen are not selling the property to the school; rather, they are asking the voters to authorize the transfer of ownership.

He then raised the issue of using part of the transfer station as a better school site without any study or data to support his claim. In regards to this proposed site, he failed to mention that power lines would need to be relocated, there is a lack of usable soils on the site and there are problems with the grade of the site entrance. All of these would add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the site costs. Surely as a member of two town committees, an ardent kindergarten supporter and a concerned citizen, Mr. Adams knew for more than three years that the school needed land.

Why now advocate using an excavated gravel pit as the perfect site a month before the vote? I assume that’s because it didn’t affect him before.

Even more troubling was the support that Mr. Adams received from his friends on the conservation commission who tried to change the warrant article. That change would have derailed the kindergarten project and with it the loss of the $2.2 million in state aid. I’ve been a supporter of conservation efforts for the last couple years, but based on their actions, I question whether they are looking out for the best interests of the town or for their associate, Mr. Adams.

Why does a kindergarten school bring out the worst in people?

I urge you to vote yes on school Article 5 and town Article 24.
Jeffrey Tate
Kindergarten Building Committee
Budget Committee
Goffstown

A school in a third-world country? No!

This is Weare Middle School. A school that may have been state of the art 50 years ago is totally inadequate in the 21st century.

We must provide a facility that promotes learning, not one that sets up students to fail.

A new middle school is needed in Weare now, not later.

On March 8, vote yes for a new school for all the children in the town of Weare.
Joanna Gareri, Weare

They claim that the charter is based on that of Hooksett. This is only slightly correct.

Charters from six communities were gleaned for any feature contained and the total was then examined to see what we might want to keep. It is much easier to pull out of an everything pile than to imagine what might go onto a blank page. There is a bit of Hooksett’s charter here, but only what is also in most of the other five.

As far as including N.H. statutes in the charter is concerned, those state laws which are relatively simple and have not been changed for many years, are included to save the reader from have to go back to the many long volumes of state law to find out what is being regulated and how.

Most of the pertinent statutes are so long and involved that to include them all would have meant a charter of thousands of pages. Furthermore, one of the provisions of the charter is that, if a pertinent law is changed, then it also changes within the charter.

A long charter is imposing only when you are trying to read the whole thing. In most cases, a person will use the excellent table of contents to find the way to what is wanted. An index might have helped but too little to take up the extra space for it. One statement made is, “Unfortunately, what we end up with is something that looks very much like what we have, but with one very dangerous exception.”

And, truly, the charter does give us very much of what we have including the department head system.

However, a later statement erroneously states that the charter would “eliminate the town department head system now employed ...”

What would be eliminated is micromanagement by amateurs in the selectmen’s seats. The charter would put a professional in charge of professionals.

The manager system tried years ago was not of the nature of the one proposed and if it failed, as claimed, the failure was on the part of the then three selectmen to appoint as carefully as they should have.

Any administrator can be called a manager, and viceversa, but success requires careful selection of the right person. Seven councilors should bring a broader range of backgrounds into the process than the three, way back when.

“The new charter simply proposes to add two more members to the board and call it a town council.”

In fact, it is state law which says that if you have more than five, the board is called a council. But, the charter does more than simply add members; they will make policy and pass ordinances, as the selectmen do, but not manage the departments. That would be done by department heads, under a screened and carefully chosen professional, with the approval of the council. The manager could serve “at the pleasure of the council.”

So, rather than “too few having too much power,” the power would be shared by eight people, one administering for the other seven.

One advantage of a seven-person council would be that, unlike the present situation, it would be much more difficult for one person to dominate. This is one area that was, and is, in need of change, almost electing the zoning board of adjustment.

Gentlemen, your reasons that sound good are simply not good sounding reasoning. Sorry.
Charles Carr, Goffstown

Well, the time for due diligence has passed. If Mr. Adams knew of the best site to build a school, he should have stepped forward sooner in his roles as a planning board member and conservation committee member.

It was no secret that this town was looking for land on which to build a kindergarten.

There is no time for more studies. If we do not have a school opening date proclaimed to the state by June 2005, we will lose $2.2 million. Red tape and overlong processes at this juncture will only hurt this town.

The state is planning to mandate kindergarten in 2007 and there will be no guaranteed funding. I, for one, do not want to see my tax bill with an extra $2.2 million plus in the bill.

The voters approved the school last March. We have town land available. Let’s build the school.

Please vote yes for town Article 24 and yes for school Article 5 on March 8.
Lissa Winrow, Goffstown

I’m truly amazed that the school board and the kindergarten people haven’t thrown in the towel by now.

When you think about all the obstacles they have faced simply to educate 5-year-old children, I admire their perseverance and I commend their fighting spirit.

Goffstown is a great town, but we should be ashamed of the way we have handled this whole kindergarten opportunity.

Each and every time a school site is proposed, an angry abutter rears their ugly head and derails the project.

Each and every time there’s another excuse. First it was the land near the YMCA and the lack of water pressure; then it was the steepness of Wortherly Hill Road, and then it was the traffic on Tibbett’s Hill Road.

Faced with a lawsuit by abutters on Tibbetts Hill, a terrific, town-owned site was discovered near Glen Lake Beach.

This location is a favorable site, accessible to village water, much better for traffic flow,less ledge to deal with and most importantly, the town already owns the land.

Without a location to build the kindergarten, we will lose the $2.2 million dollars in state funding.

Now we have another abutter to this site who is crying foul. When are we as a town going to reject this selfish nonsense? We are talking about building a school for little kids. Yet these abutters want you to think that a nuclear facility is being built in their back yard.

Stop the insanity and transfer the land we already own to the school so we can finally build the kindergarten.

I’m sure the abutter fighting this one won’t be opening his checkbook if we lose millions of dollars.
Kathy Kendall, Goffstown

Any parent with a child at the middle school, of course, already knew this. But the rest of the community, by and large, did not.

Now we all know about the electrical problems, the mold problems, the over-crowding, the dangerous CO2 levels. Now we all know why the old middle school, with its myriad of issues, cannot possibly be brought up to code. And we have a reasonable solution – a new building, large enough to accommodate all our students in a reasonable fashion, designed for optimal middle school teaching, at a reasonable cost.

There is a bonus, too. Assuming the town can get a waiver from the state to use the current site, which shouldn’t be hard, we’re told, by voting for the new middle school we also get a renovated town center, with an attractive brick building and landscaping. The new middle school will give us not only what we need for our students, but will make the center of town an appealing place. This is reason alone to vote for the new school!

I congratulate the Weare School Board for their absolute tenacity in finding a solution to the middle school problem. Having attending nearly a dozen meetings on the new school, I recognize that the school board looked at every option presented to them, listened to every objection, and explored every possibility.

Even seemingly outlandish suggestions were not dismissed. Having investigated every avenue, I am comfortable that the board has landed on a solution that makes sense, adds value to the community, and is fiscally responsible.

Advocates for education tell us that “the time (for a new school) is now.” They’re right.
Ellen Goldsberry, Weare

She was never afraid to try a new venture or offer help to anyone that needed it. She helped feed our little town in body and soul. She took pride in her work and her restaurant. She was a special part of the downtown cuisine scene and loved that Main Street has a wonderful and ecclectic restaurant flair. I will miss her smile and her laughter and the excitement she had when the New England Patriots would win and when the Boston Red Sox finally held up their end of the legacy. She was a fellow New Bostonian and we frequently met on the road running back and forth from home to work. Family was important to her and just keeping all the balls in the air sometimes seemed more difficult than others. Vicki Brady will be missed; she left a hole in the Main Street community that will be felt for a long time.
Jennifer Brown, Brown Graphix

A close look yields some changes from current practice.

The town report “shall include” these items:

• The statement of the past year’s financial budget.

• A review of all major council actions, including a summary of ordinances enacted.

• A section which presents actions taken by town boards, departments, committees, commissions, and trustees.

• Birth, death and marriage statistics.

• The warrant.

Note that the second item is all new. Oh, there has been a report by the selectmen, but this is not inclusive or specific.

“The report shall be made available to all voters of the town not later than seven days prior to the date of the second session of the annual Town Meeting.”

The “all voters” part of this requirement might even be interpreted to mean far more copies than are now printed.

Town Meeting would continue in two sessions, as at present. all of this is prescribed by laws of the state. The first session is for ballot determination, and not for voting. However, since an article with money provisions could be amended to zero dollars, there is a means for voting in this session, and it should be well attended. There is no change here; this is as it is now.

In the second session, voting includes all the articles in the first session, together with zoning and land use regulations, revenue producing articles, and selecting from among candidates for office. The latter – election voting – would continue as nonpartisan in all local elections.

Normally, if the operating budget is defeated, the default budget is considered to be adopted. However, the proposed charter allows the council the option to hold one special meeting to take up the issue of a revised operating budget only.

At this point, I will skip over Section 10: General Provisions, and will take that up in the next letter, along with Section 12. Transitional Provisions. Those sections go well together. For now, let us consider Section 11: Administrative and Judicial Boards.

The administrative committees include: planning board, conservation commission, budget committee, historic district and heritage commission, cemetery trustees, sewer commission, parks and recreation commission and library trustees.

Of these, planning board, budget committee, sewer commission and library trustees have been, and will continue to be elected. The others are to be appointed, the cemetery commission for the first time in many years. In some cases, elected boards will have representatives appointed to them. The council shall appoint one of its members to the planning board, budget committee, and to the appointed conservation commission and parks and recreation commission.

These boards will have three (conservation, cemetery, sewer), five (historic district/heritage), or seven (planning, parks and recreation, library) members, but the budget committee would be cut to a total of 13, nine of which would be elected, along with representatives from the council, school board, and the two water precincts.

Terms in all these boards would be staggered, as they are now, with about one-third elected each year to three-year terms. Some also have alternates appointed by the council.

The one judicial board is the zoning board of adjustment, consisting of five members. Up to now, zoning board members have been appointed, but this charter causes them to be elected. This is due to the perception by voters that they have not been sufficiently responsive to the voters. The zoning board would have the power to appoint its own alternates and replacements, however.

Several of the boards would have the power to appoint alternatives and replacements, but where they do not, the council would have that power.

Vacancy replacements would serve until the next election for elective office, and until the appointment ends for appointed office.

Be back next time with provisions, general and transitional, to wrap it all up.
Charles W. Carr, Goffstown

I find it amazing and frustrating that first three families in this town could hold up the building of the school with their lawsuit, affecting hundreds of children in the process.

Now a direct abutter to the proposed new location across from Glen Lake is actively opposing the new site.

Of course, no one wants to admit that they do not want the school next door, but since they all seem to be ardent supporters of kindergarten, there is no other conclusion to draw.

Then there is the conservation committee, which also suggests using the land adjacent to the transfer station property instead of the Glen Lake parcel that the town is trying to convey to the school.

I wonder what research they did before suggesting that property. Surely they must have contacted abutters to that land. It is surprising that none had a voice at the recent town session.

Sure it seems easy to throw up lawsuits and diversions and advocate for additional studies for which there is no time.

It seems some people will do anything to delay the opening of kindergarten. All they have to do is hold out long enough and their problem goes away when the town loses funding.

Please, abutters, Conservation Committee, fellow townspeople, do the right thing and help our children go to school.

Please vote yes to School Article 5 and yes to Town Article 24.
Francesca M. Hansen

Thankfully, they failed in their attempts, Mr. Adams, an abutter to the proposed school property, suggested that the Glen Lake site should not be developed.

Rather, he suggested that the school be built on a sand pit near the transfer station. The Glen Lake property can only be used for municipal purposes – certainly a school is an ideal use for the land.

Even the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services agrees that this land is suitable for a school purpose. While I respect the conservation commission’s desire to protect the environment, they may be over-reaching in order to help a fellow member who just so happens to be an abutter to the property.
Josee T. Riendeau, Goffstown

We would like to say thank you to the following organizations and individuals for supporting this project: Play It Again Sports in Derry, Queen City Rotary Club in Manchester, Goffstown Lions Club, Legacy Financial Solutions in Manchester, Liberty Press in Pinardville, Manchester Rams hockey team, Red Bouchard and Jack Lupien of Manchester and Jim Hallene and Mike Turcotte of Goffstown.

This project was the idea of Marc Surprenant of Goffstown, who is stationed in Iraq with the 172nd. He has advised us that everyone is enjoying playing hockey when they have time to do so.

Once again, thank you to those who helped bring a little joy to our service people. God bless you all and God bless America.
Jack and Lucille Surprenant
Rita Goulet
Goffstown