By Devon Cormier
Staff Writer

Auburn faced a tough year but residents ultimately showed that they can come together in the face of tragedy. Auburn lost 8-year-old Samantha Smith but the outpouring of love and support for the Smith family showed the community how to come together. The year of 2004 was also tough for the school department as a tuition contract dispute disrupted the budget process and room became a commodity in the Village School.

NO ROOM TO CALLHOME – French teacher Lisa Pope moves from classroom to classroom at Auburn Village School since no room can be dedicated to French class. She is often unsure if she can erase a blackboard, adding to the difficulties of having a class on a cart. (File Photo)

January
• With budget deadlines looming in early January, SAU 15 officials were getting frustrated that a solution to the tuition hitch – one that demands about $500 more per high school student sent to Manchester – had not been found. The situation arose after SAU 15 towns had to include money for the renovations of Manchester schools in the per student tuition.

Auburn, Candia and Hooksett school officials calculated their high school tuition costs based on the assumption that Manchester would make a payment on the principal of the 20-year bond it issued for the renovation of the city’s schools.

Because that payment is not being made this year, the city is not be eligible to receive state building aid that would grant the city a 30 percent reimbursement on the principal payment.

• Mere weeks later, a possible solution to the high school tuition hitch is on the table, keeping sending towns within their initial tuition cost estimates. The proposal from Manchester officials includes the 30 percent building aid that the Auburn, Candia and Hooksett school boards built into their tuition estimates and puts the tuition cost at either $8,260 or $8,271 per student.

The lower number is what towns budgeted for while the $8,271 includes a stipulation Manchester officials have asked for: that the sending towns agree to repay the city the interest it would have earned on the $315,000 in building aid reimbursement.

February • Awarrant is on the ballot for another modular classroom for the Auburn Village School. There are already three modu-lars and many teachers wheel around carts because they have no rooms. Space is becoming a problem at the school.

• Stephen Swan, who lived in Auburn and moved to Manchester after he had to sell his house, is charged with filing false and fraudulent tax returns, preparing false returns for others, and interfering with the administration of the Internal Revenue Laws.

• The budget committee announces in February that it doesn’t want to see another portable classroom added behind the Auburn Village School building.

Two portable classrooms and a modular building extension already occupy land behind the original school building off of Eaton Hill Road. Another portable classroom would take up part of the playground. It would cost the school $128,526 for the first year of a three-year lease agreement and costs associated with building set-up and classroom staff.

March
• At the School District Meeting on March 12, the district’s budget of $8,561,598 is approved by the nearly 60 voters in attendance at the Auburn Village School.

The biggest item on the board was the three-year lease agreement for a modular classroom. It passed despite the budget committee’s reservations about adding another modular. The amount for the leasing of the classroom is approved at $17,244, with $111,282 also approved for the set-up, staffing and equipping of the trailer.

• At Town Meeting:
– Lover’s Lane is approved as a Class 5, soon-to-be-paved, road. – Voters approve the budget of $2,838,040, which is raised by about $38,000 after Fire Chief Bruce Phillips asks for an additional $22,618 after the department had received two homeland security grants, and Knox asked for an additional $15,000 to provide a driver well for town hall.

– Also approved are new warrants for tax exemptions for seniors, veterans, the disabled and blind residents; $361,000 for the capital reserve fund; $47,054 to continue a full-time patrolman position for the police department that was first funded by a COPS grant in 1999; $15,000 for an emergency social health trust; $65,000 to rehab a fire department Rescue One light rescue vehicle; and $125,000 for police outside duty detail.

April
• Armand LaSelva is named the new superintendent of SAU 15, serving Auburn, Candia and Hooksett schools. LaSelva replaces former Superintendent Robert Suprenant, who had been with the district for 14 years.

May
• Selectmen are accused of not keeping meeting minutes, a violation of New Hampshire’s Right To Know Law, RSA 91-A. Selectmen said they were doing the best they could and had Auburn’s best interests at heart.

• A court case continues in Auburn because of a disagreement between the planning board and the state. The owner of K&B Rock Crushing of Auburn has been trying for two years to get approval from the planning board to excavate on land in a rural zone, which state law says is allowed, but the Auburn Planning Board says the rural zone does not allow for large-scale excavation.

• Another controversy arises when selectmen attempted to take land next to the town hall by eminent domain. Land next to Auburn Town Hall may be taken to provide more parking, but the property owner disputed the land’s value.

Goffstown resident Brenda Trott became the owner of the small lot next to town hall following the death of her sister, Patricia, in a fire that destroyed the home on that lot. Trott is willing to sell the land at an appropriate price, but questions Auburn’s valuation of the property.

June
• Selectman Bruce Knox sits in on a hazardous materials meeting, upping the involvement of Auburn officials. Auburn Fire Chief Bruce Phillips petitioned to get Auburn into the Southern New Hampshire Hazardous Materials District over a decade ago, and has sat on the operations committee ever since. However, selectmen had been inactive up until 2004.

July
• Tragedy strikes Auburn on the Fourth of July weekend when 8-year-old Samantha Smith dies in a boating accident in Meredith on July 3. The community comes together to support the Smith family.

• The community once again comes together when tragedy hits another Auburn family. Team Zach forms to raise money after Zachary Hedstrom, 7, develops lymphoblastic leukemia. A series of fundrais-ers throughout the summer helped the Hedstroms with their financial burden while friends make meals and care for their home. Zachary is expected to fully recover.

August
• Residents plant a tree in memory of Samantha Smith at the Circle of Fun playground in Auburn. Family, friends and community members speak about Smith and comfort her family.

• A suspicious fire ends in the hospitalization of Joe Shol-omith. Sholomith’s home at 311 Chester Road burned down on Aug. 2. Sholomith had no job or license and could often be found at the library or the end of his driveway. After the fire, Sholomith is involuntarily committed to an area hospital. The investigation is still ongoing because of his unstable mental state.

• Auburn and Derry residents file a lawsuit against Manchester as a vote about community water fluoridation approached. Both towns were denied a vote in the referendum about fluoridated water from Manchester Water Works. Since fewer than 100 connections to Manchester water exist in Auburn, they were denied a vote while surrounding communities were included.

September
• Voting communities overwhelmingly support the continued fluoridation of Manchester Water Works’s water. The lawsuit continues for Auburn residents denied a vote.

October
• The school board realizes it has more money from the state than it had anticipated. The New Hampshire Department of Education estimated the 2004 school budget to be at $1,269,276 when the budget was given to voters last spring. The education grant came in at $1,819,002, which is $549,726 more than anticipated. The school board voices hopes that the money go to acquiring land for a new school.

November
• The tax rate is set at $15.36 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The tax rate is up 14 percent from last year’s $13.43.

The difference is due to an almost $4 increase in the local school portion of the tax rate. The school rate was $6.28 last year and went up to $10.06 this year. Because the town rate decreased, some of that $4 increase in the school portion was absorbed.

• The ongoing dispute about the tuition contract with Manchester schools is still not resolved. The state Board of Education will be asked to resolve the matter between the Manchester School District and SAU 15. The dispute is over interest the towns are being charged for the capital improvement money Manchester loaned them.

• The fire department receives a $90,000 federal Fire Act grant to purchase new air packs, the breathing apparatus firemen wear on their backs when they go into burning buildings.

December
• Manchester Water Works sues the town of Auburn over what it believes is an inaccurate assessment of their property. Manchester Water Works property has increased in value from approximately $13 million to in excess of $42 million over the last revaluation.

• The Auburn Police Department receives a new all-terrain vehicle for free from a Canadian company that donates ATVs to police stations. The vehicle will be used for monitoring recreational vehicle use on the town’s many lakeside trails and to perform search and rescue operations and ensure homeland security.