Also on today’s menu:
Sewer Extension In Laconia
School Spending Slashed
A change that the Democrat-controlled state legislature made two years ago was responsible for bringing to a close the debate over what to do about the Bristol police and fire stations. Voters on March 12 approved a plan to tear down the old police station and replace it with a public safety building on a 103-56 vote, meeting the new three-fifths requirement for approving large projects.
Until that change at the state level, there was a higher bar of two-thirds of votes cast to approve major projects during traditional town and school meetings. Without the change, it would have required 106 votes to pass the article, rather than the 96 required under the new rules, and the project would have been denied.
The $4.9 million project involves tearing down the old police station, cutting into the hillside behind it, installing drainage to avoid increasing stormwater flow to the highway, and utilizing an adjacent lot that the town purchased a few years ago.
Sewer Extension In Laconia
Installation of 1¼ miles of new sewer lines in the northern section of Lakeport is slated to begin later this year now that funding for the project has been approved.
The City Council on Monday authorized the city administration to apply to borrow $2.5 million from a low-interest state fund to pay for the project to install the new lines in an area of Lakeport that includes North Street, Sheridan Street, Belvidere Street, and School Street.
The work is scheduled to begin once the work on upgrading the sewer line along Elm Street is completed sometime this summer.
School Spending Slashed
Voters mounted a successful campaign to slash school spending from a proposed $1,705,496 to $800,000 on March 12, leaving the Croydon School District with the task of figuring out how to make the reduced budget work.
Liberty activist Ian Underwood, who spearheaded the budget reduction, said, “‘cutting’ is the wrong way to think about this. [I]nstead of asking ‘What, from this failed system, might we eliminate?’, we should be asking questions like ‘What is our actual goal? What are our constitutional and financial constraints? How might we best pursue that goal subject to those constraints?’”
Noting that the state legislature has determined that the cost of an adequate education is less than $4,000 per student, and that some private schools charge less than $9,000 per student, Underwood suggested, “$10,000 per student seems like it should be more than enough to educate a child, doesn’t it?”
Croydon serves fewer than 80 students, so the $800,000 figure provides a safe buffer, he argued.
Update: Drowned Man Identified
The Berry Pond drowning victim has been identified as 70-year-old John, “Jack” Cook.
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