Town Council Recap

From last night's Town Council meeting:

"We need a different form of government."-John Bentley. 
I get the weirdest vibe when they talk about this. It generally starts to come up when the school is being talked about and in reference to giving the "Town" more power. There's always been tension between the "Town" and the "School" but it seems to be at an all-time high right now. 

The chatter at Town Council meetings about our form of government in Newmarket has been building for a while. Last night the Council approved a resolution to put the question to voters to establish a Charter Commission. 

I'm looking forward to the discussion about this at the public hearing.

"We have zero authority over the school. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's what it is."-Phil Nazzaro. 
See? 

"It's a judgement call of the Council." -Steve Fournier
In reference to the request of the school to use impact fees designated for the school to buy out the lease on the modulars at the Elementary School. After the last TC meeting, Mr. Fournier requested more legal opinions and ended up back where he started. 

"It really depends on the Council and what they consider permanent." -Christine Blouin. 
Ms. Blouin did a great job explaining the need and making the case for the permanence of the modulars.

"It's a classroom. I have no problem with this." Dan Wright. 
Enough said. 

"Motion passes 5-1."
Thank you. 

Town Council Recap

Just a couple thoughts from last night's meeting:

• Apparently the councilors were treated to a photograph of a gunky pipe that was quite shocking. As they talked about it, Sean Grieg (I'm not sure what his title is, but I like to think of him as the water guru) said that the build up is the result of not having the ability to flush the mains. Not spending money on preventive maintenance and having it come back to bite us in the form of a costly project...well, at least we're consistent. I'm just glad that my drinking water isn't flowing through that pipe. 

• "I'm upset."-Mr. Carmichael.  Let me just say that I'm starting to really like Ed Carmichael. Last night, Dr. Hayes presented a request to use ~$56,000 in impact fees to the Town Council for the purpose of buying out the lease on the Elementary School modulars. This was on the agenda, after being pushed to the workshop session from the last meeting in order for the Council to have the opportunity to discuss it.  But last night they were faced with a legal opinion that everyone agreed was very vague. As Mr. Carmichael pointed out, there was time to work on this and he was upset that they couldn't give Dr. Hayes an answer. The Town Administrator really should have sought clarification from the attorney and the issue could have been resolved last night.  I will point out that most councilors seemed supportive of the school's use of the fees and they were just looking for clarification-I just wish that had been done in advance. 

• After a lot of talk about what they could and couldn't say and if they should or shouldn't talk about wastewater, our water guru Sean Grieg gave a presentation about sewer rates and the proposed wastewater treatment plant guidelines. I am not a water user and admit that this doesn't affect me and because of that I haven't given much thought to the water/sewer use rates. One thing is certain--they are going to go up and by quite a lot. Along with how Newmarket rates could go up, Sean presented a comparison of other towns' rates. I admit that sometimes I fixate on weird details, but what really struck me is that right now Durham is paying almost a dollar less than Newmarket and they are already discharging <8 milligrams per liter of nitrogen (one of two magic numbers that we are trying to reach per the EPA guidelines). Why are they paying less than us now and not faced with a multi million dollar upgrade in the near future? Because, according to Sean, they did it a long time ago and probably got state funding to do it. Sound familiar?

The most wonderful time.

This is a busy time of year. The town is waiting for the tax rate to be set and the Town Council and School Board are talking about budgets. We have several school facilities solutions being discussed and everyone is saying that they don't want their taxes to go up. With that in mind, I thought I would point out some important upcoming meetings:

• PTA Meeting--Tuesday November 13 at 6:30pm. The PTA is having their monthly meeting. Dr. Hayes will be available to PTA members to discuss school facility options and answer questions.
• Public Forum-Wednesday November 14th at 9am. Dr. Hayes has invited the community to meet at Town Hall to discuss the current school facilities options including the talks with ORSD and the various renovation and new school proposals. The architect will also be present to answer questions. 
• Town Council Meeting-Wednesday November 14th at 7pm. The Town Council will be discussing the school's request to use $58,000 of impact fees. I wrote about impact fees back in June after a request was made by the school at that time. The discussion bugged me last time and I'm interested to hear how it is discussed on Wednesday night. You can view the full meeting agenda here.
• School Board meeting-Thursday November 15th at 7pm. A couple positions are on the chopping block for next year. This is the public's opportunity to voice their concerns before we are too far into the budget process. The rumors that I heard are that the enrichment position at the elementary school and the school to career coordinator are two positions that are being considered for cutting. I guess I thought that the huge amount in savings with the health plan switch might have offset the need to make these cuts. I don't know what other cuts may have been proposed. The agenda was not posted on the website, but public comment is always welcomed at the beginning of each school board meeting.
• Public Forum-Monday November 19th at 7pm. Another community forum to discuss the school options. See above for more info.
• Budget Committee Meeting- Monday November 26th at 7pm. No agenda has been posted, but my guess is that they'll start going through both the town and school budgets. 

And there's only 42 days until Christmas...

Back to school.

While everyone has been busy thinking about the upcoming presidential elections, our Superintendent and School Board have continued to work toward finding solutions for our school facilities.

Here's what's been happening:

• Dr. Hayes, Principal Chris Andriski and members of the school board met with representatives from Oyster River School District on Monday, October 22, to discuss tuitioning Newmarket students to ORSD. According to the information presented by Dr. Hayes, they discussed multiple scenarios including tuitioning High School kids, tuitioning Jr. and Senior High kids and a Co-op agreement. They did not discuss any details about what any of these agreements might look like. ORSD has been working on a demographic study to determine what their capacity is and will be in future years (basically looking to see if there would be enough room for our kids) and they were hoping to have the results of that study by the end of October, but Dr. Hayes had not received that info as of last night's board meeting. ORSD is also talking to other districts. 

• At the Facilities Committee meeting on Tuesday Dr. Hayes presented this info along with plans for both a Renovation/Addition project and a new school (both with and without an auditorium). There was some great discussion around these proposals and I hope that the discussion will continue with the larger community. (See info below)

• At last night's School Board meeting there was some discussion around how to proceed with the Fire and Life Safety concerns at the Jr. Sr High School. Dr. Hayes suggested that the SB should make a decision about whether or not to move forward with making plans for to address these concerns. The sense I got was that he doesn't want next summer to roll in and us get caught with our pants down because we suddenly have to scramble to get the work completed by the September 2015 deadline. The SB asked some good questions and raised valid concerns. It looks like they will continue this discussion at another meeting and they plan to include the architect and Chief Malasky to, if nothing else, just get everyone on the same page.

• Another issue brought up at last night's SB meeting has to do with Impact fees, which I've written about before. The SB is again requesting impact fees be released--this time for buying out the lease on the modulars at the elementary school. It looks like our 3 year plan for those is turning into a much longer plan and this will save us money in the end. This is on the Town Council's agenda for their November 7th meeting--hopefully the discussion will go smoothly.

• Lastly, Dr. Hayes announced 2 public forums where he will discuss the school options. Here is his message:  

I am scheduling a number of meetings and forums during the month of November to discuss with members of the community the options being considered for better facilities for our Jr/Sr High School. The Facilities Committee and I would like to hear your thoughts on the possibility of sending grades 6-12 to Oyster River for their education and your thoughts on the several options for building a new school in Newmarket. On Tuesday, November 13th, I will be speaking at the Elementary School’s PTA meeting at 6:30 PM. Public forums have been scheduled for Wednesday, November 14th, at 9 AM and Monday, November 19th, at 7 PM, both meetings to be held in the Town Council Chamber. Our architects will be joining us at these meetings. I also will be available to meet with Jr/Sr High faculty, staff, and administration on November 13th at 2:45 PM. I plan to meet with a number of student advisory groups between November 6th and 28th. I sincerely hope that citizens, parents, students and employees can find time to participate in one of these sessions. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at jimhayes@newmarket.k12.nh.us.

If you're looking for more info, please visit http://newmarketsolutions.org/  and check out the Newmarket Solutions Facebook page to stay as informed as possible on these important issues.

If it's good for the goose....

Impact fees came up twice at the TC meeting last night.

The first time was in reference to a public hearing about releasing impact fees for studies on the MacIntosh well. A little background--- the DES has threatened to impose a moratorium on all new building if we don't figure out a solution to our water supply problem.  I wrote about it here back in May. (Now just switch DES for DoE and water supply problem to fire and life safety deficiencies and you might start to see a pattern.)

No one spoke at the public hearing last night and the council didn't take any action after that hearing either--I'm not sure why, but it is probably procedural. My guess is that they will vote on it at the next meeting.

The second time impact fees came up was when Dr. Hayes approached the Council to request that they release approximately $30,000 in impact fees to be used toward the purchase of the Carpenter property. The discussion that followed was about what happens if a school doesn't get built and the councilors questioned impact fees that were used back in 2007 when the golf course was being pursued. Dr. Hayes expressed the need to turn over every stone while looking for funds to put toward building a school and also suggested that the council should show it's support for the project by voting for this.

The council did support it in the end--the vote was 6-1 with Mr. Nazarro voting against.

This brings me back to the well. As Mr. LaBranche pointed out last night, there are no guarantees that the Macintosh well will be developed just as there are no guarantees that a school will be built. Both have been brought to vote in the past, and have failed to get a majority among Newmarket residents. But that doesn't change the fact that we need to fix the problems.

The well will be on the warrant again this year because Newmarket has been backed into a corner---we have to solve our water issue. (Again, I see little difference with the situation we are in with our school facilities.) Using the impact fees that are available and designated for exactly this purpose just makes sense to me.

So, when the council votes on the use of impact fees to conduct studies at the MacIntosh well, I sincerely hope that the vote is the same.

Big impact

Newmarket has an impact fee program. Don't know what it is?? Don't worry, you're not alone.

I honestly don't know whether or not the impact fee program is a good one and I knew nothing about it before last week. But what I understood from the meeting on Wednesday night is that the school can use these funds to pay for a portion of the work that has been done thus far on the architectural drawings for the new school/renovation project. (Just to clarify--it is my understanding that the impact fee monies can ONLY be used for expansion/upgrades--they can't be used for repairs or maintenance. In other words, they couldn't be applied to the bill for fixing the ceilings.)

Here's what I know about it:

• Developers pay an "impact fee" when they build a new home in town. 
• The fees can be used to pay for the increased demand on systems in town, including water, sewer, recreation and school.
• The fees expire after 6 years.
• When the fees expire, the monies are returned to the current homeowner.
• A percentage of those fees are designated to pay for expansion of school facilities. 
• The School Board needs to request permission from the Town Council to use these funds.
• Over $100,000 in unused impact fees have expired and more will continue to expire each month.
• The town oversees the funds but the school has not been given a regular accounting of the impact fund balance/availability.

Here's the rundown of the conversation Wednesday:

• Dr. Hayes requested that $30,000 be released to the school. 
• Matt Angell explained that some of those fees (about $3800) would be expiring within a few days and if the council didn't take action, they would be returned to the homeowner.
• Mike LaBranche seemed annoyed that this was brought up at all, saying that people had specifically asked him if this would be on the agenda. (Apparently there was a miscommunication and Dr. Hayes thought it was going to be on the agenda--other people must have thought so too.)
• Phil Nazarro commented that this is an example of how the school and town share some finances.
• The TC voted to release only the $3,800 because it needs to look into the impact fee program further.

And...here are the lessons I learned from the conversation:

• Don't surprise the TC--this wasn't on the agenda and the TC didn't feel that they had enough information to make an informed vote on this and some councilors seemed annoyed. 
• The TC doesn't seem to have a clear understanding of the impact fee program or how it works. 
• I hope that the town and school can work together on this. It seems pretty clear to me that the school should be granted the use of the funds and that by doing so, it will save the bottom line in the end. Clearly it needs further discussion and needs to be on the agenda for the next TC meeting.