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Hooksett has a lot of voting to do lately. Town issues are up for consideration Tuesday, May 10, and the school budget gets a second go-round on May 31.

There are many letters on these pages, primarily from town employees, begging residents to approve their various requests. All make good arguments. Should the town operating budget fail, that will give Hooksett its second default budget in a row. It may have been tough to make the necessary cuts last year, but they were made with little effect on the general public. That's our town officials making pretty good decisions in a hard situation. But this year, virtually all say further cuts simply can.t be sustained. There's only so much you can cut from a budget when you rely on it to buy fuel and gas prices keep going up. Utility costs for the library and other buildings go up whether we like it or not. Fire engines die after several decades of hard use. If these budgets are not approved, Hooksett may have to go without services we all rely upon.

The town's operating budget would increase your taxes by about 86 cents per $1,000 of property value. That's $215 for a $250,000 home, or $17.90 a month. We realize that any increase is impossible for some residents, but this isn.t an increase that most would find hard to absorb. This is what pays for those potholes to be fixed, those roads to be plowed next winter, that trash in your driveway to be picked up, those police officers to patrol for speeders on your street, those firefighters to come to your rescue, the library to be available for your children's homework or your group to meet.

Is it worth it to you? Then vote May 10.
-Ginger Kozlowski

Things need to be brought back to square one until the developers fund and build all the roads necessary to relieve the traffic nightmare, pay their fair share toward the new schools that will need to be built, etc. etc. Why should the developers walk away with a pocketful of cash while the taxpayers ultimately end up paying for upgrades to infrastructure and services? Let those who do the developing pay for every bit of it. Stop growth until then.

Since then, we have found a new technology that will provide a much better result – but which may not be eligible for those funds. Therefore, we would like to be able to use both the State Revolving Loan funds and bonding through the traditional bonding agencies.

We will be able to achieve everything we are planning for – increase the flow accepted at the treatment facility while reducing the loading to the Merrimack River. In other words, we will be discharging even cleaner water than we are able to today. If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact the treatment facility at 485-7000 or 485-4112. Also, information will be available at the polls.

The library has to close on Thursdays so that they do not go over budget. Where is the fat in the highway budget? Instead of sweeping the streets this spring as we have in the past, we must now wait until July when we get our new budget. This spring we have also had to put on hold cleaning catch basins and fixing drainage and culvert problems. The reasons being, in our current default budget salt was budgeted for $30 per ton when in reality it cost the town $40.80 per ton, which put our current line item over by $24,500.

Also, in the current default budget, fuel was budgeted for 67 cents per gallon when we are now paying close to $2 per gallon, making this line item over by $10,105.

With two months remaining in the budget year, our fleet maintenance budget is currently over by $18,000.

Every department is over - highway, fire, police, parks. People need to realize that the town departments all have an aging fleet. This is why you always see a lot of new vehicles requested on the ballot. The town had to take $30,000 from the paving line to repair a fire truck. During this winter, the highway department was down three plow trucks, which meant it took us longer to plow during that storm.

We are hoping that you will support the new budget Article 8 on the ballot on Tuesday. The highway department is also asking for a street sweeper/catch basin cleaner. This is one unit with a five-year lease at $36,000 per year. We have a commitment from two developers to pay for the first two years of the lease. It is the planning board plans to have developers pay for the remaining three years, which would make it no cost to you, the taxpayer.

I am also hoping that you will support the nonunion employee pay raises. My truck drivers make $12.81 per hour or about $27,000 per year. Good help is extremely hard to find today, most people will not work $12.81 per hour. We have some good people and I would like to keep them. A 4 percent raise would be $1,061 more per year. Also out of the 15 department heads, 10 of them are Hooksett residents. All of them take pride in their work and I think most people in town know that but some don.t. Take Diane Savoie and Charles Watson, two nonresident employees - you can drive by Town Hall most nights around 6 or 7 p.m. and still see them working. The town could not ask for two more dedicated employees.

I think some people don.t give the town council or the budget committee enough credit. Believe me, there is NO FAT in this budget.

Proponents to the proposed growth management ordinance have acknowledged that it is flawed, but that it is just a "first step" intended to afford Hooksett an opportunity to "catch our breath." The courts will be looking for a better argument.

Let's look at the facts relative to the matter of growth in Hooksett. First of all, it is important that you realize that the town of Hooksett already has a growth ordinance. In fact, the planning board has been very aggressive in dealing with growth issues over the past three to four years. In 2001, the town of Hooksett passed an impact fee (growth) ordinance that authorized fees to be assessed to new construction projects. Those fees are used to make infrastructure upgrades. The town council commissioned studies to determine the impact of various categories of new construction on schools, fire stations and equipment, police stations, recreational facilities and municipal buildings. Once completed, the town had a rational basis for assessing impact fees on new homes, new commercial buildings and new industrial space. A proper foundation was established and the impact fees were instituted. They are working well. The town has already collected more than $1.1 million in impact fees, $811,000 for schools; $255,000 for safety improvements and $44,000 for the construction of recreational facilities.

We are easily tempted to view growth as the root of all evil. In fact, growth is often the prime motivator for correcting years of neglect. Ten years ago, Hooksett 's school buildings were in tough shape. Both Memorial and Underhill schools were severely overcrowded. Both were on life support, kept alive only with the aid of temporary modular classrooms. This overcrowded condition existed despite a long drought in growth. The collapse of the banking industry and the subsequent decline in real estate values had suppressed housing demand for nearly a decade. Once the market recovered in the later part of the decade, growth provided the motivation and resources to build the new Cawley Middle School and to expand and renovate Memorial. Largely due to the greatly expanded tax base and fees on new homes, we now have first class facilities which have been designed to accommodate the growth which school officials and citizens know to be coming.

Transportation is another area where growth has driven upgrades and improvements. Hooksett Road has been the subject of a number of NHDOT studies. Plans resulting from those studies call for its expansion to a four lane thoroughfare, yet only a few sections of Hooksett Road have been upgraded with public funds. The Granite State Marketplace, Legends Drive, Cigna and Granite Hill traffic improvements were all constructed by private land owners. A connector road, which will relieve traffic on Granite Street and reduce safety hazards at Main Street, will be built this summer with $900,000 of private funds supplementing the $600,000 that NHDOT has committed to the project.

The private sector is contributing equipment, providing engineering work and improving infrastructure throughout town; needed improvements which otherwise would be borne by the taxpayer. Impact fees have also purchased a new staff vehicle for the fire department this past year.

Growth presents numerous challenges; but it also offers many unique opportunities. Your planning officials are working diligently to properly plan and manage our growth to make Hooksett a better place for all of us.

It is inefficient and extremely costly. Utility costs have gone from $35,915 in 2002-03, to $43,930 in 2003-04, to a projected $58,970 in 2004-05. This is a 61 percent increase – a $23,000 difference!

The trustees have submitted a plan to the community improvement program for long-term funding for this purpose, and this plan has been approved.

Phase 1 of this project, which is a roof top unit, provides heating and cooling on the main floor and addresses a portion of the problem. It should be completed in a few months.

However, phase 2 of the project is critical in our efforts to save precious energy dollars. It funds a second roof-top unit that will service the lower level and replaces our constant control system with a variable control system, which will allow for greater flexibility in controlling temperature throughout the building. At the present time, we have very little control and some rooms are very hot while adjacent rooms are very cold. Unfortunately, phase 1 cannot address that issue. It is especially important for libraries to have even heating and cooling systems to prevent deterioration of the books and other materials.

Perhaps more importantly, we should realize significant savings in our energy costs once phase 2 is implemented. The variable control system that will allow better control for individual rooms should also provide significant energy savings going forward.

Article 10 begins the process of funding phase 2 of our HVAC project, and we ask for your support. We have the unanimous support of the town council and the budget committee for this article.

We also ask for your support for Article 8, which is the budget article for the town budget. The library receives its funds for the year from this article. We are currently operating under a default budget and had to make the difficult decision to close on Thursdays as a result. Another default budget will mean further cuts in hours and services.

If you.ve been upstairs in the current Municipal Building, I believe it is impossible to argue that our town offices don.t need more space to operate effectively. If you haven.t visited the top floor of your current town hall, you should do so before casting your vote on May 10.

That space has been used by town offices since 1961 when the town population was only about 3,700 residents. Today, we have 12,800 residents (nearly a 250 percent increase) with another housing boom underway.

The requested bond will renovate and refurbish the Village School so that town offices can be relocated there (in about half the available space) in less than a year. The funds will also bring the rest of the building up to code and correct life safety issues so that a community center, with a variety of programs serving multiple age ranges, can be established in the remainder of the building (additional funds for community center renovation will be raised through capital campaign donations).

The gymnasium, kitchen, surrounding recreational space and central location in town make it an ideal building for multiple community uses, and residents have consistently indicated through surveys that they would like to see a community center there.

This is an opportunity to solve two community needs through a public (taxpayer-funded town hall) and private (capital campaign for community center) partnership. Vote yes on 4 on May 10.

For more information, visit www.hooksett.org, scroll down the left index, click on "Municipal Building," and view the presentation there.

By approving Warrant Article 4 (a $1.5 million bond), you'll not only be investing in our town's future, you'll also be setting the stage to provide residents of all ages with a wide range of programs and services which will enhance the quality of life in our town.

The newly renovated Village School building will be a true community benefit. Among other things, the facility will provide vital community meeting space, an all-purpose sports court for HYAA teams, a venue for small concerts and community theater, a public access TV studio, and critical programs like Meals on Wheels, Boys and Girls Club, Head Start pre-school, and a senior center. The facility will also house the Hooksett town offices, providing sorely needed work space for town employees and enhancing customer service for town residents.

The warrant article will cost the average Hooksett taxpayer about $40 in taxes the first year and less each following year as the bond is paid off.

An additional $500,000 will be invested in the community center portion of the facility through private gift money, which reduces reliance on Hooksett taxpayers to fund this important and necessary project.

I'll hope you'll join with me and many of your friends and neighbors in supporting Warrant Article 4.

To learn more about the details of the Hooksett Community Center, please visit www. CEDCOH.org or call Dawn Stanhope at 620-5573 or Matt Comai at 623-3701. Informational material about the warrant article can also be found at the Hooksett Public Library.