Also on today’s menu:
Exaggerated Immigration Fears Have Cost Taxpayers
Disaster Declaration For Rockingham And Grafton Counties
New Hampshire Commissioner of Administrative Services Charlie Arlinghaus, who had championed the sale of the former Laconia State School property to developer Robynne Alexander, issued a text message on April 22, saying, “The state is in the process of ending the purchase and sales agreement it entered into 16 months ago and will begin aggressively marketing the property Tuesday morning.”
Alexander’s “Legacy at Laconia” development team had bid $21.5 million for the 220-acre parcel that had operated as a residential facility for the “feeble-minded” as part of the eugenics movement that sought to remove developmentally disabled persons and epileptics from society, and it later served as a state prison, before lying dormant and decaying while state and local officials tried to find a better use for the property. The Executive Council had approved the sale to Alexander on a split vote after learning of her history of uncompleted projects and lawsuits, but she was unable to come up with the financing by the April 22 deadline.
District 1 Executive Councilor Joe Kenney said he had supported Alexander because of her high bid — twice the amount of other bids for the property. “The state wouldn’t have been responsible if it hadn’t taken the highest bidder,” Kenney told the Laconia Daily Sun. He said that the real estate firm CBRE still holds the contract for marketing the property and he expected an “abbreviated” bid process now that Legacy of Laconia and the state had done so much to prepare for the property’s transfer. “All the things that make this project so complicated have been ironed out,” he said, so “we don’t have to go down this road again.”
Discussion: Perhaps the state has learned from the problems it encountered by relying on a political appointee of Governor Chris Sununu to make a recommendation for a major project like the rehabilitation of the Laconia State School property. By looking only at the high bid and not at the bidder’s qualifications, the state lost the time Sununu had hoped to gain when he seized authority from the Lakeshore Redevelopment Planning Commission, which had been methodically planning how to deal with the “things that make this project so complicated”.
Exaggerated Immigration Fears Have Cost Taxpayers
Immigration fears are grossly exaggerated, as Annmarie Timmons writes while spending time at the southern border with the 15 National Guard soldiers Governor Chris Sununu sent there to assist with border patrols. Republicans are stoking fears about illegal immigrants taking jobs from Americans, costing taxpayers, and bringing in crime. “Republican gubernatorial candidate Chuck Morse of Salem claimed in a campaign email last week that 10 million people have crossed the southern border illegally since President Joe Biden took office,” she writes. “The data contradicts [sic] that.”
US Customs and Border Protection tracks “encounters,” not people, and does not account for people encountered more than once. The agency reported 9.64 million encounters nationwide from the start of Biden’s term to the end of March, with 8 million at the southern border. Many of them are asylum-seekers, and Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that that 70 to 80 percent of them are able to show a credible fear of death, torture, or persecution due to their race, religion, or beliefs. About 40 percent of them ultimately are granted asylum.
Since the year 2000 — when George W. Bush was elected president — between 10,000 and 15,000 undocumented immigrants have come to live in New Hampshire, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2021, they represented about 1.7 percent of the state’s workforce, primarily in professional settings. Those who are undocumented are unable to get a drivers license or in-state tuition at state colleges and universities, and neither adults nor children are eligible for Medicaid. No data exists to show how often undocumented immigrants are charged criminally and convicted, but national data show the percentage to be low. Data collected by the Texas Department of Public Safety show that the criminal conviction rate of undocumented people in that state was 45 percent below that of those born in the U.S., and another study found that undocumented immigrants in Texas commit homicide at slightly lower rates than native-born Americans: 2.4 percent compared to 2.8 percent.
As for fears of drug trafficking by immigrants, US Sentencing Commission data show that Americans accounted for nearly 90 percent of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers, and 96 percent of fentanyl seizures occurred at official ports of entry, not along migration routes, according to US Customs and Border Protection reports analyzed by the Washington Post.
Discussion: Of course there is illegal immigration, but it poses much less of a problem than people like Sununu make it out to be. It is an issue that Republicans have emphasized for political advantage, while refusing — on Donald Trump’s orders — to pass the legislation that would make it a non-issue. Sununu has wasted $2.3 million in New Hampshire taxpayers’ money to tackle a fabricated illegal immigration crisis.
Disaster Declaration For Rockingham And Grafton Counties
President Joe Biden Jr. has granted Governor Chris Sununu’s request for a major disaster declaration in the wake of the severe storm and flooding that took place in January, bringing significant costs to local communities in Rockingham and Grafton counties. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, working with state and local emergency management officials, determined in a preliminary damage assessment that the statewide cost for response efforts totaled $3,004,838.
“Communities along the Seacoast saw unprecedented flooding from this severe storm and astronomical high tide,” Sununu said. “In addition, Grafton County experienced significant power outages from downed trees and limbs. This disaster declaration provides the opportunity for communities to recuperate costs incurred while fixing damages. The state will continue to work with officials in both counties to utilize relief funding to make the communities whole again.”
The president’s declaration also makes federal support available through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program on a cost-sharing basis, and FEMA can provide as much as 75 percent of the eligible costs of approved projects. The Public Assistance Program provides grants to state and local governments to assist with disaster recovery, including debris removal, emergency protective measures, and permanent restoration of infrastructure. Agencies that are eligible for assistance include local, county, and state entities, as well as nonprofits that provide critical services. The Department of Transportation reports that the state also has received a $20 million federal grant for Seawall reconstruction.
Discussion: The “free money” that the federal government is allocating for infrastructure, innovation, and security is alarming many people, who worry about the expanding deficit, but they are happy to get their share of the money. The deficit would not be a concern if the tax structure were to return to one where the wealthy would be paying comparable percentages to what the average American pays. It is the tax cuts made under the trickle-down economic theory that are responsible for the deficits we see today. They would be even higher if not for the immigrants who have arrived to keep the economy running and pay their share of the taxes.