YourNeighborhoodNews.com: The Hooksett Banner

Allenstown has some very difficult decisions to make very soon. When it comes to large spending requests like a school addition or new police station, it may be difficult for those on limited incomes to see that spending a little money now will save a lot more money down the road.

In the case of the Allenstown Tractor building, which many may remember as a bank building in its previous life, buying that building to turn into a new police station is a deal worth making.v The current Allenstown Police Station is a hovel in the cellar of the Allenstown Town Hall. It’s a testament to the people who work there that they can even get the job done in such a cramped and outdated facility. However, it’s not just comfort and convenience that is driving this decision, it’s the threat of an expensive lawsuit Allenstown could face if its police station isn’t brought up to code.

Article 7 will ask voters to spend $725,000 on the building, but it doesn’t even have to cost that much. Article 10, if approved, would take $125,000 from surplus and put it toward the cost. That brings the cost of the building to just $600,000.

Too much, you say? Well, it’s far less than the estimated $1.5 million to $2 million for a new building. And less than a lawsuit costing a couple million.

To put it in perspective, for the person owning a mobile home valued at $60,000, approval would cost $20.40 in additional taxes for the whole year in the first year of the bond. The entire 10-year cost to that homeowner would be $171.60, or just four cents per day.

The owner of a standard $250,000 home would be kicking in an extra $85 in the first year of the bond, or $715 over the entire 10-year bond. That comes to 19 cents a day over the 10 years.

Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. Approve Articles 7 and 10. You’ll be saving money in the long run, and improving police service for the Allenstown.

-Ginger Kozlowski, Editor

This year, the race for selectman is particularly important. No single office in town government has as significant an impact on our lives as this one does.

I’m actively supporting Tom Giffen in that race. I’ve known Tom since he was a young man going to school with my oldest daughter and have recently had the opportunity to work with him on our Conservation Commission.

I continue to be impressed with Tom and believe that he has the right mix of maturity, common sense, intellect, integrity and independence that will make him an outstanding selectman and I encourage you to vote for him

Shortly thereafter, a variance was granted that would totally ignore the already voter-mandated restriction and allow a vacant piece of commercial land to build a gasoline station, supposedly based on landowner hardship.

Now this land should be used for retail commercial – The owner should realize highest and best use. But aren’t there may other retail uses that could satisfy this landowner’s “hardship”? What did the distance restriction vote mean? What sort of precedent was set?

Just as the town hall and library projects enhanced the quality of our daily lives in many ways, the improvements to the Moore School will have benefits for all residents of Candia. In addition to providing appropriate spaces for our children to learn and develop into future community members, the project will provide our town with a large public space that we need for town meetings, charitable benefit events, voting and emergency preparedness.

The Henry Moore School provides our community with many functions over and above educating our children. I urge everyone to show our local pride by supporting the school improvement project on March 12.

Thanks to the hard work of the Moore School Facilities Committee, the voters will be presented with a plan that represents the first comprehensive approach to integrate seven separate building projects and to address the educational needs of all students at the Moore School.

At the school board’s annual goal-setting meeting in July 2004, the board unanimously agreed on four key areas that needed to be addressed in terms of the school facility:

• Increasing the space available for delivering special education services in order to meet state and federal mandates.

• Restoring the library/media center to its original space and utilization level.

• Creating middle school science labs for grades 6 to 8. Some highlights of the renovation/ expansion proposal include:

• Appropriate classroom space for the current student population of 450 students, with the flexibility to support upwards of 596 students should the state’s growth projections for Candia become a reality as a result of the I-93 expansion. The Candia School Board policy for class sizes (15 to 19 for grades K-2 and 19 to 25 for grades 3-8) is lower than the current state standards (up to 25 for K-2 and up to 30 for grades 3-8). Using Candia’s current class size standards, there is enough classroom space to accommodate a 32 percent increase in the student population at Moore School, and even more if the school board were to adopt the state’s class size standards.

• Regrouping of grade levels so that kindergartners will be in an area of the building where they are closer to their firstgrade peers (instead of in the middle school wing with seventh- and eighth-graders). Prior to this time, state requirements under the kindergarten building aid program meant that the kindergarten rooms (that were added onto the most feasible area of the Moore School) could not be re-purposed for a period of three years without forfeiting the state building aid.

• Reuse of existing spaces for programs such as art, music, computer integration lab and library, as well as student services such as the nurse and main office. Areas such as these that are shared by the entire school community will be more centrally located, and will increase student safety and school security.

• Construction of a middle school-sized gymnasium that can also serve as a community gathering place for town-wide functions as well as emergency situations that may arise.

• Reuse as well as expansion of spaces used for federally and state-mandated special education programs.

• Upgrades to all infrastructure elements including heating, ventilation, electrical and security systems.

This facility proposal is just one piece that contributes to the school board’s broader goal of making the Moore School one of the top performing schools in the state. Experts in the education field agree that along with an appropriate learning environment, there also needs to be programs centered around student achievement, in addition to a highly-qualified and motivated staff to carry out a school’s mission.

Candia voters will learn more about the school board’s efforts in this last area at the March 12 meeting as well.

The Candia School Board is encouraging voters to ask questions of the board and facilities committee members in order to have the most up-to-date information regarding this proposal so they will be accurately informed when the time comes to vote on the school renovation/ expansion plan at the March 12 School District Meeting.

According to the facts, our smallest classroom at AES is 867 square feet. The largest is 884 square feet (other than kindergarten at 1,141 square feet). Upon speaking with a state official, the state requires 20 square feet (minimum) per child, per classroom. The state requirements “would prefer” 36 square feet per child, per classroom (900-square-foot room). Our largest classroom presently has 22 students. Divide that by our smallest room of 867 square feet and we have 39.4 square feet per child. This is over and above the state requirement of 36 square feet. Our enrollment is the lowest in 10 years. Projected growth? Allenstown has zero new sewer hook-ups.

As for class size, we believe an effective, energetic teacher who is supported by an active, equitable, visible administration should be able to ensure learning even at the state minimum square-foot requirement per child.

As for the inaccuracy of the principal question? There were no inaccuracies. The stated amount of each principal position salary is accurate.

Why this addition? We have elderly people living in one room during the winter months because of high heating costs as well as our yearly increase in property taxes. Elderly taxpayers on fixed incomes are worried about losing their homes.

This is not about our operating budget. It’s about the bond issue which we will be taxed on for 10 years. How soon will this addition become obsolete? Will we be subjected to paying backto- back bonds as we address a future new building?

This year we should be focusing our tax dollar on our most deserving police department. The building that currently houses the police department is antiquated. The new building will cost 34 cents per thousand. Well worth the increase for these men and women who protect and serve us.

Is it not true that school board members promise to give the children of Allenstown the best education we can afford without over-taxing the taxpayers?

However, a $6.78 million bond to build an addition for future enrollment is not in the pockets of Epsom’s residents, especially when we don’t know what our property taxes will be until we are assessed. Due to unexpected costs of 13 additional students on the first day of school at Pembroke Academy and one special needs student at ECS has left the school with a $163,000 deficit.

Maybe we should do what one person suggested at the deliberative session when voters asked for New Orchard Road to be paved. Someone suggested that the people who live on New Orchard Road pay more in taxes if they want the road paved. Why don’t we take it one step further and tell the parents of these enrolled children to pay the extra tuition it takes to send their kids to school.

For years, New Orchard Road has needed reconstruction and paving. People who live on it have waited patiently while other roads with little traffic are paved. New Orchard Road is a throughway and has more than 365 cars a day on it. It doesn’t need further study and evaluation because we’ve already paid to have that done. The calcium chloride mix on the dirt section causes lung cancer, and people who live along the road can’t even open their windows during the summer because of the dust.

Other roads such as Cass Road from Route 4 have been closed for two years because we can’t afford to fix the bridge. Our new library still needs to be built with money needed to furnish it.

Let’s finish fixing our roads and build our new library before adding a new addition to ECS.

Proponents of SB 2 tout its sole merit in that it theoretically allows more people to vote on budget articles than the traditional town meeting might.

Sadly, the quantity of votes is eagerly exchanged for the quality of votes in the process, and that’s where the problem lies. Voting should not be about maximizing the number of people who vote. Voting should remain a process whereby voters are forced to hear the details and then vote based upon factual information. Those who can’t attend a Saturday meeting or are unwilling to spend the time should find comfort that those who do will ask questions that debunk gossip and misinformation, and then cast informed votes.

In towns with SB 2, few voters attend the deliberative sessions and so when they vote, they can unwittingly vote in reaction to late breaking gossip or misinformation.

As I read letters to the editor from residents in neighboring towns where SB 2 is in place, I see opposing points of view that can’t both be true. Gossip and hearsay from nameless and faceless state authorities and self-proclaimed subject area experts should not be the basis for casting a vote.

I therefore urge the voters of Pembroke to repeat the wisdom they displayed on this same question last year and again vote no on the SB 2 questions.

We have a deep appreciation for the amount of effort and difficult choices that the budget committee must make in order to help the voters and tax payers of Hooksett determine how much and for what purposes they will raise and appropriate funds. In a rapidly growing community such as Hooksett, there is great pressure on both the town and school infrastructure and staffing to keep pace with that growth, and the budget committee must perform a delicate budgetary balancing act.

The determination of the default budget is a different process. RSA 40:13 states that the default budget is “the amount of the same appropriations as contained in the operating budget authorized for the previous year, reduced and increased, as the case be, by debt service, contracts, and other obligations previously incurred or mandated by law, and reduced by one-time expenditures contained in the operating budget. For the purposes of this paragraph, one-time expenditures shall be appropriations not likely to recur in the succeeding budget…”

In the case of the school budget, the laws and rules of the State of New Hampshire and the federal laws such as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, No Child Left Behind, Americans with Disabilities Act and other rules and laws make the determination of the default budget very technical and legalistic. Also, there are the various contracts such as the teachers’ contract, high school, bus contracts, etc. that must be taken into account.

The Hooksett School Board has always approved the default budget as presented by the SAU Administration asking only that the administrators follow the law and seek legal guidance when needed. We do not believe that the process would be improved by the budget committee interpreting the education laws and rules for which it has no legal responsibility to implement. We urge you to vote no on Article 7.