Also on today’s menu:
New Northfield Police Chief
Autopsy Inconclusive On Inmate’s Death
A Show-Stopping Writers’ Strike
The House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee unanimously voted in Concord on May 1 to recommend a slightly amended version of Senate Bill 54, which would enable utilities to enter into long-term power agreements that would reduce energy costs. The original bill passed the upper chamber, with the support of the state’s renewable energy community, Governor Chris Sununu, Republican leaders, and ratepayer advocates.
A different cost-reducing bill previously passed by the New Hampshire Legislature allows municipalities to set up community power programs to negotiate electric purchase agreements for their residents that also would achieve lower rates. Such a program was pitched to the Tilton Board of Selectmen by Ryan Polson of Nashua-based Standard Power of America on April 20. If the town decides to go ahead with the program, Standard Power would work with a local committee to prepare a plan for voters to decide at next year’s town meeting.
The three state-regulated power utilities, including Eversource, are opposing the new initiatives. While they only handle the transmission of power and do not make money on the electricity itself, which is a pass-through cost, they have opposed the new legislation and have been slow to provide the information that is necessary to draft a community power agreement.
Polson told Tilton selectmen that part of the reason New Hampshire pays among the highest electric rates in the country is that the utilities negotiate power agreements with electric suppliers only two times a year, at the end of December and at the end of June, “which happen to be historically the two worst times of the year to buy power,” Polson said. “Whatever the cost is the day they buy, that is the rate the ratepayers endure for six-month chunks.”
New Northfield Police Chief
The two biggest controversies that Northfield residents have faced in the past two years have been the Winnisquam Regional School District’s closure and sale of the Union-Sanborn Elementary School and the search for a new Northfield police chief. The school district announced during the annual meeting in March that it had a buyer for the Union-Sanborn Schoo, and Northfield selectmen announced in the town’s May newsletter that they had selected the people’s choice, Lieutenant Michael Hutchinson, for promotion to police chief.
Last year, selectmen passed over Hutchinson and selected Gary Boyer, a retired police officer from Florida, to be the new police chief. As residents prepared to protest the decision at a selectmen’s meeting, Boyer sent a letter withdrawing from the role, citing a “hostile work environment”. Instead of conducting another search themselves, selectmen asked the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police to assist with the development of a job description and a selection process. Hutchinson survived the first round in the process but was eliminated before the list of finalists was presented to the selectmen.
During a public forum in which the two finalists appeared before residents, many in the audience still called for the selectmen to choose Hutchinson as police chief, and three weeks later, the town fathers agreed to set aside the officially selected candidates and make Hutchinson the new police chief.
Autopsy Inconclusive On Inmate’s Death
The cause of 50-year-old Jason Rothe’s death at the Secure Psychiatric Unit on State Prison property in Concord is under investigation after an autopsy on April 30 proved inconclusive.
What is known, according to Attorney-General John M. Formella and State Police Colonel Nathan A. Noyes, is that Rothe was involved in a physical altercation with several corrections officers on April 29, after which he was unresponsive. An attempt to revive him with cardiopulmonary resuscitation was unsuccessful, and subsequently, he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
The Department of Corrections said the officers involved in the altercation are on administrative leave pending the conclusion of the investigation. The department declined to comment on whether Rothe was civilly committed or was serving a criminal sentence.
A Show-Stopping Writers’ Strike
The Writers Guild of America went on strike for the first time in 15 years, with more than 9,000 writers walking out at midnight today. Writers are demanding higher pay and a greater share of the profits from shows streaming on platforms such as Disney and Netflix.
The guild has been negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for six weeks, and the alliance says it had offered a “comprehensive package proposal” that included higher pay for writers. However, studios are facing financial pressures that they say means they have to cut costs. After several boom years in which they spent heavily to create new programs for their streaming services, film and television production dropped by 24 percent in the first quarter of 2023. The Walt Disney Company is laying off 7,000 staffers, many of whom worked in the creation or marketing of shows.
Writers want better pay for shows that can remain on streaming platforms for years, and they are worried about the future impact of artificial intelligence. There also is contention over demands for mandatory staffing and the duration of employment. The studios argue that the writers’ guild wants contracts requiring a minimum number of writers on shows, regardless of whether they are needed.
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