Board of Selectmen Regular Minutes 6-13-12

House Education Chair: U.S. School System Is 'Failing Our Country'

WASHINGTON -- U.S. students ranked "average" in an international education assessment released on Tuesday, but House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) is giving the country's school system an F.
"Average won't help us regain our global role as a leader in education. Average won't help our students get the jobs of tomorrow. Average is the status quo and it's failing our country," Miller said in a statement Tuesday.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the results "a massive wakeup call," adding that the findings released earlier today by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development "show that a host of developed nations are out-educating us."
The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment report, which compares the knowledge of 15-year-olds across 70 countries, found that Korean and Finnish students scored the highest marks overall. More generally, the report found that Asian students, especially students from China, tended to score above their counterparts from other parts of the world.
On a scale of 1,000, Americans received 500 in reading, 487 in math and 502 in science. Although American students did make small gains in science and math, they continue to lag significantly behind other countries in those subjects.
"The difference between the countries at the top of these rankings and the U.S. is that the countries who are outperforming us have made developing the best education system in the world a national goal," Miller said. "They've recognized that the strength of their economy will be inextricably tied to the strength of their education system in the 21st century."
The OECD report's authors concluded that over the next 20 years, raising scores in math, science and reading by 25 points would result in a gain of 41 trillion dollars for the U.S. economy.
"The educational success of other countries while the U.S. has stagnated is a clear, unequivocal sign that a shift in federal education policy is absolutely necessary," Miller said. "It is time we decide as a nation that we can no longer afford to stay just average. Average is not good enough for a country as great as ours."

Top officials leaving Winchester School District

Winchester leaders resign

 By Kaitlin Mulhere Sentinel Staff 

WINCHESTER — Three top-level officials with the Winchester School District have resigned. Superintendent Kenneth R. Dassau read resignation letters for himself, Business Administrator Charlie Paulin and Director of Technology Christopher Boyle to school board members at a meeting Thursday. Dassau also serves as the special education director for the district.

The board voted to extend Dassau’s contract for 60 days. He will remain with the district through Aug. 30 to help search for candidates to fill the technology and business administrator positions as soon as possible, he said.
Paulin will work with the district as needed through the summer, but Boyle will leave at the end of June to take a similar position in Massachusetts.

After voters approved a $10.8 million budget in March — about $675,000 less than what the school board recommended — the board decided to reduce the hours and pay of some central office staff, Winchester School Board Chairman Trevor S. Croteau said. That included the technology and business administrator jobs.
The changes will go into effect on July 1.

The technology director position was cut from 40 hours to 30 hours per week with no benefits, Boyle said. The business administrator’s salary and benefits were also cut.
Boyle said he enjoyed working with the Winchester district, but he could not handle the same job responsibilities as a part-time employee. Ultimately, he had to make the best decision for his family, he said.
Dassau said when he learned that the technology director and business administrator planned to resign, he decided to leave, too, to allow the board to assemble a whole new administrative team with one similar set of goals.

Dassau began as superintendent of the Winchester district in July. Prior to that, he worked as the superintendent of N.H. School Administrative Unit 38, which provided top-level administrative services for the Winchester, Hinsdale and Monadnock school districts before the unit disbanded.
He started at Unit 38 in 1989 as the special education director, moved up to assistant superintendent in 2000 and was promoted to superintendent in 2005.
At Winchester, Dassau has had a difficult relationship with the town’s budget committee, which earlier this year attempted to cut the district’s budget to $9 million, an amount school officials said would have made it impossible to operate the schools.

Dassau also served as superintendent for the Surry School District through an agreement between the Winchester and Surry districts. Beginning next year, Dassau said Surry will contract with Concord-based Granite State Transitional Principals for superintendent services.
Dassau will be a contract employee with Granite State Transitional Principals and continue as superintendent and special education director for Surry.

Croteau said the board is in the process of forming a search committee for a new superintendent and has begun advertising the vacant positions.

Kaitlin Mulhere can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1439, or kmulhere@keenesentinel.com

Marlborough selectmen sued again

Right-to-know violations alleged in suit

 By Garrett Brnger Sentinel Staff



MARLBOROUGH — Four months after a judge found that the Marlborough selectmen violated the state’s right-to-know law, a town resident says they’ve done so again.
Loretta J. Simonds is petitioning Cheshire County Superior Court to find selectmen in contempt of a January court order not to violate the right-to-know law.

She alleges violations including holding improper nonpublic meetings, making decisions outside of a public meeting and holding inaudible, indiscernible meetings, among others. She also says she improperly received 35 copies of sealed, nonpublic meeting minutes containing private, sensitive information.
For the new alleged violations of the law, she is asking the court to find selectmen in contempt of the January order. And she is asking that selectmen be removed from office for the alleged release of information.
Selectman John H. Northcott confirmed Sunday that he had been served paperwork on Friday — the same day Simonds filed her motion — but declined to comment. He said the town attorney had yet to see the papers.
Simonds, who was one of the plaintiffs in the original case against the board, said she obtained the data unintentionally when she asked for all the public minutes files dating from 2009 stored electronically.
Among those files, Simonds said, were nonpublic meeting minutes containing employee reprimands, hiring information and medical and welfare information.
Simonds also alleges selectmen violated the January court order on occasions ranging from the town budget hearing Feb. 9 to a selectmen’s meeting on May 21.
Simonds is also asking the court to invalidate a vote during the annual town meeting on whether to hire a part-time police officer (the measure was rejected by voters), and order a new town meeting.
She says in the court filing selectmen did not vote publicly on whether to support petition articles on the officer and a tax exemption for green energy systems, yet their recommendations were noted in the town report.
She also alleges selectmen did not discuss the article about the new officer at the town budget hearing, and is requesting it be invalidated.
In November, Simonds and another resident filed a suit against the selectmen, claiming a series of right-to-know violations.
Judge Philip P. Mangones found in a 52-page ruling on Jan. 31 that selectmen had failed to treat gatherings of selectmen as meetings, held meetings without any notice or without timely notice to the public, discussed town business outside of meetings through email, kept inaccurate minutes, and failed to disclose information to the public, including denying residents access to nonpublic meeting minutes.
Mangones ordered that selectmen not commit any further violations of the right-to-know law.
Both Northcott and Gina Paight were selectmen at the time of the ruling. Beverly Harris replaced Selectman Lawrence Robinson, who did not seek reelection, in March’s elections.

Town loses with deal

Besides screwing up a workable budget, the Select-board is also morally bankrupt..

Submitted in the Opinion Section of the Keene Sentinel and published today June 08,2012

When I was a selectman, the most heart-wrenching responsibility was the possibility of having to take someone’s property for nonpayment of taxes.

Fortunately, the law allows selectmen discretion in this area, and I was pleased that in several cases I could be instrumental in working out solutions that both settled the tax debt and allowed people to keep their homes. Those are called win-win situations.

Sadly, not all members of the board were so eager to find such solutions, and one was almost lustful in his zeal to seize property.

There were also many pieces of property that the town had owned for years and had just sat off the tax rolls. Most were little bits and pieces. Some of these were auctioned, and it was common practice that abutters, as the most likely competitive bidders, were made aware of the auctions.

One decision the board made was to auction the tannery property, taken for taxes many years earlier. The town manager chose to ignore the board’s direct instructions and instead listed the property with a Realtor.
“Back room” support of board members allowed his action to stand unchallenged, and the property still sits idle, yielding neither sales revenue nor taxes.

Recently, the select board voted to auction off a small lot with a double truck garage at 50 Rabbit Hollow Road, earlier taken for taxes. The board also decided to set no minimum bid.

Although the board may have met the bare legal requirements for posting, the auction came and went with hardly anyone knowing about it.

Abutters, who might have been willing to pay the most, were not notified.

The property was purchased by Selectman Gus Ruth for $12,533. The assessed value is $119,300. (Back taxes, at 18 percent annual interest, are forgiven when property is auctioned).

Although it may not be illegal for a selectman to vote to take property, to vote to auction it with no minimum bid, and to quietly snap it up at bargain basement prices, is morally repugnant.

This was a lose-lose situation. The property owner lost and the taxpayers lost, first by not recovering back taxes and then by not receiving a better price for the property.

The only winner was Ruth. It will be interesting to see whether he benefits from use of the property, or if he just flips it for a tidy profit.

 SUSAN M. NEWELL

Winchester

The Selectmen in Winchester blew it !

What really happened in 2011?


As the late Paul Harvey would have said:  ... Now for the rest of the story.

When the new Winchester Budget Committee came together in the fall to work on the town’s budget they collectively came to the table armed with the knowledge that their neighbors were relying on them to make serious cuts to the budget.
As the chairman of the budget committee, I requested that the selectman and the school board submit their requested budgets early.
The budget committee always starts with the town’s proposed budget, but we had to wait for several weeks for them to complete it.It was presented to us piecemeal, often without documentation requested, and not in order that we asked.

Several officials and employees got “hot” when we made changes or cuts to their proposed department budgets, but we forged on.

When it came specifically to the water and sewer budgets, a majority of the budget committee members wanted to put some of the money from user fees into saving for emergencies and suggested so.
The selectmen refused, insisting that they wanted to be able to spend all of revenues that would come in for the year. We did not agree with their line of reasoning, so we made approximately $40,000 in combined cuts to the budget.

Although completely segregated finances, the water and sewer departments have always been part of the town’s overall operating budget. In an unprecedented move, the board of selectmen came to the budget committee and informed us they had removed water and sewer department funds from the operating budget and were placing them on the town warrant as special articles at the higher amounts.

This left the budget committee shocked!

Clearly, this was done to override the statutory authority of the budget committee to set the base budget before deliberative session. 

The budget committee has no authority to remove articles from the warrant, or to amend the amounts in the articles, or to recommend different amounts. If the budget committee restored the funds to the operating budget, it would have been double budgeting.
Clearly that wasn’t an option. After asking numerous questions, we were informed that selectmen were basing their decision on information they had received. The committee then moved on with the rest of the proposed budget.
Before the town’s deliberative session in February, it was up to the budget committee to recommend or not recommend each of the money warrant articles.
The budget committee made some hard choices on each article. At this point, both the water and sewer were easy to decide. Since the selectmen had increased the amounts well beyond what we believed to be necessary, we could not with consciences honestly recommend them.
Historically, selectmen have paid out a great deal of money each year to get legal advice on the warrant articles. This time they either acted without advice, chose to ignore it, or perhaps even received bad advice. Simply put: They blew it!

To those people who expended the time and energy to place money warrant articles on the ballot (not tied to the selectmen), those funds are no longer approved by the Department of Revenue Administration.
This includes the E.L.M.M. Community Center and Forest Lake funding. It is unfortunate that they are the victims of the selectmen attempts to override the budget committee.

I have been told that the town cannot operate if these cuts stand as ordered by the DRA. I say if the elected selectmen who made bad decisions can’t make it work, then it’s for them to step down.

I have talked to many business owners in town and I believe that with responsible management we can make it work.

Call and let me know what you think: 239-8952.
BRIAN MOSER
168 Clark Road
Winchester

Settlement reached in fatal Winchester crash

A civil settlement in a fatal motor vehicle crash last year in Winchester moved forward in court this week, while a criminal trial stemming from the crash is expected to start in September.

In April 2011, 17-year-old Kelsey E. Hopkinson and her friend, 21-year-old Melissa A. LaBrake, both of Keene, died in a head-on collision on Route 10.

LaBrake’s then-20-month-old daughter, Emma M. LaBrake, and another passenger in the car, 22-year-old Heather McCormack of Winchester, survived the crash with serious injuries.

James R. Couch 3rd, 40, of Swanzey, who was driving the other vehicle involved, was also injured and survived.

Police said an investigation led them to believe Couch was suffering from a medical condition when he crossed the center line, colliding with the car driven by Hopkinson.

Couch’s insurance company has agreed to pay a $300,000 settlement to be divided among the Hopkinson and LaBrake families and McCormack, and a hearing Wednesday in Cheshire County Superior Court was required to finalize the details, according to court documents filed in the civil case.
Emma LaBrake, who suffered a cut on her forehead and a spleen injury in the crash, now lives with her grandparents, court documents showed.

Couch was indicted and pleaded not guilty in superior court to two counts of negligent homicide. A pretrial hearing is scheduled in August, with a trial tentatively slated for September, according to court documents filed in the criminal case.

The trial was delayed last month after attorneys for Couch filed a request for prosecutors to provide more information about the basis of the indictments, which claim Couch was negligent based on speed and crossing the center line. Couch was suffering from a diabetic condition at the time of the crash, court documents show.

By Sentinel Staff

WARNING .. PASS ALONG TO YOUR NEIGHBORS

Though there have been no reports here in our area, you can bet that once the word has spread on You Tube and Facebook there will be some knuckleheads that will think this is funny. Be ever vigilant when picking trash off of your lawns and along the roadside in front of your home.


Subject: Warning from Enfield Police Dept.

Kids are putting Drano, tin foil, and a little water in plastic drink bottles and capping it up - leaving it on lawns, in mail boxes, in gardens, on driveways etc. just waiting for you to pick it up intending to put it in the rubbish, but you'll never make it!!!  

If the bottle is picked up, and the bottle is shaken even just a little - in about 30 seconds or less it builds up enough gas which then explodes with enough force to remove some of your extremities. The liquid that comes out is boiling hot as well.
Don't pick up any plastic bottles that may be lying in your yards or in the gutter, etc.  
Pay attention to this. A plastic bottle with a cap. A little Drano. A little water.
A small piece of foil. Disturb it by moving it; and BOOM!!
No fingers left and other serious effects to your face, eyes, etc.

 

Richard A. Crate Jr.

Chief of Police

Enfield Police Department

Judge will not stop demolition

WINCHESTER — A judge has denied a request to stop the demolition of a 200-year-old building in the town’s historic district.

The plaintiffs, composed of five residents and local grocery store Kulick’s Inc., filed for an injunction in December.

In October, the town’s zoning board agreed to allow the demolition to make way for a new Dollar General store. The plaintiffs first appealed to the zoning board to rehear the issue, but it denied the request.

They then filed action in Cheshire County Superior Court, requesting the court invalidate the decision and send it back to the board for further review.

In court documents, the plaintiffs argued the board held illegal, secret meetings to make its decision and did not properly consider the effect of the building’s removal.

They also argued replacing the house with a Dollar General would “undermine the historical, cultural and architectural value of the Historic District.”

The building at 71 Main St., called the Wheaton-Alexander House, was built about 1810 and was home to prominent doctors in the community.

Superior Court Judge Kathleen McGuire ruled April 25 there was no evidence of secret meetings, an argument that the application had regional impact wasn’t valid and the plaintiffs had no direct stake in the fate of the private building and were not eligible to receive a judgment. McGuire also wrote in her decision that the case only involved the building’s demolition, not any plans for the Dollar General.

A Cleveland development company, the Zaremba Group, had applied to demolish the house at 71 Main St. and replace it with a Dollar General store. The Historic District Commission denied the application in July. Since the house is part of the town’s historic district, Zaremba needed the commission’s approval to remove it. Zaremba appealed to the zoning board, which approved the house’s demolition. However, it left the decision on the future building’s design in the hands of the Historic District Commission.

A date for that decision has not yet been set.

The plaintiffs have made a motion to reconsider, and the judge’s ruling on that is expected soon.

Garrett Brnger can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1436, or gbrnger@keenesentinel.com.

Public Meeting Notice

PUBLIC NOTICE

TOWN OF WINCHESTER

The Supervisors of the Checklist will be having a public meeting Tuesday June 5, 2012 at 7:00 pm, at the Town Hall per RSA 654:33 and 654:32.

This will be the last day to change party affiliation before the state primary in September.  You may pick up and drop off forms at the Town Clerks office before that date or at the Supervisors of the Checklist meeting on June 5. Per RSA 654:34  

Supervisors of the Check List

Winchester officials at odds over spending

By Garrett Brnger Sentinel Staff

WINCHESTER — State-mandated cuts to the town’s 2012 spending has selectmen blaming the budget committee and taking legal action. The N.H. Department of Revenue Administration this month invalidated $418,956 of the spending voters approved at March’s town meeting in the wake of a disagreement between the two town boards over water and sewer funding.

That funding was initially not recommended by the budget committee.
But the state agency says when the money ended up getting approved by voters in March, it exceeded the state-allowed spending limit for official-ballot towns — 10 percent over the budget committee’s original recommendation.
Though the budget committee changed its recommendation to include the $537,802 funding by Election Day, the state holds to an original recommendation when determining spending limits.

Selectmen have now petitioned Cheshire County Superior Court to permit the spending, saying the budget committee failed to provide appropriate funding for water and sewer operations.

If the spending does get cut, that means more than $170,000 would be chopped from the town’s operating budget, along with money for the ELMM Community Center, Conant Library, road and bridge construction and a number of other items.
The state agency informed the town in a letter dated May 1 that voters appropriated nearly $419,000 more than state law allowed based on the budget committee’s original $3.1 million spending recommendation.

Then-Chairman Brian D. Moser said Thursday the committee chose to leave out the water and sewer operations, which are funded by user fees, as a form of protest against them being listed as separate warrant articles instead of within the operating budget.
Moser said the committee had requested the departments put some of their user fees in an emergency fund. When they said no, the committee cut their budgets, Moser said.
Moser said this prompted selectmen to pull out the funding as separate articles on the warrant where the budget committee would have less control. Selectmen also recommended a combined $47,822 more than the committee had allotted for the departments.
Town Administrator Joan Morel, however, said selectmen separated the departments’ funding from the operating budget because they are self-sufficient departments and do not need to draw on general-fund money.
After the deliberative session in February, Moser said, committee members were worried about talk that they had done something illegal and voted to change their recommendation.
By then it was too late, as the Department of Revenue Administration used the original recommendation to calculate the town’s appropriation limit.

Because the town protested to the state agency that the water and sewer systems are vital, they are not being cut to get down to the 10 percent limit. However, every other warrant article involving money is being cut.

Items cut by the state include:

• $173,505 from the town’s operating budget.
• $56,000 for the police youth aid officer.
• $50,000 to create a Conant Library repair and maintenance fund.
• $28,450 for property assessment.
• $20,000 for road and bridge reconstruction.
• $5,000 for emergency services and relief.
• $4,000 for the annual Pickle Festival.
• $3,000 to treat exotic, invasive plants in Forest Lake.
• $1,000 for future town computer upgrades.
• $28,000 for the Evergreen Cemetery care fund.
• $50,000 to the ELMM Community Center.

The selectmen’s court petition argues the budget committee did not originally set an amount for the water and sewer departments it “honestly believes is appropriate,” as it’s required to do by law.
Therefore, selectmen say, the the spending limit should be raised to $4 million — which would allow for what voters approved in March.
Selectman and attorney Barton L. Mayer could not be reached for comment.
The budget committee must file a written appearance to the court by June 5.

Board of Selectmen Regular Minutes 5-2-12

Board of Selectmen Regular Minutes 4-25-12

The shell game continues with your tax dollars. Also pay close attention as to how our town ambulance has been pulled from service to transport at the race tracks .. 11 seasons !!

A job well done

A job well done Regarding “Winchester water woes,”

Too often we hear stories about municipal workers hanging around doing nothing.
We never hear about the times when they earn their money, so here goes: Having been in underground utility construction for the better part of 45 years, I would like to commend Rick Meleski, Dale Grey and their crews for doing a great job under adverse conditions.
These guys deserve a big “attaboy” for a job well done
MIKE DOHERTY
Ashten Rue
Winchester

Garden Event at Thayer Public Library

1.