From landfills to sustainability: How New Hampshire’s food waste ban can reduce methane

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that state residents put more than 180,000 tons of food waste into landfills each year, or about 24% of all waste. As it decays, this waste produces methane gas — a significant contributor to global warming and climate change. Following other states trying to mitigate this problem, New Hampshire passed its own version of a food waste ban last summer. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Michael McCord, a freelance reporter for Granite State News Collaborative who recently has written about the topic,  Paige Wilson, waste reduction and diversion planner for the N.H. Department of Environmental Services, and Reagan Bissonnette, executive director of Northeast Resource Recovery Association, discuss how it will work and how it might benefit the average resident.

Melanie Plenda:

Can you explain more about what food waste is? Why is it a problem? How big of an issue is it here in New Hampshire?

Michael McCord:

The problem of food waste is environmental, ecological and economic. All these factors play into it. When we think about food waste, it's literally every scrap of the food that’s unplated, or uneaten, food. It's also food that is sold but not used and it’s also food that is never sold. It either goes to a pantry or to organizations like that, or it gets dumped into landfills.

That is a problem, because as I discovered in my research for the story, in the landfill, this stuff is unaerated — the air doesn't allow the food waste to break down quickly. It does break down slowly, but as it breaks down it’s creating methane gas, and methane gas is the greatest detriment to fighting climate change, in terms of enhancing climate change. When I interviewed Paige, she called this ”low-hanging fruit.” Getting food waste out of landfills will make a huge difference.

Melanie Plenda:

Why is it important to get rid of food waste, this low-hanging fruit, when it comes to stopping global warming?

Paige Wilson:

The importance of reducing and diverting food waste is that we want to save resources by reducing the amount of time and energy and land that's dedicated to growing our food and getting it from the farm to the grocery store to our plate, and everywhere in between. Then also saving landfill space, because landfills do have limited space, and we want to make sure that we have that disposal capacity for as long as we need it for items that can't be recycled or diverted or composted.

Melanie Plenda:

What solutions are being explored in New Hampshire?

Paige Wilson:

We’re really seeing a lot of interest from people and businesses along the food chain. Farms have actually been collecting food scraps from their CSA [community-supported agriculture] members. So starting with people who are already coming to the farm to get their produce — they’ve shown an interest in supporting local food systems. Tapping into that network to start collecting food scraps and seeing what kind of capacity they might have at their farm to then see, just in their community, who might be interested in diverting their food scraps. Some farms have had so much interest and success that they’ve now been applying for permits and expand their capacity and compost even more.

So at a farm level, we're seeing a lot of activity there as well as schools, camps and universities that are working with haulers all across the state to pick up their food waste from their dining halls. A lot of businesses tend to focus on their pre-consumer food waste —  things that are coming from the kitchen — just as a starting point to see what’s feasible for their capacity, their existing staff.

Melanie Plenda:

How much will developing an infrastructure to keep food waste out of landfills cost? What's involved in that infrastructure?

Paige Wilson:

There are so many factors in trying to calculate cost and what kind of infrastructure is needed throughout the state, but it will probably take millions of dollars for a statewide increase in capacity of infrastructure to manage food donations — helping farms to increase their capacity to accept food waste, both for their own composting operations, but also for feeding their animals. There's also the topic of anaerobic digestion, although we don't have any anaerobic digesters in New Hampshire, we have seen an increase in inquiries from businesses that want to build an anaerobic digester in New Hampshire. 

I think that a lot of this infrastructure will initially develop in more of the central and southern parts of New Hampshire, just because of the amount of people, and that's where a lot of the food waste is being generated. Businesses might see that as an opportunity for an easy supply and demand, where they can comfortably set up shop down there and start tapping into larger areas like hospitals and universities and the larger generators that are in the southern half of the state.

Melanie Plenda:

What is an anaerobic digester?

Reagan Bissonnette:

Composting at a basic level is talking about using oxygen and adding additional materials to turn organic material into a soil nutrient. Anaerobic digestion is where you are essentially breaking down that food waste and other organic material in the absence of oxygen. Often the purpose is to generate a biogas that can then be used to create electricity. So in many cases, we would see them located on a dairy farm, for example, where the food scraps are actually helping improve the gas generation that they then use to create renewable energy.

Melanie Plenda:

What happens next February when the food waste ban goes into effect here in New Hampshire? Will residents notice anything different?

Paige Wilson:

When February rolls around, the ban will focus on the large generators — anybody who's generating a ton or more food waste a week. Those folks will have to divert their food waste from disposal as long as there's a facility within 20 miles that can take that excess food. So that includes food pantries, farms, composting facilities, encouraging more food donation and feeding food scraps to animals. It really is to help build the supply and demand in the market for food waste in New Hampshire. 

The physical development of the infrastructure will probably take some time. Residents won’t notice all these composting facilities popping up around the state on Feb. 2. It's going to take a bit of time for that capacity to build. But we're trying to support that development through grants from the state and also exploring federal grant programs that might be able to help with infrastructure development, on top of outreach and education, and trying to build the physical capacity of managing this food waste.

Melanie Plenda:

Where's the best place to go as a first step to get resources to understand how you might start a program like this or start being involved?

Paige Wilson:

From the permitting aspect, I would say that DES is the go-to agency for questions about regulations and the details of setting up facilities  — setting up facilities, setbacks and requirements to protect the environment. I would say that Reagan and the NRRA are really a great resource for folks to contact. They have just been serving in the public outreach space for so long, and they've been doing a really great job at it.

We do try to lean on like regional planning commissions and other types of nonprofits, like the New Hampshire Farm to School Network. There are really all kinds of organizations that are kind of dabbling in this space as well as municipal committees and businesses as well. There's a whole network of us.

Melanie Plenda:

Reagan, if folks reached out to you what might they expect in terms if they’re looking for a first step on how to get started and where to start?

Reagan Bissonnette:

What we have is based on those two days of workshops that we put together for municipalities on food waste diversion last month. On our website, we have all of the information that we shared from those workshops. It really takes you from the beginning of why food waste matters through how to get started with your community to actually rolling out a food waste diversion program. I’m happy for people to reach out to me, and I can direct them to the resources we have. 

Melanie Plenda:

What do you do with your food waste?

Michael McCord:

I confess, I was not as diligent as I should have been in the past. But now I've seen the way. I ordered a 1.3-gallon canister and started putting food waste in it. It shows that when you take the food waste out along with your recycling, it's amazing how little actual waste ends up in the landfill from your home. Like I said, I have seen the light and I'm moving forward.

Reagan Bissonnette:

One thing I want to emphasize is the importance of reducing the food waste we create in the first place. So at home, the first thing is we really only buy fresh from the grocery store or the farmers market what we expect to use in any given week. Then honestly, we eat leftovers. It’s not exciting, but it's a really important way to reduce the food waste that we generate. 

So from what we do still have we compost. I have two compost bins in my backyard, but it just so happens that they filled up right before winter last year and I didn't get around to entering them and using that material. 

So I tested out a new system this winter, which is that we have a private company that has a drop-off location at a local grocery store parking lot, so we actually keep a five-gallon bucket with a lid outside our back door, and we put food scraps into there. Then about once a week, we haul that over when we go to the grocery store to this parking lot, and we're able to dump our food scraps into a bin, and then they're taken away and composted. That's actually been very convenient as well.

Paige Wilson:

I live in an apartment building so I don't have a composting pile. I have an insulated compost tumbler, called a Jora. It's insulated with foam and can keep pretty warm temperatures in the winter, which is definitely helpful, because in the winter I find that sometimes I have even more food waste. But it has two chambers, so once one side gets full, I can start filling up the second side while the first one kind of sits and matures. 

On top of that, I have a food cycler, and that is essentially a countertop food dehydrator. It breaks down my food in huge volumes, like almost by 80% to 90%. To have that as a nitrogen-rich additive to the Jora tumbler really helps to keep that compost hot because it’s dehydrated food waste, it's not finished compost. So it still has to go through the composting process to go through the nitrification and all of the chemistry to become a finished product. That has been a huge addition and something interesting that I've been able to acquire.

Melanie Plenda:

Michael McCord, freelance reporter for Granite State News Collaborative,  Paige Wilson, waste reduction and diversion planner for the N.H. Department of Environmental Services, and Reagan Bissonnette, executive director of the Northeast Resource Recovery Association, —  thank you all so much for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

Navigating climate challenges: N.H. works to protect scenic Route 1A from flooding

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited lightly for length and clarity. 

Flooding has been a problem along scenic Route 1A for years. Regularly used by visitors from across the state and country, the popular Seacoast thoroughfare is subject to more volatile weather and rising tides due to climate change. Plans are underway to shore up its seawalls and ensure Route 1A’s resiliency. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda discusses these plans with Department of Transportation Commissioner Bill Cass, Assistant Director of Development Tobey Reynolds, and the agency’s Bureau of Environment administrator, Kevin Nyhan.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk about the state of Route 1A. Can you tell us about its problems in recent years?

Bill Cass:

 A lot of Route 1A is protected by a series of stone, shell piles, mortar rubble and masonry walls, between Route 1A and the ocean side. Most of those defenses were built following the blizzard of ’78, so they've been in place for a long time, storm after storm, and over the years they have continued to be impacted. More frequently, we're seeing increasing frequency and intensity of storms. 

So the integrity of the walls, the performance of those walls,  is becoming more and more jeopardized, they're ever more vulnerable to continued deterioration. That is really the concern that we're trying to address. So along with that vulnerability and continued erosion comes more frequent road closures, extended cleanup and things like that as they continue to degrade and not do the job they were originally designed for.

Melanie Plenda:

What role does climate change play in all of this?

Kevin Nyhan:

There's no question that we're experiencing changing environmental conditions on the Seacoast especially. Whether that's high tides or more intense precipitation or even higher frequency of flooding, those things are real, and we're experiencing them. Here at the Bureau of Environment, for every project that we do we undertake a comprehensive and multidisciplinary environmental review of those projects, identifying environmental concerns, evaluating our impacts and looking at alternatives to those impacts. 

I think it’s been in the last several years that sea level rise and the changing environmental conditions have come to the forefront, or certainly things that we evaluate when we're doing those analyses. And understanding how the facilities that we are constructing are compatible with those future conditions is certainly something else that's in the forefront of what we're evaluating. 

To do that, we have a number of tools that we use, whether it's design manuals that reference the most recent rainfall data, and sea level rise scenarios. I think it's fair to say that some of the other tools that we have are working with our partner agencies, the Department of Environmental Services, and the rules that we follow there for environmental issues compel our forward thinking.

Melanie Plenda:

New Hampshire received a $20 million federal grant to make changes to Route 1A. What will those changes entail, and how will this help?

Toby Reynolds:

We're very, very grateful for that award. It's going to help us immensely with this project and moving it forward.

The department's responsible for a number of seawalls along Route 1A, stretching from North Hampton up to Odiorne State Park in Rye. As part of our grant application for the $20 million, we identified nine stone revetment sections that are in need of repair. For the grant, we isolated three of those revetments. We selected those based on past damage  and the frequency of the damage and the number of times that we've had to close 1A as a result, and those three had the highest recurrence times.  All three of those revetments have a total length of about 3,000 feet, so it's pretty significant in the amount of work that we're going to be able to get done with the $20 million.

The reconstruction will entail reconstructing the revetments mostly to the same footprint as they're in today. But, like the commissioner said, the designs that were done in the ‘70s and the amount of damage that the walls have received over time — the maintenance of those walls were just not holding up to the intensity of the storms that we're seeing today. 

The new designs will take into account the intensity of the storms with sea level rise, and the stone size, especially on the ocean side will be sized to withstand that wave action or the intensity of the winds that we're seeing today. What this will do for us is it will greatly reduce the cleanup associated with the seawall, the stone revetments, after the storm. During the storm, we still will expect to see splash over the walls, we will still expect to see the east side or the marsh side continue to rise in flood portions during storms. But once the storm is over, once the high tide recedes, we would expect the flooding to dissipate more rapidly. We would expect very minimal cleanup from these reconstructed stone revetment walls, and therefore the closures would be much less and our cleanup effort would be much less as well.

Melanie Plenda:

What will the construction and timeline look like for this project? 

Toby Reynolds:

We would like to do it as soon as possible, but there are a number of steps that we have to go through to get projects like this underway. Our current schedule puts the start of construction around early spring of 2027. The reason for this is mostly related to the process of contracting with experts that do this design work. Also, completing the design, permitting and also making sure we have the time to do public outreach.

Once construction starts, we anticipate the heaviest of the construction is going to be in the off-peak times — try to work outside of June, July and August. But there is a lot of work here to do. It's going to take time to do it, so we're also looking for opportunities when we can complete work during those summer months, but also reducing the impact to the motorists because we know that that time of year is when most people like to drive up and down and enjoy the coast. 

Melanie Plenda:

What impact will this project have on state and tourism in the region? 

Bill Cass:

It should have a very positive impact. Right now, when we have these big storms and damage to the walls it impacts traffic on Route 1A. Route 1A is a primary north-south area servicing the beaches and coastal communities. It's important to the tourist activity, it's important to the local businesses, and it's important to emergency response through there. So when we have these more frequent storms that take longer to recover from it definitely affects all of those elements. 

These projects will make these revetments more stable, more resilient, so that when there is this splashover, when there are storms, they won't have damaged the road and we won't have the extended recovery times that impacts tourism, traffic access to the communities and emergency responses.

Melanie Plenda:

How flexible is this plan? Will it address future environmental issues?

Kevin Nyhan:

I would say it does. Working with our partners, we all recognize that the things we do today need to survive and be effective into the future. So when we look at the projects that we're building, we’re looking at what the impacts are on the ground today and how we can mitigate those and how we can minimize them. But certainly now, and on the Seacoast especially, we’re having to make the point that even though we have a little bit more impact today it's for the benefit of the future. 

Melanie Plenda:

Are there other areas of concern on the Seacoast, and is the state looking at any similar projects on the Seacoast or other areas of the state?

Kevin Nyhan:

Regardless of where our project is, we're doing the same type of environmental review. We're looking at wetlands and water quality, endangered species and things of that nature. Certainly on the Seacoast, we've had sea level rise and tidal influence. We’re not going to experience that on the western side of the state, but precipitation, management of water quality, minimizing impacts on endangered species and being sensitive to our cultural sites are things that we do for all projects. The analysis is pretty similar, regardless of where we are.

Melanie Plenda:

Good luck. Department of Transportation Commissioner Bill Cass, Assistant Director of Development Tobey Reynolds and Bureau of Environment Administrator Kevin Nyhan — thank you all so much for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

COVID-19, RSV, and the Flu: What You Need to Know About the Triple Threat of Respiratory Viruses This Winter

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity. 

Where do things stand with COVID-19? What other viruses do we have to worry about? On this episode of The State We’re In, Melanie Plenda talks with infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Calderwood, the Chief Quality Officer at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center about what we need to know about COVID-19, flu, and RSV or Respiratory Syncytial Virus.

Melanie Plenda:

So, where do things stand with COVID-19? Are we seeing the usual false spike or something different going on?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

We have begun to see an increase in COVID 19 cases in August and going into early September. We were seeing that as we looked at numbers of hospitalizations around the country, as well as the test positivity rate. And that's the percentage of people who perform a test and it comes back saying that they have COVID 19 infection. Over the past two weeks, we actually have begun to see those hospitalization numbers go down, the test positivity rate go down and so those are encouraging trends. If we look at comparison to prior years, what you can see is that we were no higher this year than we were a year ago in September. So some of this was an expected upswing, but clearly different from the lows we had seen in June and July of this summer.

Melanie Plenda:

And is there a particular variant of concern his year?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So there are a large number of variants and people will read about these in the news, they all fall within the omicron lineage of SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID 19 as the illness. And what's important to recognize is that well, you can go and see that there may be 20 different variants that are circulating at this time, well over 90% are actually covered and protected by the current vaccines.

Melanie Plenda:

You mentioned hospitalizations. How do things look here in New Hampshire? And how does that compare to the rest of the country?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So currently, as of today, there are 30 patients in New Hampshire who are undergoing active treatment for COVID 19. This is well below where we were at our peaks in prior years. And we are seeing that that has stabilized. The other thing to recognize is that most of the people that are coming in, thankfully don't have severe illness requiring ICU level of care. So most of the COVID that we are seeing this year is out in the community, not requiring hospitalization. And for those who are hospitalized, much less severe illness than we've seen in the past.

Melanie Plenda:

So let's talk about vaccines. What can you tell us about the ones for all three viruses and how effective they are?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So we now have a new COVID 19 vaccine. It's formulated for the 2023/2024 respiratory virus season. And this really is becoming an annual vaccine. The idea is that we look at what is circulating in the community, we formulate a targeted vaccine that covers the majority of the viruses that are out there. You get that in the fall. And it has about six months of protection before it wanes, and the protection for severe illness and hospitalization probably lasts a little bit beyond that. But the protection against just getting sick in these winter months, is really about six months in duration. And so right now, the three vaccines that have been approved, we had two mRNA vaccines, the Pfizer and the Moderna, we just had a third of the NovaVax vaccine that was approved. And these are available and really recommended for everyone, those six months and older. So there is data for children and for adults. And it is for the most part, a single vaccination, whether you have been vaccinated before or not, we're no longer talking about this idea of a primary series new booster, but like the flu shot, you come in, get your shot, and that protects you for the respiratory virus season. It has effectiveness that is higher than we see for the flu vaccine in most years. 

So it is a very effective vaccine. It is showing a significant boost in immunity as I mentioned earlier against over 90% of the circulating variants. And we even have data that was presented to the FDA and the CDC, that is showing protection, above 10 fold higher protection for some of the variants that had raised concern that they might be resistant to novel vaccines. And so that's very encouraging. And so we recommend that folks, as soon as possible, come out and get the COVID vaccine, it will protect them through these peak months. Again, that is going to be December, January and February. You can get the flu vaccine at the same time, you can actually get a COVID vaccine in one arm and the flu vaccine in the other arm. The flu vaccine is targeted at the most common circulating forms of flu that we know from international data. They are adopted and changed annually to make sure that we are targeting what is in the community. And again, similarly an annual vaccine recommended for all gives you kind of six months of protection. About six to nine months is the thought for the flu vaccine. And that's important because there is some flu B that goes later into the spring. And we want to make sure that we're covering that as well.

Melanie Plenda:

What sorts of precautions should be taken? When is it a good idea to stay home or wear a mask for the protection of others?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So we've learned a lot about this over the past four years. And there really is an importance of staying home when you're sick, wearing a mask when you need to be around others that have a respiratory illness, and masks do provide a good level of protection. Now, the other thing is, we recommend testing. And there is availability to test for things like COVID and that's important. A lot of people are doing that, that home based testing. But really the most important thing is if you don't feel well, stay home, don't put others at risk. Make sure you're taking care of yourself, get rest, stay hydrated. And when you're feeling better, you can return to school, return to work, wear a mask if you need to, if you still continue to have things like a runny nose, and that's important to protect others who may be around you.

Melanie Plenda:

And you just mentioned that those are the same rules for kids. So when should parents keep them home from school?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So the same sorts of things. And so this idea that when children are sick, they need time to recuperate, and they are not going to be at their best In the school environment, if they are suffering from a viral illness, and in fact, they will be slower to recover from the viral illness. And so allowing children the ability to stay home and recover, before going back to school is best to reduce the transmission. But it's also best for their recovery, and the schoolwork that they need to do when they get back into the school.

Melanie Plenda:

And this week of school in Lawrence, Massachusetts went remote due to the number of COVID 19 cases there. Could that happen in New Hampshire this year, do you think?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So we've learned a lot through the pandemic. And this is really one thing that I think it's important for us to understand that there were some adverse impacts of decisions that we made early on. And thankfully, in New Hampshire, we had many schools that got children back into class in person, much quicker than you saw elsewhere in the country. That speaks to the fact that we didn't see some of the impacts that places like New York City saw, and they had to make different decisions. But we've learned that there were things that suffered, mental health suffered during this time, we saw a decrease in language and math scores. And we saw that social interactions changed. And so there is a lot of push and advocacy from our pediatricians, from our teachers to really not go back to a period where we shut down schools and send people to remote learning, we might see a period where people go back to wearing masks, and that might be a way to mitigate some of the risks. But again, I do not advocate shutting down schools entirely, going back to a hybrid environment or a remote environment. And it's just because we've learned about some of the adverse impacts. And the other thing is inequity. One, not everyone had the same access to technology. And so we saw those impacts differently in different groups based on ‘Did they have a computer? Did they have internet?’. And that's not true across the entirety of northern New England, we need to make sure we're meeting the needs of everyone, all the students in our communities,

Melanie Plenda:

There was some reporting recently in the national news that it looks like there was a shortage of amoxicillin headed into this sickness season. And so is that something that we're seeing here that you've seen? And do you have any sense of why that might be happening if you are?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So we actually, this predates the pandemic. We've had shortages of a number of medicines or antibiotics included for many years, this is actually something that we track very closely, we make sure that we are keeping an adequate supply on hand. You will see that certain local pharmacies get caught unaware when the shortages occur. A lot of this is related to things that may be generic that have a single manufacturer, and it may be that the plant has some issues with production. And so if they go offline, we no longer have access to that antibiotic. Today, we're talking about respiratory viruses and those that are not treated by antibiotics. And so that's important to mention, we do not recommend that people come to look for amoxicillin or azithromycin or some of the other common antibiotics when they have a viral illness. But if you had something like a bacterial pneumonia, and needed an antibiotic, we do continue to have plenty of antibiotics, if there was a shortage, we have alternatives that we can use.

Melanie Plenda:

Do you anticipate these shortages, such as they are, will continue? Or is there an end in sight to that?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So one big impact of the pandemic that we continue to grapple with is around our supply chain. And when we think about interruptions in the supply chain, these are at a global level. And so understanding how we are building the infrastructure, some of the local production of some of these critical needs in the healthcare sector, that's going to be a long term strategy that the supply chain has impacted all areas in medicine and health care. And this is something we continue to struggle with on a daily basis.

Melanie Plenda:

Infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Calderwood, the Chief Quality Officer at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, thank you so much for joining us today.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.

Tackling the rising rates of mental health issues among young people

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

National studies show adolescents are experiencing loneliness, isolation and feelings of sadness at greater levels than past generations. While already on the rise before COVID-19 hit, the pandemic has increased the rising speed. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Rosemary Ford talks with Dr. Nate Jones, school psychology consultant at Southeastern Regional Educational Service Center, John T. Broderick, former chief justice of the N.H. Supreme Court and senior director of external affairs for Dartmouth Health, and Gabrielle McNulty, school-based behavioral health counselor for Amoskeag Community Health, about what could be driving the crisis and what can be done to help. 

Rosemary Ford:

What's going on with the youth? Are parents applying too much pressure? Are they too overextended?

Dr. Nate Jones:

We're definitely seeing a lot of schoolkids are very much struggling. Yes, it peaked during COVID, but COVID did not cause this. I think it's always important to remember that kids have struggled for generations. This isn't a brand new thing that has never happened before. It's more a matter of degree. Kids are definitely having a hard time, and schools are certainly struggling to figure out how to support them.

They struggle in how to make sure kids still learn to read, write and do math, and yet also can grow into adults who are able to organically go to college, join the military — do the things that we want them to do upon graduation. We're seeing a lot of struggle with this in school, a lot of angst about it. But I think we're also seeing a lot of educators really leaning in and really wanting to support students. 

I think maybe a point that I would just start with is that a lot of students don't get the downtime needed. They're either in school, in sports and clubs, they're engaged in activity, or they're on social media, or they're gaming with people online, which is interactive these days, and they don't have time to stop. Then they're staying up too late and have to get up ready for school, so you definitely get very much a hamster wheel feel from a lot of students that we're talking to. They're not quite sure how to get off of it and which parts of it they should try to step back from.

Rosemary Ford:

Who do you think is responsible for fixing this culture that seems to be affecting the mental health of our youth. is it parents? Is it schools? Is it colleges? What else can we do?

Dr. Nate Jones:

Whenever we're working with kids, it's always that there's never one thing going on for them. Consequently, it can’t be only one person, one group, one field that can provide the fix. It takes a village, it has and always will. The fix is every day — it's doing the good work, the parenting, the teaching, and whatever — but doing it well every day. 

John T. Broderick:

Parents love their children but we are very concerned, I think, as a society, about our children's safety. We're building a lot of fences around childhood. Childhood used to have a lot of days that weren't filled with activities, but you had to create them. That just kind of faded away. I would like parents to let children evolve, support and encourage them, obviously, but don't micromanage every move. Don't go to every sporting event they participate in, every practice they ever attend. 

These kids are not as emotionally secure. Half of all young people today, according to surveys, describe themselves as lonely. Half of them say they do not have a trusted adult in their life. Take those two stats and weigh them against the opportunity to have a successful and emotionally structured childhood. Those are the discussions we need to have as communities. A lot of what I'm saying is that we can fix it, if we choose to.

Gabby McNulty:

It takes a village. Everybody needs to be on the same page, everyone's expectations need to align.

When I'm sitting in school meetings, and you have every member of the team together, sometimes there's that disconnect, and there's not that buy-in. What people don't always understand is that when your child is participating in therapy, a lot of the time the parent needs to be in the room as well. You're the parent, the one that's reinforcing those positive behaviors, or not reinforcing the negative ones. So there needs to be that buy-in. If there's no trust, either on the parental end or even on the child's end, there's not really much that can be done. That trust is a really important piece. I do think it can be fixed. 

Rosemary Ford:

What impact do you think that world events are having on kids in their mental health?

Dr. Nate Jones:

Our kids are struggling with things in ways that we didn't have to. I remember in sixth grade, watching the Challenger explosion at school, — that was one of the first times I’d really seen a national news event occurring live. Otherwise, it was just the guys on TV at 6 o'clock at night. It’s different now — now we have instant news, and that brings it to us in a whole new way. So I think that part of it to me is that our kids are facing an onslaught of news about the world that we never had to. 

Gabby McNulty:

I am definitely seeing more of an indirect result. I'm seeing a very high increase in depression-related symptoms — a lot of people are unaware of that. With younger kiddos, especially a lot of times in boys, aggression is a sign of depression. I'm definitely seeing a lot more anxiety. This year alone, I've been seeing a high rate of suicidal statements. A lot of the times the kids, there’s no intent to it, but kids have such big feelings, and they aren't able to express them. Either they've heard somebody else say it, or it just kind of comes out. But when you're kind of evaluating them for safety they're like, “I didn’t mean it, I'm just really mad.” So it's trying to teach some other ways to be able to express those same feelings. So definitely we’re seeing a higher rate of set depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and suicidal statements, which is scary in any population, but especially when it’s starting as young as kindergarten or first grade, it makes it a little fearful of what’s to come.

Rosemary Ford:

What do you think are some of the ways that we can address these issues and work toward fixing them?

John T. Broderick:

I think a lot of it is in our control. Kids have a lot of triggers - obviously adverse childhood experiences, trauma, genetics. But the thing I've seen most often comes from a world that's running at 100 miles an hour, that's becoming more distant one from the other. Kids are less comfortable in the eyeball-to-eyeball zone, where social-emotional growth happens. I would say to parents, “Let's take our foot off the gas. Let’s put the technology away for a few designated hours a night. Let’s have some family time. Let's not make our children overscheduled by being in 15 sports with five travel games a week. I think that we need to exhale, see the child in front of us — not the child we hope is in front of us. Not every kid develops at the same rate and not every kid’s’ gonna make the National Honor Society, and that’s OK.

Rosemary Ford:

What strategies do you recommend to parents and caregivers? What tools do you think are available to fix some of the things that we're seeing?

Gabby McNulty:

One of the most important things is starting that conversation about mental health and emotions and feelings when kiddos are really young. Starting with those basic emotions — happy, sad, mad, etc. The other thing is reducing that stigma when it comes to emotions and expressing your feelings in general. I think in some cases we are labeling emotions like anger, depression or nervousness as a negative emotion. We're human beings, all emotions are valid. We need to kind of teach our kiddos to feel their feelings. 

Rosemary Ford:

Dr. Nate Jones, school psychology consultant at Southeastern Regional Educational Service Center, John T. Broderick, former chief justice of the N.H. Supreme Court and senior director of external affairs for Dartmouth Health, and Gabrielle McNulty, school-based behavioral health counselor for Amoskeag Community Health — thank you so much for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org. 

Multiple Solar Eclipses Coming Up: What is a Solar Eclipse, How to Safely Observe and Where

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

Even with the advancement of science, space has always been a fascination for many humans and this fall and spring residents of New Hampshire will get an opportunity to experience two solar eclipses. On this episode of The State We’re In, Associate Professors from University of New Hampshire , Amy Keesee and John S. Gianforte, also the director of the UNH Observatory, and Lori Harnois, Director of Division of Travel and Tourism Development discuss two important events coming up: a partial solar eclipse in October and a total solar eclipse in April. 

Melanie Plenda:

So John, let's start with you. Can you tell us a bit about what a solar eclipse is, and what happens?

John S. Gianforte:

Well a solar eclipse takes place, when the Moon comes between the Earth and the Sun, the Moon orbits the Earth about once a month, and the Earth goes around the Sun once a year. And every so often, we have an alignment that puts the Moon, the Sun and the Earth in the same plane, and the Moon casts a shadow on the Earth, if you happen to be within that shadow, actually cast to shadow so enter shadow and an outer shadow. If you happen to be in either one of them, you'll see a solar eclipse, and that's when the Moon blocks out at least a part of the Sun and blocks it from our view. And it's a really splendid site to watch if you do it safely.

Melanie Plenda:

And Amy, what makes these two eclipses one in October and one in April different?

Amy Keesee:

So the path of any Eclipse is different depending on where the shadow hits Earth. And so the path of the two eclipses is going to be different. And that's part of why we're going to observe something different. For each of the two in October, the path goes more across the western part of the United States. So in New Hampshire, we're only going to be able to observe a partial eclipse. Also, if you happen to be in the path of the October Eclipse, where there's the most coverage, it's not going to be a complete coverage of the Sun, it is going to be what's called an annular eclipse. And that means you'll still see a ring of sunlight around the Moon itself. Now in April, that's going to be a total solar eclipse. And that means that if you're in the path of totality, the Moon is going to completely block out all of the light from the Sun for a portion of it. Now you have to be in the path of totality. So that's where John was talking about the two different shadows, you have to be in the central portion of the shadow to be in the path of totality. And that's going across the northern part of New Hampshire. But all of New Hampshire is going to see a partial solar eclipse, so part of the Sun will be blocked, and you'll see sort of a crescent shape that covers it up. But we're going to see a lot more coverage in April for the partial part than you will in October for the partial part.

Melanie Plenda:

And John, what's the best way as you were mentioning to safely view these eclipses?

John S. Gianforte:

Well the two best ways to view a solar eclipse and to view the Sun at anytime doesn't have to be during an eclipse is using a projection method. A pinhole projector is probably the safest way, the easiest way. And if you are interested in doing that, all you do is take a piece of cardboard and cut a square hole in it. Cover that square hole with tin foil, pick a pinhole in that aluminum foil and then get a great big piece of poster board and on the day of the eclipse or any sunny day. Point the piece of cardboard with the pinhole and the aluminum foil up at the Sun and put the poster board behind the piece of cardboard with the pinhole in the aluminum foil and move it back and forth. And you'll see a round image of the Sun. The day of the eclipse is on October 14th which is a Saturday. A little after noon, you will see a little piece, a little nibble taken out of the Sun and won't be a complete circle. Another method that works very effectively and is very safe is to use solar eclipse glasses. And this is a great way to view the Sun anytime and especially during any partial phases of the eclipse, all through the October Eclipse. And for most of April 8 2024 Eclipse, we will be having to wear these eclipse glasses using the projection method to safely view the Sun. The only time you can observe the eclipse is if you are in the path of totality, or the Moon completely blocks the Sun. And it's only going to be for a few minutes, depending on where in the state you are, the closer to the eclipse path you are, the longer it will be totally obscured by the Moon. But that's the only time during a solar eclipse, when you can directly look at the Sun without the glasses. That's because the Moon is completely covering the disk of the Sun. And it's safe to look. But as soon as a little, little, little sprinkle of sunlight filters through the valleys and mountains on the Moon, after the eclipse is over, those glasses have to come right back on.

Melanie Plenda:

And just in case that folks at home are not yet convinced to use one of these two methods. John, what happens if you don't use these methods? Why is this necessary?

John S. Gianforte:

Well, that's a really, really good question to cover. And if you don't, the problem is it's not any more dangerous to look at the Sun during an eclipse, except you know, the eclipse is going on. So it makes you want to look. And if your eyes are unprotected, and you look at the Sun, anytime you can cause irreparable damage to the retina, the light sensitive part of your eye way at the back of your eye. It doesn't sense any pain or no pain receptors in the retina. And so you'll be burning a hole in your retina, literally, if you're looking at the Sun, without even knowing you're causing any damage. And the longer you look, the greater the damage will be. And it could very well leave you lined with really permanently visually impaired. So it's really of the utmost importance to project the image of the Sun during the partial phases. Or were the solar glasses during the partial phases.

Melanie Plenda:

So this question is for the three of you. What do you think drives our interest in eclipses? And why do you think so many people from so many walks of life find them fascinating. Let's start with Amy, then to John and Lori.

Amy Keesee:

So I think solar eclipses are a way to experience something awesome, something in science that has no barriers you're just walking around, you just need some very simple equipment to be able to observe them. And we're always fascinated by things going on in the sky, just because we experience the sky all the time. And so having something different and spectacular is very interesting to everybody. 

Melanie Plenda:

And John, what do you think?

John S. Gianforte:

Well, it's one of the few events that I can clearly say that is truly awesome. Once you see a total solar eclipse, you'll be looking online for when the next one in your area will be and they are just an awe inspiring act of nature that you can actually witness and observe without any optical aid at least the total the total part of the of the eclipse, like I mentioned, during the partial phases, you have to use the glasses or you have to project the image of the Sun. But it is absolutely an awe inspiring event for the amount of time that the Sun is completely covered by the Moon. It's just something that is completely out of our experience. And just beautiful. You will see the most beautiful shades of pink with some of these explosions of superheated plasma that you can see poking out from the black New Moon. And it's just you'll be able to see the atmosphere of the Sun called the corona. It's kind of a kind of a white light. That's coming out in many different directions from the Sun, not bright enough to hurt your eyes, but truly a spectacular sight in the daytime sky. 

Melanie Plenda:

Lori?

Lori Harnois:

Yeah, I agree with Amy and John, I think it's just a natural phenomenon that only 13 states in the United States will experience totality. And New Hampshire is one of those lucky states. And I think people want to come and see that. And from what I understand, it's when totality is happening, that you can hear noises that you typically would hear at night from the animals. So I'm really excited to, to experience it this coming spring, where

Melanie Plenda:

And John and Amy, what are you and your students planning to do around the eclipses? Let's start with John and then to Amy.

John S. Gianforte:

Well, with such a large student population and staff and faculty, we'll be having some sites on campus to view the clips from, we'll probably have telescopes equipped with solar filters, as well as some solar eclipse glasses that we've actually had one of our students designed the artwork for, and will be passing some of those out on campus. So that will be something that we're going to be doing right here in Durham, probably on the main campus where we can reach a lot of people during the eclipse, which is late in the afternoon on the 24th of April, which is a Monday. 

Melanie Plenda:

And Amy.

Amy Keesee:

Yeah, so we're also working to prepare educators across the state to work with their students in sort of the K through 12, but also informal educators, we've built a website, it's extension.unh.edu/eclipse, where we're going to have lots of resources and videos about how to prepare for the Eclipse. And we have funding from the NASA Space Grant, where we've bought some more eclipses, the ones that John was referring to get a student design, and we're going to be offering those to educators across the state so that they can plan events in their communities to observe the eclipse. We're also going to plan an open house on the UNH campus within the Physics and Astronomy Department and the Space Science Center. So probably about a week before the Eclipse people can come in, learn about the Eclipse and learn about all the awesome Sun and space related research that we do.

Melanie Plenda:

Wow, what an exciting experience that you're talking about. University of New Hampshire professors John S. Gianforte, Amy Keesee, and Lori Harnois, thank you all so much for joining us. 

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Respectful Conversations on Sensitive Topics: How Can We Work Together to Disagree Without Resorting to Aggression

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

On this episode of The State We’re In, Melanie Plenda talks with University of New Hampshire grad students, Shantel Palacio, and Nathan Harris, founders of Beyond the Border, a critical dialogue series, and James Rinker, Digital Community Engagement Journalist for The Keene Sentinel, and part of the current cohort of the solutions journalism networks Complicating the Narrative Fellowship, to find out what it takes to have a respectful conversation on a sensitive topic without resorting to shouting and personal attacks.

Melanie Plenda:

So let's start with a question for the three of you. Can you tell viewers a little bit about your projects and what you hope to accomplish with them? Let's start with Shantel. And then to Nathan and James.

Shantel Palacio:

Thank you. So our project is called Beyond the Border, a critical dialogue series, and the goal is essentially to have a New Hampshire based expert engage with their counterparts from beyond the border in a conversation about sometimes controversial topics.

Melanie Plenda:

And Nathan, what would you like to add to that?

Nathan Harris:

I think that says it all. Getting them to engage is the fun part, and then watching it all unfold as it happens.

Melanie Plenda:

James Rinker.

And James, how about you?

James Rinker:

So for the next year, I'll be reporting on the lack of resources for gender affirming health care in the state of New Hampshire, which is a state that is already struggling overall, in access to rural health care. The goal is identify possible solutions, and bring more resources to the state while also highlighting the resources that are actually here. At the core of the work that I do with the Sentinel is to help establish trust and transparency in the local news organizations such as the Sentinel, and this fellowship, I'm doing that in terms of debunking misinformation around this recently very polarized and politicized topic, and encouraging others to listen to each other more rather than closing off and that sense of judgment and indignation.

Melanie Plenda:

Absolutely. And so this is also for the three of you, why has it gotten so hard to talk to each other? Does it seem like a skill we need to learn or relearn, especially after the pandemic?

Shantel Palacio:

Yeah, definitely, I think before the pandemic. Some of these topics were difficult to talk about. But during the pandemic, I think we lost our ability or connection to each other. And then there was the racial reckoning that happened. And then it created, I think, more anxiety, particularly, in my experience, racial anxiety, where we want to connect with each other, but we're afraid to say something wrong, or we're afraid of dealing with, you know, kind of microaggressions. 

Melanie Plenda:

And Nathan, anything you want to add to that?

Nathan Harris:

Yeah, I think social media has helped with that a little bit. People can isolate and just send barbs out, not communicate. When you watch teenagers or adults basically have a whole hour conversation, just using their phone, and not ever engaging. We're just not doing what we used to do. So now when you throw a difficult topic matter into the mix, it makes it a little even harder.

Melanie Plenda:

And James, what do you think?

James Rinker:

Yeah, in terms of my work I view it as not the fact that we have gotten harder to talk to each other rather, we've been talking more at each other. Humans really need to be heard before they will listen. And so we don't do nearly enough since the pandemic of listening to each other, especially with these really difficult conversations. And as a result, there's a lot of conflict. That's I mean from that, and not a lot of understanding, well, where are we coming from in these views? Where are we coming from these conversations to begin with the root of why do we resort to these very different sides and immediately close each other off?

Melanie Plenda:

So how do you get past that? And this will be a question for all three of you. How do you get past that in these conversations where it sounds like the goal is not to get everyone to agree, but how do you get people to at least hear each other enough to understand where the other is coming from?

James Rinker:

Yeah, definitely. And so, for me, it's really getting under the surface of their way of thinking. It would be kind of bad if we all agreed on the same thing, all the time. And as humans were meant to have that conflict and different opinions and different interests. When it comes to these conversations, I'm learning more, where these viewpoints are coming from and asking questions like, How has this conflict affected your life? What is oversimplified about this thing that you feel really strongly about? And most importantly, what are the questions they feel that nobody is asking? When it comes to your views when it comes to this topic that you feel really strongly about? And working to also get to the root of, is it because they've been misinformed? Is it because they actually are spreading misinformation and disinformation about this topic? So in my realm, in health care, in gender affirming health care? Is this actual factual information? Or is this actually ‘Oh, this is an experience, this is something that they have lived through that they have heard about’, and learning more from that.

Melanie Plenda:

Interesting and Shantel and Nathan, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Shantel Palacio:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that we just need to have spaces to be able to engage and ask questions, and even make mistakes. The university setting is an academic institution, it's the perfect place to be able to ask questions. So I think folks really need that place to kind of explore and engage in conversations that they've never had before.

Melanie Plenda:

For the three of you. Both projects are focused on sensitive conversations. So what does it mean to you to complicate the narrative or have a critical dialogue? Let's start with James and then to Nathan and Shantel.

James Rinker:

So in terms of my fellowship, specifically, it's rooted in conflict mediation techniques, though complicating the narrative idea came from a scholar, Amanda Ripley, she wrote an essay, and then I now have her book. And it really just talks about this looping framework. So hearing what people are saying to us during the active listening work. And from there kind of looping that back to them of if I'm hearing you correctly, you're this is what you're thinking, this is what you're saying. And really making sure that those active listening skills and putting those into practice and making sure that people know that they're being heard in these conversations, and when it comes to complicating the narrative as well, it's that mediation, making sure that when we're complicating the narrative, we're meaning that we're learning about these different ideas and how they can coexist in this space, and these different viewpoints, and not making this an unsafe space. And making sure that people understand that there's a lot of nuance in any kind of topic that has some people view it as one side versus the other. In my work is just how are all the layers interacting with one another in this topic of conversation?

Melanie Plenda:

Nathan, what is that critical dialogue? What does that mean to you?

Nathan Harris:

Well, we start with trying to with the complication of the narrative and the critical dialogue, we start with a title that we think captures something that they think about. But maybe it might be something different, but it has some complications to it. Like diversity is a dirty word, which is one of the first ones that we did. Because we knew that that word diversity was a trigger word for some people, and it had different narratives around it. So it was complicated. So we start with that narrative. And then we create the space in the tone that James was talking about, that Shantel mentioned. And then we try to get that narrative to flow. And we're looking for those pieces that give us the opposite in the same

Melanie Plenda:

What do you hope attendees take away from this experience? Let's start with James and then to Shantel and Nathan.

James Rinker:

Yeah, so for me in terms of my work, I really just hope that people come from this with just a little bit more information. I am moderating these conversations and I've done a lot of research myself, and these will be co facilitated with other journalists and community leaders throughout the state, and in that route in those communities. We're really hoping that people come from these, just knowing that they sat and listened, that they heard from people in their community that had this different viewpoint and that they felt it was okay, to make mistakes to fumble, because this is an issue that in gender for me healthcare now in the United States, and talking about the topic is met with a lot of just closed off judgment. People are too scared to talk about it in a way that we can come together and just find, where are you coming from from this. And so I really hope people come from my work, and specifically my conversations, whether it's reading the stories or listening to each other in these spaces, to just remember where other people are coming from, and to know that it's okay to have these conversations in their own communities outside of these structured spaces, that they can take this kind of work anywhere.

Shantel Palacio.

Melanie Plenda:

Absolutely, and Shantel.

Shantel Palacio:

So we have these conversations around the dinner table with our dean. And we talk about politics, and education, and policy, and all of these things that we're going to cover in CDS. And we want everyone in the room to feel that way. Like they're sitting around a dinner table. And they're talking about these crazy topics, respectfully, and if they hear something new, great. And if you hear something all in a different way, great too.

Nathan Harris:

Every time I go to one of these, I learn something. So I always do have an objective, I would like for the group or people in the group to walk away with one thing that they didn't know, that either surprised them, or it updated their information or something they thought they knew. And typically, in all the ones that we've done, there's always been at least one or two things. So there may be more, but if they walk away with one thing, I personally feel like it was very successful.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, these are great projects and best of luck to all of you on your endeavors, UNH grad students Shantel Palacio and Nathan Harris founders of Beyond the Border, a Critical Dialogue Series, and James Rinker, Digital Community Engagement Journalist for The Keene Sentinel and part of the current cohort of the solutions journalism networks Complicating the Narrative Fellowship. Thank you all so much for joining us today.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Navigating Inflation: Strategies for Average Worker's Salary to Sustain Economic Relief Amidst Growing Pressures

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

The rise of inflation has had a major effect on people especially those whose salary hasn’t caught up. On this episode of The State We’re In, Melanie Plenda talks with Phil Sletten, Research Director for New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute to discuss the economy, inflation, and what relief the average person might find to pay their bills.

Melanie Plenda:

So can you give us a brief overview of what's going on with the economy right now? Are we in a recession? Are we headed into one? Or is the economy good? I read headlines every day with contradictory information. So what's going on?

Phil Sletten:

Yeah, and it's understandable, because there's a lot going on. And sometimes there are trends that have counter trends from other sets of data. Fundamentally, the national economy is in quite good shape. The economy was running relatively hot, as in, the economic growth was quite fast, particularly coming out of the COVID 19 pandemic. And that economic growth has slowed some in 2022, on average, and has not leapt back up to high levels that we saw, for example, in 2021. And that's true in New Hampshire as well speaking generally, the economic growth that we've seen has been actually relatively robust. The job growth nationwide has been strong. And inflation, which was quite high in 2022, has been coming down and has come down for 12 of the last 13 months. Only in the last month did we see year over year inflation be a little bit higher than the year before. So the national economy is not in a recession. 

Indeed, the forecasts that we saw even as early as, as recently as January of this year, that suggested there would be a recession at some point this year appear to have generally changed to show that there's less likely to be a recession, the Congressional Budget Office doesn't have one in their two year forecast, for example, although they do have the economy slowing. In New Hampshire, we haven't seen a strong job growth year over year. And part of that is because of our labor force constraint. It's not because there's a lack of demand in the economy for goods and services. It's because there are not as many people in the labor force. So the labor force is only slightly grown relative to last year thus far in 2023. And it's difficult for employers to find employees to fill positions.

Melanie Plenda:

And just to follow up on that real quick, do we know why that is?

Phil Sletten:

That's a great question. So, I do want to be clear that the number of jobs that employers say they have filled is actually higher than it was in 2022. But the number of people in New Hampshire who say they're employed, is actually a little bit lower than it was or about the same as it was this far and average this year.So that suggests that maybe more people are staying in the state to work as opposed to commuting out of state, more people may be taking part time jobs. So to for example, in response to rising costs, and the major constraints that we see on the growth and labor force, are really rooted in housing and childcare constraints, the lack of accessible and affordable housing, and the lack of accessible and affordable childcare means that there are people who otherwise would have moved into the state who haven't been able to find a place to live in the state or who would have moved around the state for work who haven't been able to find an affordable place to live. And for people who are already in the state, but need to have some access to childcare and need to care for a child or children. They have not been able to find childcare that's affordable in a way that makes sense for them to engage in the labor force as fully whether that means they're working part time instead of full time, or because they are not working at all to care for a child at home. That is something that there are some numbers that suggest that's a pretty significant labor force constraint in the state as well.

Melanie Plenda:

And so let's get back to inflation for a bit. So what is inflation and where does it come into play? Why has inflation risen so sharply in the last year? What's causing it?

Phil Sletten:

Yeah, that's a great question. So inflation, when economists are talking about inflation, generally it's referring to an overall increase in prices. So the price of a particular item or a particular service might go up or down but be independent of how other prices move. Inflation is referring to all prices, or at least the price overall of the collection of things that most of us purchase. When we are behaving in the economy, when we're buying goods and services, the prices overall have gone up. And that is reflecting the erosion of the value of the currency, meaning the dollars that you have buy fewer things, right, and the dollars that you have buy fewer services. So when we're talking about inflation, we're talking about that general increase. And why has it gone up is a complex question, because there are lots of different factors that have been at play. 

Initially following the COVID-19 recession, the price increases were isolated to a few areas, used cars and airline tickets. But especially over the course of the second half of 2021, we saw increased demand for goods and services more generally, particularly on the good side, because a lot of people shifted their spending from services to goods as the COVID 19 pandemic started to affect how we all behaved. And that meant that supply chains had to respond and supply chains had trouble responding. And there were a lot of goods that were suddenly more people were buying things for their households, as opposed to going out and getting haircuts and going to the movies. So there was the response, that was something that a lot of supply chains had difficulty doing getting goods to people who were looking to purchase them, and that led to some price increases as well. Households had savings, that coming out of the pandemic, they spent a significant amount of that savings because of both changes in habits, not going on vacations in the same way that you might have, for example. But also in changing your spending patterns because of federal fiscal stimulus that put more money in people's pockets. Some of that money was used right away in the economy, some of it allowed people to build up savings. And those savings were pretty significant, especially for upper middle and upper income households in 2022, a lot of those have actually been spent now that in aggregate, those additional savings from the pandemic have appeared to have eroded away. So but that contributed to inflation as well, because people were able to spend more and spend more in different ways in the economy. 

Also energy prices, particularly because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, energy and food prices both increased substantially. And those two are interrelated because the food has to move around. And that's usually powered by energy. And, of course, the unique nature of Russia and Ukraine, and both the energy and food markets respectively, led to a substantial increase in inflation in 2022, is some research from the Economic Policy Institute suggests that the increased corporate profits that we've seen, may be part of it as well, people expecting inflation leading to higher prices, and those prices may have outpaced the costs in some cases. But, inflation expectations lead people to make different decisions to try and forecast what inflation would be. And if everyone's expecting inflation, they're more likely going to plan for it. And that can help cause it actually, as well. So there are a lot of different factors, some of the choices that the Federal Reserve made between 2020 and now, a lot of different factors have contributed to inflation. There's no one single reason that we've been seeing it, but we have seen quite a bit of it relative to the last, 30 years or so of history. There's been quite a bit particularly in 2022, but it has eased substantially in 2023.

Melanie Plenda:

Recently, you did a study about the state business tax rate reductions leading to hundreds of millions less for public services. So can you unpack that for us? What did that study entail?

Phil Sletten:

Sure, and the reason that we embarked on this study is to really understand or do our best to understand why business tax revenues have gone up over the last, roughly half decade. So between state fiscal year 2015 and state fiscal year 2022. The combined revenues from the business profits tax and the business enterprise tax, which are the state's two primary business tax revenue sources, the combined revenues went up 118%. That's substantial, especially in the context of New Hampshire's fiscal situation and the New Hampshire state budget. The business profits tax is the single largest tax revenue source the state has now by a factor of two. So a lot of the surpluses, the dollars that are generated over budget plan. Over the plan that the state budget made in terms of how much revenue was going to come in, those surpluses have been largely generated, not entirely, but largely generated by additional business tax revenues. So why have they come in so strong? And was it because of a policy change that was happening at the same time, which were rate reductions, the both the business profits and the business enterprise tax rates were reduced incrementally over time between 2015 and 2023? If that is the cause, then that would be a valuable fiscal policy to know about because then we could. That's something state policymakers have control over as opposed to other factors they wouldn't they don't have control over. 

We didn't find evidence that the tax rate reductions led to increased revenue or offset the revenue losses associated with the tax rate reductions. There was not a correlation between the business profits tax rate and job growth over time, and there was not a correlation between the business profits tax rate and economic growth in New Hampshire relative to the rest of New England over time, and the business enterprise tax revenues went down when the numbers are parsed out, Business Enterprise tax revenues went down business profits, tax revenue still went up. National corporate profits appear to be a primary driver behind that, as well as federal tax policy changes associated with the tax cuts and Jobs Act which was passed back in December 2017. And provided incentive for multinational companies which comprise more than half of the revenue that's collected by the business profits tax come from filers of business filers that indicate that they have a significant international component. 

Those revenues, they're one time revenues associated with the tax cuts and jobs act as well as permanent changes to the tax base, that have likely boosted revenue as well. So we didn't we didn't find an economic relationship, certainly one on one that was sufficient or significant enough to identify that there was an increase in our corporate tax revenues, that was caused by our tax rate reductions. And also other states saw their corporate tax revenues increase as well, during this time period, nationally, the increase was about the same as New Hampshire, between state fiscal years 2015 and 2021. And in the rest of New England combined, it was actually higher. It varies by state. But that depends on particular state policies and economic conditions and how businesses are behaving in each of those states. But we saw an increase elsewhere, that's what strongly indicated, New Hampshire was not unique in seeing this rise in corporate tax revenue. And finally, there was not there was no other research, there was no academic research, peer reviewed research that indicated that a corporate tax rate reduction here would lead to increased revenue. So those other causes are likely what's contributing to it. And as a result, we were able to then calculate based on available research and economic modeling, what the tax rate reductions would have been, what the tax revenues would have been, how much higher they would have been if the rate reductions hadn't taken place between 2015. And now or and 2022, I should say. And that's based on some of the economic modeling that indicates there was some economic feedback from tax rate reductions, but again, not enough to offset the tax revenue losses.

Melanie Plenda:

For viewers who don't pay business taxes, why should they be interested in the business tax rate? How does it affect them? And how would you explain that to them simply?

Phil Sletten:

Sure, well, New Hampshire relies on our business tax revenues more for state budget expenditures than any other state does. In New Hampshire in 2021, roughly 31% of state tax revenue came from corporate taxes, where the next closest state was New Jersey with 14%. So it is very important for our state budget and for funding state services, and for supporting the state budget in a way that permits the state to send more money to local governments, whether that's for education, or, in many cases, supporting highway route and bridge construction as well, or for general economic aid or fiscal aid to local governments. So it does impact, for example, local property taxes in that way indirectly. There's also if we learn more about corporate tax rate changes, business tax rate changes, and who's paying business taxes and what those impacts are in the economy. And that helps us understand what are the impacts that we as people in New Hampshire are buying things and looking for work? Could feel when it comes to a state level tax rate change. If there were a strong effect on employment, for example, or if a lot of the costs associated with the tax rate changes were passed on directly to consumers in New Hampshire, that would be important to know and valuable to know, and those corporate tax rates and understanding the impact of these business tax rates on the economy. Having that understanding allows us to under a hat allows us to better know how our state is raising money and spending money and what the trade offs, the economic trade offs and the trade offs and services are associated with that. So business tax rates are not something that most of us see every day, but they can affect our county compensation and they can affect the services that we see.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, there's a lot to think about there. New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute Research Director Phil Sletten, thank you so much for joining us today.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Bears in the Backyard: What Do We Need To Know To Stay Safe

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Today we're here to talk about bears. Bears have been cropping up in neighborhoods across New Hampshire. And is that a good thing? Here to answer our burning bear questions is New Hampshire Fish and Game, Bear Project Leader, and Wildlife Damage Biologist, Dan Bailey.

Melanie Plenda:

So can you tell us a bit about what you do? What does being a bear project leader and wildlife damage biologists entail?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, absolutely. And first of all, good afternoon, and thank you for having me. So my position with New Hampshire Fish and Game, again, is Bear Project Leader, I am tasked with managing the bear population throughout the state. So in New Hampshire, bears are managed by region, we have six bear management regions in New Hampshire. Each one of these regions has a specific population goal and objective that we strive to keep that population in. And we manage to be there by region, because as you can guess, their populations are not the same throughout the state. So by managing them at these smaller levels, we can more accurately manipulate them to where we want those populations to be. Another thing to note is, our main tool to manage bear populations in New Hampshire is through hunting season structures. So these hunting seasons allow us to harvest bears and keep those populations in check. And we can either liberalize seasons, if we need to decrease population in certain regions, or we can take a more conservative approach, and have a shorter season if we're looking to grill populations. Another large aspect of my job is managing conflicts throughout the state. So we have bear technicians that work seasonally for the department and for our partner, agency, USDA Wildlife Services. They assist us in managing these conflicts, through education, technical assistance, and conflict abatement loans.

Melanie Plenda:

So when you say conflict, can you explain what you mean by that? What does that look like in the wild? And with what you do?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, so when I'm referring to conflicts, I'm referring to a homeowner, or maybe it's a commercial grower that is having an issue with a bear and is reaching out to the department for help. You know, this can be a variety of things from somebody seeing a bear in their backyard and perceiving that as a threat to bears getting into unsecured garbage in a household, bears getting into bird feeders at homes, or unprotected poultry or livestock. So there's really a variety of conflicts we can call them. But really, it's anyone calling in looking for assistance.

Melanie Plenda:

When you go in to deal with those conflicts, is there some is there an overarching strategy, like underlying it? Are you trying to make sure that you just kind of relocate the bear? Or what are some of the thinking around that conflict sort of resolution?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, in New Hampshire, conflict resolution typically revolves around education, and trying to secure food attractants, they are very food motivated, a majority of our bear conflicts in the state revolve around bears getting into some kind of food attract in that household. The way we would mitigate that is to educate the homeowner on securing that food attractant. And if that is unavailable to the bear, and the bear cannot access it, then that problem will resolve itself. So it's really just trying to figure out, what's the problem at hand? And what's the best solution? You mentioned, relocation, really, we do not relocate there. We don't do this, because it may be a short term solution to the issue, but it's not a long term solution, that bear is at that property for a reason. And if we move that bear, another bear will likely just fill its place. So we need to get at the root of the issue.

Melanie Plenda:

So why is that? Are there more bears? Are our neighborhoods closer to theirs? What's going on there?

Dan Bailey:

I'd say that's due to a variety of factors. Number one, there are more there, over the past 30 years, our bear population in the state has more than doubled. But if you also think about our human population, we've added about 300,000 residents to the state of New Hampshire during that same time frame. So we have more people on the landscape, we have more bears on the landscape. And another factor that I would add, especially in recent years, most homes now have security cameras. So you're seeing, people are seeing they're at their home, when they normally wouldn't, we get a lot of videos sent in of a bear crossing through someone's yard at two o'clock in the morning, there have always crossed in their yard at two o'clock in the morning, but now they are aware of it because they have these home security cameras. COVID, and people working from home more, has also influenced that because as people are home on their property more, they are more apt to see these bears when they pass through.

Melanie Plenda:

Interesting. And so can we talk a little bit more about why the bear population has doubled? Is it because of hunting? Or how is that changed?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, so management strategies, our bear population was a lot lower and below its environmental carrying capacity, back in the 80s and the 90s. And the department's approach was to grow the bear population. So our harvest strategy was conservative, not many bears were being taken during the hunting season, allowing for the population to grow. Now our population is at the level that we want it to be sustained at. So we take a more liberalized approach during that hunting season, especially in some of these management regions, the White Mountains region and the Central Lakes region where our populations are, right now a little above our goal. So we're taking a liberalized approach to try to bring those populations back down to levels that we want to see them stay at.

Melanie Plenda:

And we spoke a bit about this already, but do we need to be worried about bears? Are they a threat to humans or pets?

Dan Bailey:

No, we certainly do not need to be worried about them. If you're seeing a bear likely it's either passing through your property or it's there because there's a food source. So if you do not want to see bears on your property, make sure that you secure all food attractants like we talked about bird seed, unsecured garbage, pet food, and backyard pool alter your livestock. But yeah, that is the reason that the bears are on your property, they have one goal and that is to get food. So likely if you're having an issue where a bear is repeatedly on your property, it's because it's getting something. And that does not include your pets that does not include people. They're not looking for those as a food source. It's more of these things that we've talked about.

Melanie Plenda:

And what's the best way to prevent bear visits is putting your garbage inside enough? It seems like bear proof feeders aren't the best solution.

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, so as we talked about before, making sure that your home is free of any food attractants. So, you know, the department recommends that bird feeders only be out between December 1 and April 1. So anytime during the summer months, spring, summer and fall, bird feeders should be removed. Garbage should be secured either in a locked structure or in a bear resistant or bear proof container. That way bears can't get at it. 

Melanie Plenda:

And if someone has concerns about bears in their neighborhood, what should they do?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, they're concerned about bear issues in their neighborhood, they can reach out to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, Wildlife Division specifically. And we can help them with any issues or concerns they may have.

Melanie Plenda:

And if you do encounter a bear, what should you do?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, typically, if you encounter a bear saying you're in the woods, my experience has been if I see a bear, it's because it hasn't seen me yet. So just making your presence known, clap your hands, say, “hey, bear”, typically, you'll find that that bear will quickly take off in the other direction.

Melanie Plenda:

What if a bear is in your pool or your house? Both of those things have happened in other states recently.

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, you know, those are very different situations. So I'll start with the pool. Yeah, if you have a bear in your pool, they don't see it as a pool, they don't see it as your property. They see it is a water source. They're avid swimmers. And likely, there, we see these videos during, these heat waves, and bears just cooling off. So just some harassment, clapping your hands using pots and pans using an air horn, any kind of loud, sharp sound to harass that bear and make it feel uncomfortable on your property. A bear being in your home is a different situation. In New Hampshire, if you have a bear that has entered your home, we certainly would urge you to contact the department so that we can work with you to mitigate that situation.

Melanie Plenda:

And one last question, just kind of coming back to that idea of climate change. How are you taking the impacts of climate change into your sort of management of these pieces? And do you think that we will be seeing more of our food sources being impacted? What's happening there a little bit?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, I would say, looking at the past few summers, I think three out of our past four summers, we've been in a drought. At this time of year, bears diet heavily, very heavily rely on berry crops, which we call soft mass, you have raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and various cherry crops that are available to bear during the summer months. When we have these years of significant droughts, it impacts those berry crops. And it means that there's less food available on the landscape for bears. So, that certainly has negative effects. It means bears have to travel further for food because there's less available. And as we see that continue, and if this cycle of drought, summers continues, that certainly will negatively impact bears availability or food availability on the landscape. The other thing we're seeing, with climate change, we're seeing that we're having shorter, more mild winters which means bears are active longer. They're active further into the winter, and they're active earlier in the spring. And the main issue that arises there is because, food availability, especially in the early spring, there's not a lot of food on the landscape for bears. So they gravitate towards these bird feeders and suburban settings where there's food attractants and that increase in conflict can lower that social carrying capacity and negatively impact our bear population.

Melanie Plenda:

Dan Bailey, New Hampshire Fish and Game Bear Project Leader, and Wildlife Damage Biologist, thank you so much for joining us today.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

New Hampshire Housing Market Faces Increase in Rates; How Will This Impact NH Residents

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

Affordable housing is an issue across the region, but the pinch is especially felt here in New Hampshire. Vacancy rates for rental units are 8.6%. The median rent for a two bedroom unit is $1,764, an 11.4% increase in just a year. On this episode of The State We’re In, New Hampshire Housing’s Executive Director and CEO Rob Dapice, and Senior Director of Research, Engagement, and Policy, Heather McCann talk about what's going on in the housing market and how it affects residents.

Melanie Plenda:

Rob, can you give us some background about New Hampshire Housing and the survey's origins?

Rob Dapice:

Sure. Thank you, Melanie. New Hampshire Housing is a public corporation and what that means is that we were established by state law and we have a board of directors appointed by the governor and executive council. But we're not part of the government. We don't receive operating funds from the state. But we administer a range of programs that help promote and finance housing for the people of New Hampshire, and that includes financing multifamily, affordable rental housing. It includes helping our lender partners to offer mortgages that help people achieve homeownership. And we administer the housing choice voucher or section eight program for areas of the state that are served by a local housing authority. We also do a fair amount of research work and conduct research engagement and policy work to help inform stakeholders around the state in their housing conversations. And that's where the rent survey comes from.

Melanie Plenda:

Rob, can you give us a broad overview of the findings? 

Rob Dapice:

Sure, you touched on a few of them in the opening, but rents are up again, you mentioned the gross monthly median rent for two bedroom apartments of almost $1,800, statewide, a vacancy rate that's abnormally low at 0.6% statewide, and an annual increase in monthly gross rent of 11.4%, across the state, And the survey breaks that down by region, but to talk a little bit about what that represents in terms of a trend. That's the fifth year that we've seen increases in the monthly rent and the vacancy remains at an extraordinarily low level, we've been doing the survey using similar methods going back for 40 years, and this is the lowest we've seen the vacancy is where it's been in the last couple of years.

Melanie Plenda:

And Rob, what do these findings mean not only for renters in New Hampshire, but for people who want to buy a home in New Hampshire?

Rob Dapice:

They have very few choices. And so again, people are often looking for a home when they experience life events, maybe they want to form a new household, they're getting married, or moving in with a partner. Certainly, it can be as a result of divorce, or somebody's moving into the workforce, graduating from college, whatever the reason may be, there are fewer and fewer choices and that restricts people's ability to live the way they want to live. It restricts labor, mobility and affects the economy in that way, and certainly affects people who are most vulnerable. Whether it's individuals with disabilities, coming out of incarceration or lower, simply lower on the income spectrum, they're more more vulnerable and more likely to become homeless or lose their housing stability and wind up in an overcrowded or unstable situation.

Melanie Plenda:

And Heather, what did you think of the findings? Did anything about it surprise you at all?

Heather McCann:

Well, given the overall housing landscape in New Hampshire, as Rob has described, I was confident that we would see an increase in rents. The question was just how much they would increase. The high cost of purchasing homes and the very limited supply of homes for sale in New Hampshire especially for first time homebuyers or someone looking to make the transition from renting to ownership puts more pressure on the rental market. So I wasn't surprised to see the vacancy rate remain under 1%. Every year, though, I've come to expect it. So it's not much of a surprise. But a really big concern is the affordability issue. The stark contrast between rental costs and the median renter household income is a troubling reality that puts tremendous financial strain on many individuals and families throughout the state.

Melanie Plenda:

What would cause such a huge spike? And are the reasons that you're seeing the spike in Grafton County? Similar to reasons for increases across the state?

Rob Dapice:

Yes, I think similar dynamics exist in Grafton County as as to others. I mean, Grafton County has a very sort of micro urban area in Lebanon, Hanover, Enfield, where there's a lot of economic activity, a lot of demand, and not a lot of other metro areas from which people might plausibly commute. And so I think that creates sort of a perfect storm at times. But certainly we see significant rent increases like that often when a building changes ownership. Sometimes there are reasons that a new owner has to put a lot of money into a new property. But whatever the reason, it's very hard for households to manage that kind of increase.

Melanie Plenda:

And how their rental costs have been rising and vacancy rates have been falling for some time yet, it seems like the pandemic has exacerbated these trends. I mean, is that accurate? And if so, why is that?

Heather McCann:

Yeah, so I would say this is true, the pandemic prompted a shift in living preferences as remote work opportunities provided people with greater flexibility, many people reevaluated their space requirements in New Hampshire as a desirable place to live. So while we already had a challenging market, both on the rental and purchase side prior to the pandemic and increase in demand, coupled with limited supply, drives prices higher and adds competition to the market. We also saw, particularly in last year's survey, more rental properties that were sold than we've ever seen in previous years. And that could be a result of the pandemic, or an increase in property values people saw an opportunity to sell. And so this change in ownership, as Rob previously mentioned, often leads to adjustments in rental rates, causing rents to rise in certain cases.

Melanie Plenda:

And Rob, what does the survey tell us about the overall housing market and where it's headed?

Rob Dapice:

Historically, as I mentioned, this is extraordinarily a time of extraordinarily tight housing market conditions. It's just not normal to have so few houses on the market and so few rental apartments. I think it is important to get this data at the state level, because there has been some news coverage of housing market conditions loosening in certain areas of the state in some areas of the country. There are some news stories that talk about the southwest, where population has exploded, there's been a lot of new multifamily construction. And as a result of that explosion in new construction, rents have at least moderated somewhat, the report tells us that we simply haven't seen that yet. And there's really no nowhere relief coming just yet in terms of New Hampshire and housing market conditions.

Melanie Plenda:

Many economists link the housing shortage to the tight job market. After all, it's easier to find people to work somewhere if they have a place to live. So affordable housing can be linked to the overall economy of a community or the state. Yet, as you mentioned, building more housing in a community can be difficult, especially if people are concerned about too much development in town. So Rob and Heather, can you speak to that? What could you say to people who don't want development in their community or backyard? Let's start with Heather and then to Rob?

Heather McCann:

Yeah, so the availability of affordable housing plays a significant role in attracting and retaining a skilled workforce. So when people have access to suitable housing, they're more likely to consider opportunities in a given area, boosting the overall economy of the state. Community engagement, I feel, is really critical, talking through concerns educating community members and, and what offering diverse housing options means within each community, I often find people have an easier time connecting these dots, when it affects them personally. So for example, their children are looking to buy or rent a place close by, but there's nothing available or affordable to them, or the household is looking to downsize and they want to stay within their community, but there isn't anything available. So when you make these connections for people, it can help foster productive conversations around these issues.

Melanie Plenda:

And just a follow up on that I know that even in covering local communities for years the idea of affordable housing will always sometimes get the pushback from community members that this will lower my property values or this will somehow impact us adversely. So when can you talk about some of those specifics? Like what are the benefits of having a more diverse, a more diverse housing market in a community.

Heather McCann:

So it helps everybody in the community overall. So you get people that are going through kind of life stages. If you think about where you've lived in your lifetime, it's not always that single family home, it's an apartment, and as you go through your life, you have different needs. And hopefully, you can afford to make changes to your housing situation, based on those needs and how they evolve and change over time. I think people have a stigma of affordable housing or workforce housing. But they often neglect to realize that affordable housing, workforce housing can be naturally occurring, so it's homes that maybe are smaller, that are more affordable to people with a lower income. It's not necessarily a building that's just dedicated to people of a certain income level. And so it's a lot broader than people may assume. And it impacts everybody in their community in one way or another.

Melanie Plenda:

And Rob, what do you think?

Rob Dapice:

So, first I would say absolutely. The tight housing market affects the economy and labor supply. And that's why you see the Business and Industry Association, a statewide Chamber of Commerce, has for years identified housing as one of its top issues. And you hear from large employers like Dartmouth Health and Fidelity that tell stories about numerous employees accepting jobs, and then rescinding their acceptance because they can't find a place to live that they can afford. In terms of what I would say to people who are concerned about development in their town, I would say first, I understand and change can be frightening and unsettling. But Heather talked about education. And I think one of the wonderful things that we've seen is in a lot of towns in New Hampshire, the places that people love most about their town, the downtown's that were built in the 19th century, are now made illegal by local zoning. And in a lot of cases, if you wanted to build a similar community, now, you couldn't do it because of the regulations that have been imposed in the past few decades. So just being aware of that, and being aware that a lot of the most wonderful places in our communities are, are really not able to be replicated or improved, because our local zoning is important. And the other thing I would say is all changes are unsettling, it's scary, it's important to understand the changes happening, and particularly for those folks who are in suburbs that might be considered wealthy or desirable, those places are getting a lot more expensive to live. And the path that we're on in a lot of communities is for less expensive houses to become more expensive houses. And that affects the community when people who have lived there for a long time, can't stay in the community that they know and love and in many cases work in. And so understanding how providing the opportunity for other reasonable housing options and more affordable housing alternatives, can sort of preserve a lot of what's special about the communities important too.

Melanie Plenda:

And one more follow up question. You had mentioned what the state could do more to address local regulations. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What could the state do?

Rob Dapice:

So, as I said, I think the state has a role in working with municipalities to ensure that their regulations are not so burdensome, that private property owners are sort of unable to meet the demand for housing. So this already exists in law, just the state has a workforce housing law, which says that cities and towns have to create or allow for reasonable opportunities for different kinds of housing to exist. But I think that that law could perhaps be a little bit more specific, or maybe there's opportunities to identify the distinctions between reasonable regulations that serve to protect a community's character and environmental quality and restrictions that go too far.

Melanie Plenda:

Oh, that's really interesting. New Hampshire Housing Executive Director and CEO Rob Dapice, and Senior Director of Research, Engagement, and Policy, Heather McCann. Thank you so much for joining us today. 

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

The State Of Journalism: What Can Reporters Do to Regain Trust in the Public?

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

Around the country, local news is struggling. Shrinking newsrooms due to financial pressure, burned out reporters, publicness trust journalism is being hit harder than it ever has before. While New Hampshire is not immune from the crisis, here in the Granite State news organizations are doing everything in their power to innovate and engage to keep local journalism alive and sustainable. Annmarie Timmins senior reporter for New Hampshire Bulletin, Carol Robidoux founder and publisher of Manchester Inkling and founding member of the Granite State News Collaborative, and Julie Hirshan Hart reporter and editor for The Laconia Daily Sun are here to discuss the state of journalism in New Hampshire, what's happening in the news industry and how it impacts communities within the Granite State. 

Melanie Plenda:

Annmarie, can you tell us about some of the bigger issues facing local news and how you've seen their impact in the Granite State?

Annmarie Timmins:

I guess I’ll start by saying I think we're really lucky here. We have a very strong news presence. There's so many different kinds, and a lot of it's free to read, thanks in large part to the collaborative and other nonprofits. But that's not to say that there aren't challenges right now. I was at the Concord monitor for about 20 ish years. And when I was there, we had 15 reporters on staff. And we always felt like, why are they starving us of resources? I think they're down to five reporters now and still manage to get the paper out. So I think what I'm seeing generally as newsrooms are shrinking, but the demands for news every day remain. So I just think reporters are working on more stories with less time that results in a very different kind of story than big takeaway, investigative pieces. So I think the resources in New Hampshire are very, very strapped here. And I just don't know how a lot of my colleagues get news out every day. So I think that's a big picture. We're luckier than most and that we have so much free local news here. But it's hard to get it out. And I wonder how long some of us can continue to do that.

Melanie Plenda:

And, Julie, let's pick up on that with you. How do these issues kind of play out in the community? What impacts do they have on the everyday lives of community members?

Julie Hirshan Hart:

Well, as Anne Marie mentioned, now, we're all trying to do more with less so as our newsrooms are shrinking and as we have less resources, we still have the same number of stories that we have to cover, we still have the same number of towns that we have to deliver news on in our coverage area. So our community, with the advent of the internet and social media, is used to being able to access the information that they want immediately. And we have to do our best to keep pace with that, while also prioritizing the most important stories and trying to balance delivering all of that information to our readers with less resources.

Melanie Plenda:

I know all three of you have really, really built community engagement into what you do, prioritizing, knowing your sources and building relationships with them, and knowing your community members. So, you know, let's talk about that a little bit. So Annmarie, as a reporter, talk to us about how you broke this barrier of distrust and formed those relationships with your sources and why that's important.

Annmarie Timmins:

I will say it's getting much harder to do during my time at the monitor, in part because the monitor was a trusted new source. There wasn't this competition of people masquerading as new sources that Carol described. And because I've been around a long time, I have a long source list from people I met many, many years ago and it was just much easier because there wasn't as much distrust, there was people who felt like the monitor had a bent, but in the end, they could separate the newsroom from the editorial page. 

What I'm seeing now is a sort of trickle down of what we saw during the Trump administration, the press being enemy number one, that still is coming up for me. And so when I call people who presume I am a progressive, Uber liberal socialists like filling the word, source, they won't talk to me. And they're often rude about it. And so it's hard to find a way to get into a conversation. So for us, the Republican leadership at the Statehouse has been very distrustful of us, they've sort of tend to go toward another outlet that is really opinion, but calls itself news for most of the time. 

And so when we don't have their voices in a story, it's unfortunate for readers, I think, so what I'm trying to do is, take the abuse that I get from some people who view us as not the good journalism outlet, and just keep going back and keep going back and trying to convince them send them my story that I wrote about their subjects and say, please let me know, if you find anything inaccurate here or slanted. It's just a long, long process, I really have not encountered this kind of resistance before. I'm even asked, "Are you on my side?" when I call a news outlet, a source, or try to talk to someone at an event even about why they're there. And it's just, it's more and more hostile. 

And I think the other piece is Carol alluded to this, that news is being delivered in a different way. So if you take Twitter, I feel like it's largely become a platform, at least for my writing for the Libertarian Party, for example, is very much targeting me. For anything I write, it's not clear to me, they've read the story, but they feel like I'm a progressive reporter. And they'll say things like, people should throw tomatoes at me, or I'm a hateful person, or I'm a bad person. And the amount of pylon that I see on Twitter within a day, there'll be 45 people liking that. So that kind of, I think, distrust just piles on and then if I try to talk to anyone in that party, they just know me as this Twitter, you know, personality. And so it's just, it's hard, you have to keep trying to do it. And it's abusive sometimes. But I have my notebook between me and them. And I tried to think this is not about me, this is about them. And it's my duty to keep trying, but it's become harder.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, first, no one should have to put up with that level of abuse from anybody in any field. And I'm sorry that you have to go through that. And all journalists are going through that right now. But one follow up question, when someone does ask you, “Are you on my side?”, how do you respond? I'm curious, because what would you say in that situation? 

Annmarie Timmins:

One quick example, I was at an event where the Proud Boys were there protesting it. And I just went up, I said, “What are your concerns? What brings you out today?”. I was easily attacked like, “that's a biased question”. And so, how is that bias? I don't know. But I tried to explain that this is what we do. This is how journalism works, that I'm talking to these people. But I also feel like it's really important. I hear from them. It's kind of journalism, one on one, I increasingly have to have that conversation. I'm not sure it's persuasive. But that's usually my response to say no. And even like, could we just have a conversation first, set the interview aside, and you can ask me sort of how I'm approaching the story. And we'll just have a casual conversation, and then please, then maybe decide if you want to talk to me. So it's a lot more explaining what we do, which I don't think is a bad thing to help people understand what journalists do. But more and more I'm happy to say, this is how I approach it. This is journalism. Why do you think that's a biased question? So just trying to be open to a conversation has helped a little bit.

Melanie Plenda:

And, Julie, how do you implement that kind of community gauge engagement into your newsroom? I know you've done quite a few initiatives in that regard.

Julie Hirshan Hart:

So we try to prioritize transparency in everything that we do, to try to invite the community in and see behind the scenes see how we're doing our work, who it is in our newsroom that's doing that work so that they can connect with us when they see us out in the community, and recognize us as trusted reporters who work for a legitimate newsroom. We've started hosting events, which help many community members, whether their sources or readers, get to know us as journalists, and also help them understand the work that we do.

Melanie Plenda:

And I think to me engagement comes from the need for diversity, diverse audiences, diverse sources and diverse newsrooms, staff, all of you. Why is diversity in news so crucial? And how do you implement diverse perspectives both in and out of your newsrooms?

Julie Hirshan Hart:

Diversity can look a lot different. One thing we're focusing on in our newsroom is, instead of just relying on those official sources that we've had in our contact lists for years, is looking for younger voices or looking for new voices that have a different perspective on an issue than we might be used to. And also just being present in the community going to those community events, whether we're more reporting on them or not, but that develops sources, like we mentioned earlier, makes people recognize you and be willing to come up to you and share story ideas, meeting as many people as possible. We try to do editorial boards as often as we can and invite people into the office just to talk about what's on their mind and that helps us not only learn about new sources, but new story ideas. And social media has become a huge part of our work that connects us with different sources that we might not meet, through our day to day work out in the community or at our desks. And it really allows us to include the voices of sources we might not otherwise be able to.

From left to right; Annmarie Timmins, Carol Robidoux, and Julie Hirshan

Melanie Plenda:

Annmarie Timmins, senior reporter for the New Hampshire Bulletin, Julie Hirshan, editor for the Laconia Daily Sun, and Carol Robidoux, founder and publisher of Manchester Inkling and founding member of the Granite State News Collaborative. Thank you all so much for joining us today and what you do every day.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Legislative Session Recap: Housing, School Funding, Gambling, and Marijuana Legalization in Focus,

 By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew,

 NH PBS and Granite State News Collaborative

Housing, school funding, gambling, and marijuana legalization. All these and more were tackled by the legislature this session. This week, Anna Brown, Research and Analysis Director for Citizens Count and host of the podcast $100 Plus Mileage, talks about what was and wasn't accomplished this legislative session . 

Melanie Plenda:

Let's start with the unusual makeup of the house this session. How did having such a close split between Democrats and Republicans impact the legislature?

Anna Brown:

Well, originally, I suspected there would be a lot of partisan rancor. Maybe those hardcore on the right or hardcore on the left would be able to really drive a wedge on some issues. But I was wrong. Most of the hot button highly partisan bills were in fact set aside in favor of focusing on legislation that was more likely to get bipartisan support, or was a top priority for legislative leaders. So for example, the House Education Committee had many bills related to the so called Education Freedom Account Program, which allows students to take a per pupil share of state education funding and spending it on private or homeschool expenses. There were many bills related to that people on the left wanted to limit the program or increase oversight. People on the right wanted to expand eligibility or the mountains of money that were going into the program. The education committee actually recommended tabling the vast majority of those bills, which is a way to set aside a bill without having debate without having a full vote. And just basically moving on to other issues. There was also a really bipartisan lead from the majority and minority leaders, Jason Osborne and Matt Wilhelm. They started the session with a co-sponsor bill for marijuana legalization. And I think that, them working together really set the tone, “What about the amount of legislation that was affected by the makeup? How productive were they?”. There was slightly less legislation than I expected this year starting in the session. And I think that legislators edited themselves a little bit because they knew those very partisan fringe issues. We're not going to move forward. So it seems that there was like I said, a little bit of self editing going into the legislative session. Wow. That's interesting. So as you mentioned, the two party leaders Jason Osborne and Matt Wilhelm, work together 

Melanie Plenda:

What about the amount of legislation was that affected by the makeup? How productive were they?

Anna Brown:

There was slightly less legislation than I expected this year starting in the session. And I think that legislators edited themselves a little bit because they knew those very partisan fringe issues. We're not going to move forward. So it seems that there was like I said, a little bit of self editing going into the legislative session.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk about the budget bill that was passed this session. Budget bills seem so innocuous, but they never are. So especially here in New Hampshire. Can you tell us about some of the highlights in that bill? And what does it mean for people?

Anna Brown:

Sure, this was an incredibly historic budget, because it was very popular among both Democrats and Republicans. It actually passed on a voice vote at one point, which basically means it was so popular that legislators could pass it just by saying yay, in a chorus, which was notably louder than the nays, so they didn't even need to count the votes. Overall, lots of wins. Here, there's a new school funding formula that increases state support for schools. There's more money for housing development, a pay raise for state employees, seven year authorization for expanded Medicaid, a repeal of the interest in dividends tax, and more. Those are just the big highlights. And then there are some smaller policy changes that didn't get as much news coverage, but are also really interesting. There's a new requirement for law enforcement to post notice on their websites before setting up an immigration checkpoint. This is particularly relevant near the northern border with Canada. There are also new limits on the governor's power to declare an emergency. That's a response to the ongoing emergency related to COVID-19, which went on for several months in I believe, even years, there's also $1 million to develop a civics tech textbook for New Hampshire students in grades K through 12. And lastly, the budget looks and lastly, the budget lifts some campaign donation limits as well.

Melanie Plenda:

What about housing, an issue plaguing New Hampshire and the rest of the country with the high cost of housing and the low stack available, what initiatives that the legislature put forward?

Anna Brown:

First of all, the state budget does include 25 million for the Affordable Housing Fund, and then an additional 10 million for the InVEST New Hampshire Housing Development Fund, which has fewer restrictions related to affordability. So the idea is you can just increase housing stock across the board. The most interesting provision to me, though, is what's called a housing Champion Program. This was very popular in the Senate, less so in the house. The idea is that if cities and towns adopt certain land use regulations, water infrastructure, public transportation, and so on, that helps the development of workforce housing, those towns and cities could get preferential access to state funds. So the idea is this is basically a carrot for the state to say, Hey, how about you work on that infrastructure and zoning to welcome more housing critics in the house, we're concerned that this was a way for the state to play favorites among cities and towns. But ultimately, the program was included in the budget because we all acknowledge housing is a crisis right now in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

One of the more controversial proposals in the legislature this session was the parental bill of rights that didn't get through to the governor's desk. What did those proposals entail and what happened?

Anna Brown:

There were two big parent rights bills, we had HB 10, which was the House version, and SB 272, which was the Senate version. HB 10 is interesting, because it actually made no mention of gender as introduced. It laid out many existing parental license rights and state law and then added some more enforcement, some oomph to those existing laws. SB 272, on the other hand, specifically would have required teachers to disclose information about a student's gender identity or sexuality if a parent asked, and opponents were concerned, this would threaten the privacy rights of students, especially if they had a hostile parent. 

And that's one reason why SB 272 also had an exception if school personnel had quote, unquote, clear and convincing evidence that a student might be abused or neglected by a parent. Ultimately, both of these bills were defeated in the house, however, with the very slim majority, arguing that we need to protect the safety of students and their privacy. And this bill is inviting attacks on teachers and schools. Those were the general arguments, just a couple of Republicans broke with their party to vote against the bills, and the Democrats mustered enough attendance so that neither bill ultimately passed. It's interesting Governor Sununu did not really weigh in on either bill. He's open to them as a concept. But I think that if we're going to see these bills, or some version of these bills reappear next year, for example, in the state senate, then I would think they probably need the support of Governor Sununu to really get across the finish line.

Melanie Plenda:

And there were also bills addressing gender equality. This session, though nothing was passed. So what were some of the proposals discussed and how might they come up again,

Anna Brown:

There were actually several bills that were retained in committee in the House, which means that these committees can work on the bills over the summer, and then they'll issue a recommendation in the fall. So then there will be a vote often right away when legislators come back in January. So four of those bills for example, HB 264, would allow a sex chain on a birth certificate without a court order. hB 368 would add protections for gender affirming health care, HB 396 would protect differentiation between male and female sex and HB 619 would ban gender transition, care for minors and ban gender identity conversations in school. So as I said, the retaining committee, these bills aren't dead. They are absolutely coming back next year. So I think the parent Bill of Rights was just the very tip of this conversation, and there's going to be a lot more next year.

Melanie Plenda:

So the perennial favorite marijuana legalization came close this session, though all the states around New Hampshire are legalizing cannabis. It's not legal here. Despite the fact as you mentioned, it had support of both party leaders. What does that mean for the next session? Do you think

Anna Brown:

There was a real game changer near the end of the session, when Governor Sununu announced ‘surprise surprise’ he would support marijuana legalization if it was a state run model similar to how we do our liquor stores. So there's a study committee of that issue over the summer. There's also a bill that's in a House committee that would set up state run marijuana stores basically. So this issue is absolutely going to move forward. And the house we know is on board. The House has voted for all sorts of versions of marijuana legalization state run private with taxation legalization without any sales. So now the question is really whether the Senate will get on board and I do think they will have a lot of pressure now that Sununu has finally said with the right bill, this is the way we can do it.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's look ahead to the next session. What are your predictions? What do you think will come up again, there?

Anna Brown:

I'm definitely looking at the housing and childcare issues, because there were those special committees that were set up. We've also touched on some obvious ones like marijuana legalization, gender issues. But one thing that didn't get as much attention this year as I thought it might was energy related bills. Yes, there were some bills that went forward related to bio power related to residential solar panels related to what appears on your electricity bill. But I'm very interested in what the state is going to do related to the renewable portfolio standard, for example, which is set to expire in 2025. Or is there going to be something related to Reggie, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, something else with offshore wind? Let's not forget a year ago, we were all hit with a huge increase in our electricity bills. And it looks like those bills are going to be coming down for most of us in August. Now that there's new rates coming in, but like I said, this was an issue that I expected more on. So I think that they'll dig in next year.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Juicy Garland; Protests and Intimidation: Drag Story Hour Targeted by NSC 131, Community Responds with Resilience and Solidarity

By Rosemary Ford, and Caitlin Agnew

NH PBS, Granite State News Collaborative

Click here to watch the full conversation on The State We’re In

On The State We’re In, Juicy Garland who performed at the Teetotaller Sunday Drag Story Hour as well as capturing clips of the group protesting before and during her story hour talks about what happened.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you so much for being here. So Juicy. Can you tell us about your background? How did you get into drag performance? And how did you come to do the story hour on Sunday? 

Juicy Garland:

Yeah, so I had always been interested in drag. I was always a fan of Drag Race. But I actually held off from doing drag for a long time. Part of that was limited resources. Part of that was limited time. But I had friends who started doing drag and who encouraged me to do it around 2018, 2019. So I really took a deep dive in 2019. And then, over the pandemic, I really took a deep dive, started sewing and started working on my makeup and started performing as soon as the pandemic started to ease up. And then, as I was performing, I started doing brunch at Teetotaller. And they invited me to start doing story hours because they felt like my drag was family friendly. And they had been looking for someone who could be family friendly, and who could tailor what they were doing to a different kind of audience than an adult audience. So I was eager to do it. Because I love working with kids, I used to work with kids with disabilities, I used to want to teach and I went into the industry instead. And because of that, I was thrilled to be able to do it and started doing that in November of last year.

Melanie Plenda:

Excellent. And let me ask a little bit about it sounds like you sort of got into drag in 2018. Over that time, what did you learn about drag? I mean, it really is an art form. And I think sometimes that gets lost in these conversations. So maybe we can talk about that a little bit like what is it as a form of expression or as an art form? What is it for you? 

Juicy Garland:

Yeah, so I've always struggled with my self image and my self expression. And I saw it as an outlet for me to really find an alternative way to be myself. But also, I don't know, I'm the kind of person who likes to find boundaries and find out where the edge is, and then push that boundary every single time. And I don't know, my favorite drag queens in history are people like Devine, who really do extreme things with their art and just go well beyond that boundary of acceptability. But also, I don't know, I also love camp. And I love Queens like Ben dilla crem, a famous Drag Race Queen, who really do goofy smart things, aesthetically. And that's something that I've always really just wanted to be able to do. In addition, I don't know, I see gender as a big old joke. We all put ourselves into neat and like convenient boxes. So we're comfortable with the roles that are assigned to us. And I think that often, these labels that we apply to ourselves are really for the convenience of other people. So they're comfortable knowing where we stand. And there's something I think useful and important and interesting, about challenging what those neat little boxes, say about us and say about other people. And drag is a way to challenge those ideas and find new ways of reshaping them. 

Melanie Plenda:

So that kind of brings us to Sunday, so what happened during the story hour on Sunday. And when did you become aware of the protests? 

Juicy Garland:

Yeah, so I show up early. When I get ready for this particular event, I put my face on. And then I drive up to Concord because I don't live in Concord. And it's tough to drive an hour and so I drive up in my face, I take my suitcase with my drag queen in a box. And I then go into the cafe and I get into the rest of my costume. Then I go downstairs and most of the space is set up there's a microphone with an amp. And then there are the chairs arranged, the cafe has excellent management so I don't have to worry about a thing. 

And then I go sit down, I arranged my books at that morning, there was this amazing small family there was this mother with her adult kids, they had just moved to New Hampshire I believe last week, the two kids were adults, the younger had just matriculated into Dartmouth College in to study I believe genetics and biology. The older had just finished school in genetics, and was actually going to work doing genetics research at Dartmouth College. And they were there, moved in from the Bay Area to just be at Dartmouth, and they wanted to see a drag queen. So they came to my show as we were talking because I come from a background in the sciences in my day job. 

These organized men in khaki cargo pants, the goal of them to wear cargo pants, and their uniform T shirts with their little Neo Nazi symbols and their masks and their hats started to make noise and bang on windows and start shouting obscenities and slurs. So immediately this family of three left the space smartly. I am glad they did. And I decided to immediately document what these goons were doing. So I took a brief video, which is what I ended up posting online. And then I stopped that video and immediately sprung into action to touch base with Liam, the manager of the cafe, which we immediately discussed, how do we keep these kids safe when they arrive because none of the other families had arrived yet. And then we assessed we could keep them safe. We made a plan on how we would modify the event. We executed that modification, I remained downstairs to maintain the attention of the fascists outside as they were seen heiling and shouting obscenities. And then after we had arranged the event, we had confirmed with the families who had arrived that they did want to continue with the event. I moved to the alternative space within the cafe. And we hosted the event. 

And despite the noise that these fascists made, after the police arrived, they were moved away from the windows to make sure that they didn't cause any damage to the cafe. They were moved to the front sidewalk where the street is. So that way while they could execute their First Amendment rights, as stupid as they are for these people, they have that right. They were disruptive, but we were able to keep these kids effectively oblivious of the problem. Although they were aware of the noise. We kept these kids safe, the most important part because the event is of course about them. And I was able to not only entertain these kids and read stories about family to them, because it was Father's Day, and that was the theme we had chosen. But I was also able to make sure that the parents were comfortable, and that the parents felt safe as well. And we read through every single story I brought. And I was able to have a great time with these families, and they left happy and thankful. 

Melanie Plenda:

So what was going through your mind? I mean, I know I hear you kind of went into action mode where you were taking care of these different steps. But what was going through your mind either as it was happening, or even once the dust settled? Like, what were you thinking about?

Juicy Garland:

Honestly, for me, and maybe this is a uniquely weird thing for me. And this might come from my background. For me, when I'm faced with a crisis, I immediately go into problem solving mode. And this is something I saw in Liam, the manager of the cafe, he did exactly the same thing. We met with each other, we both had the same, like look on our face, which was, let's solve this problem and figure it out. We did that. And then I think the biggest struggle for me was maintaining the compartmentalization to execute on that. There was a moment I distinctly remember, I don't remember which story it was. But I was like turning a page. And the fascists outside were loud. So I could hear individual words, they were chanting, they were chanting things, like, get off our streets get off our streets, they were clearly organized. These were different people than who had protested before. Before the protesters were effectively lazy is the best word, we had to describe them previously. 

Liam and I had ultimately joked about it. We had been less worried about our safety and organizing anything to like, prevent them from arriving because they had stopped arriving. These were different people. But then also, they chanted, F, slur, F, slur, F slur, that was, in the back of my mind, like part of my mind, recognize that consciously. At the same time I'm reading, like, the first book I read was like, Heather Has Two Mommies, which I did as a joke to myself, I do that a lot, where I'd have a joke that only I know. And no one else gets it. And I'm thinking it's funny. So that's fine. But I'm like turning a page in one of these books. And I'm making a funny voice and entertaining the kids. And I'm like, saying something to make sure that the parents are laughing along with their kids, and that everyone feels good and happy and is having fun. And in the back of my mind is just that word being chanted at me. And like maintaining the compartmentalization to be able to execute on making sure people are safe and feeling safe, was tough. 

But I had a very busy day. So not only did I have the event that I had to execute on successfully, which we did, and then immediately everyone left, one family stayed for a little while, and I chatted with them. And it was wonderful. I love these people, the community of Concord is amazing. I immediately got out of drag, I packed everything away, I got a bite to eat. I planned the next event with Liam like, he and I are both like the same people. We both immediately had the conversation. Not do we do this, again, that never once was discussed. It was when do we do this again. And then immediately after I got in my car, I drove right home as fast as I could to my partner in Massachusetts. I finally sat on my couch in the dark, and was able to have the space to just sort of emotionally react to the whole day. And at that point, I was allowed to feel rage. 

And I just did that for an hour just being angry at the goal that these idiot fascist goons had to think that they could stop me from just letting some kids have fun and hear stories about different kinds of families. Like they even had the power to achieve that end. And they did not. And I won. Yeah. Well, and you talk about doing this again. But I mean, you know, are you talking about keeping the family safe, keeping the kids safe? Or were you afraid for your safety and even going forward? I mean, of course, like that has to be a consideration Right? Like, I'm not dumb. Like I'm a smart person. I know that my safety is at risk. These are violent dangerous people who were dumb enough to put that at risk, clearly. But at the same time, we live in a dangerous time where there's never been more important for me to be an advocate for my own and other people's rights when other people are in a similar position to me. 

And I am already putting myself out there as a loudmouth stubborn person in a wig. Just sticking out like a sore thumb being queer and brightly colored. And I'm not about to stop that. Because even if I tried, I couldn't, I tried that when I was 13, struggling with the fact that I was gay, and it didn't work then. And it's not going to work now, no matter how hard I try. And, ultimately, I feel like it's an obligation for all of us to recognize that Fascism is a problem. And it's not going to go away if we stop pretending to be gay. And passive activism isn't enough. Like we have to put ourselves out there and show them that we're not going to stop being queer because they want us to. And obviously, if the families of Concord don't want to show up, I can't make them. But I'm going to continue putting myself out there to welcome them if they want to keep coming back.

Melanie Plenda:

What, if anything, would you say to this NSC 131 Group and the other groups that are like them,

Juicy Garland:

Ultimately, their views, their fascism has no business in Concord or anywhere else in this country. We fought a war about 80 years ago over this. And I think we settled that pretty harshly with them, then. And I don't think that has changed. There is no space for that kind of bigotry, or that kind of violence anywhere in our culture. And there is no room for tolerance of that kind of viewpoint. We cannot allow that kind of fascism to inhabit any kind of space in our country. It does not belong here. My grandmother lost brothers to that fight. And how many of our grandparents lost family because of that fight? We're not about to tolerate that kind of violence and nonsense now, when we still have family missing because of it. 

Melanie Plenda:

So what generally should people know about attending story hour and what would you like to say to parents and kids who might be thinking of coming?

Juicy Garland:

So, ultimately, I do not broadcast when it's happening again, publicly, online. And that's ultimately because it's meant for the local community and I don't want to publicize it, to keep it as safe as possible, right? So if you are local, go to Teetotaler and make sure that if you are interested in going seek that information out from the cafe itself. I let them manage that information directly. And I have every ounce of trust in Teetotaller to do what they can to keep this event as safe as possible, ultimately use your own discretion. But I have no doubt that there will be additional support and resources from the local peacekeepers, and I'm assuming the local police as well after the last event. There will be plenty more advanced support in order to make sure that this group and others can't disrupt the next event like they did this one. And I am eager to see the next one, simply because I know it will be far more safe and secure than the last one because we will be far more prepared. 

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Wheels to Work program remains in limbo in New Hampshire

Since 2017, initiative that provides used cars to low-income families has failed to win state support for funding

By Mark Quirk-Granite State News Collaborative

On Feb. 1, early in the 2024 legislative session, the N.H. House of Representatives rejected House Bill 1520 by a slim 193-184 vote. The bill was aimed at reviving the state’s long-dormant Wheels to Work initiative.

The program had been sustained for 15 years with both state and federal support by the Good News Garage — part of the regional Ascentria Care Alliance nonprofit. It repairs donated cars and gives them to low-income individuals and families “striving for self-sufficiency,” according to its website. But while the program is alive and well in Massachusetts and Vermont, it has been stalled in New Hampshire since 2017.

Rep. Joe Schapiro, D-Keene, the bill's primary sponsor, emphasized that he’s pursuing pilot projects to assist marginalized communities. Transportation challenges are a persistent problem, so Schapiro embarked on the initiative to bridge those gaps.

Shapiro’s bill sought $220,000 from the state, to be matched by federal money, to create a family assistance car ownership pilot program within the state Department of Health and Human Services. The objective was to provide 20 vehicles to adult recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families — TANF for short.

Schapiro argued the program would save the state money by helping people move off state benefits and remain gainfully employed. He said the recipients would be screened and complete the New Hampshire Employment Program to develop financial literacy, employment readiness, and knowledge about automobiles. 

The New Hampshire Employment Program, overseen by Health and Human Services, provides financial assistance, employment opportunities and job training to low-income families.

But not everyone agreed with Schapiro’s reasoning. Rep. Leah Cushman, R-Weare, who opposed the bill, said she believed the estimated value of $20,000 for each vehicle was high, and even if the recipient were to get off state benefits, it couldn’t be established that the savings would offset the amount the state invested. 

Cushman also said she was concerned about how recipients would pay for repairs to the vehicle and about how the program would prevent fraud.

Cushman’s argument apparently won the day, and the bill was moved as inexpedient to legislate, essentially killing it for the session.

“We are disappointed, of course,” said Tom Kupfer, marketing manager for Good News Garage. “We hear from residents in New Hampshire every day. We would love to be able to give out cars in New Hampshire again.”

Good News Garage accepts donated vehicles from all six New England states and eastern New York. The organization performs any needed repairs to the vehicles and awards them to people striving for self-sufficiency. It also operates in Massachusetts and Vermont, where the nonprofit began in 1996.

According to a 2017 report by the Health and Human Services Bureau of Improvement and Integrity Financial Compliance Unit, the program was saving the state about $155,110 a year.

At that point, Good News Garage was awarding about 100 cars a year and the report cited a savings of $1,551 per recipient per year. It also showed recipients were less likely to go back on state benefits once they received a vehicle. At the time, the used vehicles were valued at $5,000 each.

Kupfer said the report “verified exactly what our hope was with this program. It confirmed all these things.”

Mercedeze Moore of Newport, Vt., a mother of three, received a used SUV in 2021 — the recipient of Good News Garage’s 5,500th car. At the time, she said the car “is going to open up so many more opportunities for my family.” She said she previously had to walk her children well over a mile to get to child care and then walk another half-mile to her job. (Good News Garage screenshot)

Executive Council opposition

But at about the same time, Executive Councilor David Wheeler pointed out that Good News Garage had been operating without a used car dealer’s license for 10 years, something Good News Garage leadership said it was unaware it needed.

Wheeler had opposed spending $2 million in federal funds on the program — an appropriation he described as “the most wasteful contract I’ve ever seen,” according to a Union Leader article published in 2016.

As a result of that opposition, Good News Garage ceased operations in New Hampshire in the summer of 2016, and said it would be “actively pursuing” a dealer’s license.

Then-Gov. Maggie Hassan voiced her support for the program at the time. She said having a vehicle helped people get off welfare and keep a job, which she said saved the state about $18,000 a year per family. 

The state stopped funding the program in 2017. This session’s HB 1520 was the first time money has been requested since.

Since then, visitors to Good News Garage’s New Hampshire website have been greeted with the message: “Our New Hampshire Wheels to Work program is inactive at this time while we wait for the state to renew its contract for program funding. State support is the only way we’re able to feasibly award cars to NH residents. While we still graciously accept vehicle donations from NH residents, we are only able to award cars to neighboring residents in MA and VT at this time. We hope to be able to help Granite State residents again someday soon!”

Both Kupfer and Schapiro say there has been talk about the state starting a program run through New Hampshire auto dealers, but nothing ever came to fruition.

Karen Hebert, director of the Division of Economic Stability at Health and Human Services, pointed to the department's mission to foster self-reliance and independence — a goal exemplified by the Wheels to Work initiative. 

"It was an innovative idea to help people gain self-sufficiency,” she said of Wheels to Work, highlighting the program's goal to empower individuals. 

Despite the setback in February, Hebert noted recent efforts by the Statewide Coordinating Council for Community Transportation and the various regional coordinating councils across the state to launch keepnhmoving.com. 

That website offers a range of resources and has the goal of allowing Granite Staters to easily locate transportation options tailored to their needs, filtering options by community, region and transportation type.

Meanwhile, the people at Good News Garage — which does now have a used car dealer’s license that’s good until March 2026  — and Ascentria hope a lawmaker will take up the mantle and request funding for Wheels to Work in the 2025 legislative session.

Given the approaching budget year, Gilberto Calderin, director of advocacy for Ascentria, said he thinks there’s a good chance of that happening.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Public comments on minimum ed standards revision are overwhelmingly in opposition

Only one of over 200 responses to Department of Education proposal favors changes

By Rhianwen Watkins, Granite State News Collaborative

The N.H. Department of Education’s proposed update of minimum standards for public education is drawing significant backlash from the public, at least according to the overwhelming opposition contained in over 200 written comments sent to the department.

The public comment period on the proposed changes to the minimum standards – known as the 306 rules – came to a close April 30. A total of 204 written testimonies were sent to the state Board of Education and made public on the department’s website. All except one of the 204 written accounts were in opposition to the current revisions.

The department’s proposed revisions of the minimum standards, which are updated every 10 years, have received intense opposition from educators and other stakeholders since they were released Feb. 15. The overwhelming majority of speakers voiced their opposition at the board’s two public hearings in April. 

In addition, attorneys in the Office of Legislative Services, an arm of the N.H. Legislature, voiced several concerns about the proposal – including its constitutionality – in a draft reviewing the proposal for legal compliance.

The main points of concern in the public comments sent to the board included potential removal of state public education funding, eliminating caps on classroom sizes, shifts in wording from “shall provide” to “may include” – which educators assert makes certain program elements optional – and the overall impact on student achievement going forward.

"While neighboring states move ahead with forward-thinking proposals and programs, the NH Department of Education seems determined to drag us backward and squash our kids' chances of reaching their potential," wrote Richard Popovic of Nelson. 

Sara Lewis, a music teacher at Josiah Bartlett Elementary School in Bartlett and interim principal at Pine Tree Elementary School in Conway, had similar sentiments.

“Our neighbors in Vermont are doing just the opposite,” she wrote. “Increasing funding to put MORE money toward students who have been historically marginalized and discriminated against.”

MaryEllen Reinself of Enfield echoed concerns over New Hampshire’s educational standing.

“When compared with other states, New Hampshire has a very strong national ranking for the quality of its public education. These proposed revisions to the 306 Rules threaten to eviscerate public education in New Hampshire,” she wrote.

Catrina Annis of Berlin raised concerns over the future of her children’s education in a district with lower funding.

"As a parent of two children in the Berlin Public Schools in the county of COOS how dare you attempt to reduce the standards in place for our children."

Asked why she felt motivated to provide testimony, Annis replied to the Granite State News Collaborative in an email:,  “Our taxes are high yet our schools are in disrepair and our students and staff have to make do with lower quality materials and supplements … not only are we significantly poorer, we are receiving less help from the state then they are obligated to provide.”    

Despite Kent Hackmann’s granddaughter being in her last year of public school, he also expressed concern over the future of New Hampshire’s education.

"I am 86, a vet … and the grandfather of a student completing her senior year in high school. I am a firm believer in the role of public school education," he said.

Greg Eaton of Winchester communicated his worry over potential impact on taxpayers.

“This is a horrible idea as a way for the State to save money. Education is not the place to make those changes and cuts,” he wrote. “The direct potential effect on us as parents in a small NH Town is frightening.”

Another motivator to publicly comment was due to the removal of “acknowledgement of “diversity” from the standards and instead replacing it with “respect for differences.”

Jacob Bennett of Chester took particular issue with this.

“Deleting ‘diversity’ from existing language in Ed 306.06 cannot be understood as a mere editorial decision but a fundamental shift away from requiring affirmative policy and toward allowing passive ‘respect for differences,’” he wrote.

Some commenters specifically called out Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut and state Board of Education Chairman Drew Cline.

“This is a blatant misuse of power and a reminder that Commissioner Edelblut is trying to dismantle New Hampshire’s public schools. The fox guarding the henhouse, indeed,” wrote Mel Hinebach of Concord.

"I am outraged by the deceit, the outright lies, and most of all, the anti-democratic agenda so obviously promoted in the 306 revisions. Cline has a mission to impose his own conservative philosophy onto New Hampshire's educational system, thereby harming public schools in his fervor to transfer badly needed public money to private, often religious schools and homeschooling,” said Kris Flather of Hanover.

"These revisions threaten to hurt our students by redefining and watering down what is considered an essential, required, and adequate education in New Hampshire,” wrote Sean Parr, a member of the Manchester Board of School Committee and chair of its Education Legislation Committee

When asked later why he felt compelled to include his voice in the conversation, he replied, “The Ed. 306’s are something that we as a board have been pretty unanimous about the whole time and I thought it was important to go on the public record, expressing that.”

He also emphasized the disconnect between two state bodies, the Department of Education and the Office of Legislative services.

The commissioner and board have repeatedly emphasized their belief that the document is in the best interest of students, but educators, parents and taxpayers continue to fear the impacts of the revisions if passed.

"This weakening of our public schools seems to me to be part of a national campaign by extremists to dismantle one of the cornerstones of our democracy," said Charles Rhoades of Dover.

Liz Tentarelli of Kearsarge left the Board with an important message and plea.

“You have the opportunity to turn down these suggestions,” she said. “If a diploma from a NH high school is to stand for anything, you need to discard these vague 306 standards and start anew, with expert and professional input from those who will use them to teach. Remember where your responsibility lies: with the schools and the students, not with Mr. Edelblut.”

The only person to write in favor of the proposal was Luke Felthun of Bedford. He said he felt that keeping the wording change of “may” from “shall” when referencing program elements was a good decision. 

“This may not be an ideal approach but is nevertheless an improvement as many of the requirements increased student and teacher workload without adding meaningfully to learning,” he said.

In addition to the individual public testimony, Christine Downing, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Cornish, Grantham and Plainfield school districts, submitted testimony from her own educator review sessions, in which she and educators across the state came together on multiple occasions to analyze the dept’s proposed revisions. 

Within the 13-page testimony, Downing outlined important educator recommendations for the board to consider.

Educators who attended Downing’s sessions found that not all minimum standards had actually expired. The standards must be updated every 10 years, but from time to time certain sections are individually updated within those 10 years, leading to varying expiration dates. Downing’s team recommended putting the most focus towards the standards that are about to expire and creating more time to come to agreements on the ones whose dates are not as pressing.

The Department of Education issued a statement responding to the heated criticism in the public comments that were submitted:

"The New Hampshire Department of Education appreciates and welcomes the public feedback that has been received. It is clear that, given the substantial public interest, there are strong feelings and significant input regarding the vast importance of updating the Ed 306 Minimum Standards Rules. This is understandable and not unexpected given the significant impact of the rules, which is evident based on the 30-year history of previous attempts by the New Hampshire State Board of Education to update and revise minimum education standards for public schools - most notably similar issues that were raised in 1992 that captured nationwide attention.”

The department provided two links to New York Times articles from August and November 1992 regarding previous education standards revisions in New Hampshire that caused considerable public concern. At the time, the state school board at first voted to eliminate virtually all minimum state education standards and allow districts to set their own. The state board eventually backtracked on the plan in the race of immense opposition.

“We are pleased that this has been a robust process with active participation from the public, and we are excited for the State Board to move forward with its responsibility of rulemaking. The State Board is in the process of reviewing public input and will take all comments into consideration during its revisions to the rules," the department’s statement concluded.

On June 11 at 10 a.m., Commissioner Edelblut will be present for a public meeting of  the Legislative Oversight Committee for the Education Improvement and Assessment Program to further discuss the revisions. The meeting will take place at the Legislative Office Building in Concord, in room 205-207.

The meeting will also be livestreamed for people who cannot attend in person. 

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

N.H. schools go beyond academics in crafting a ‘portrait of a graduate’

With community input, districts emphasize ‘equally important’ real-world skills to prepare students for their futures

By Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

Earlier this year at Franklin High School, a group of cheerleaders got together to present their physics project. But there was no PowerPoint or test papers. Instead, the girls used cheerleading and stunting to demonstrate principles of the science. 

A poster that accompanied a presentation by cheerleaders at Franklin High School, demonstrating a real-world application of physics principles. (Courtesy of Franklin High School)

Jule Finley, curriculum coordinator for the Franklin School District, said she was blown away by the confidence the students showed and the depth of their knowledge as they responded to questions from the teacher. 

“It wasn’t just memorized to plop some answers on a test and forget it two days later,” Finley said. “They know that information, and they will not forget it because they’ve connected it to something they are passionate about.”

The physics presentation is just one example of a project-based, real-world approach to learning that Franklin is trying to foster, Finley said. 

This year, the high school was able to be more creative and flexible with its curriculum because the district adopted a “portrait of a graduate,” a document that outlines the life skills that the community wants graduates to have, including attributes such as resourcefulness, wellness and responsibility — all of which were on display during the physics presentation, Finley said. 

With the freedom to work toward those goals, teachers are thinking outside the box about how they deliver their lessons and assess students’ learning, she said, and students are more engaged than ever. 

Portraits of a graduate, also called portraits of a learner, are relatively new in the Granite State but have been used around the country to define what communities want from their school systems. The portraits serve as a vision statement for school districts and are an important part of competency-based education — an approach that emphasizes real-world applications of academic skills.

The Miford School District is among at least eight around the state that have crafted their own ‘portraits of a graduate.’ (Milford School District)

The idea is catching on in New Hampshire, with at least eight districts around the state — including Conway, Hampton, Milford, Nashua and Newport — crafting their own portraits of a graduate, many with help from the New Hampshire Learning Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to competency-based education. 

These documents provide guidance for school districts to equip students with particular skills and evaluate their progress in obtaining them, educators say. 

“The portrait of a graduate really is a great North Star … because everyone can answer, ‘What do you want our graduates to know and be able to do?’” said Laurie Gagnon, program director of the CompetencyWorks initiative at The Aurora Institute, a national nonprofit focused on competency-based learning. 

Interest in portraits emerged in New Hampshire about three years ago, amid concerns that students didn’t have the life skills they needed to function as adults, even if they met the academic requirements for graduation, said Carolyn Eastman, director of personalized learning at the New Hampshire Learning Initiative. She has worked with six school districts on their portraits of a graduate.

Parents, teachers and employers recognized that, beyond academics, “there are a set of skills that are equally important to success after high school,” Eastman said. Portraits of a graduate allow communities to list those skills and assess them, aiming to increase students’ likelihood of success. 

“We want to make sure [students are] prepared and ready for whatever future they’re going into” after graduation, said Nate Burns, principal at Nashua North High School, who is helping lead his district’s development of a portrait of a graduate. 

What skills should graduates have?

Creating the portrait often starts with a basic question: What should graduates be able to do by the time they walk across the stage to accept their diplomas?

When communities ask that question — as Franklin did through community forums, meetings with local businesses, and even polls of residents at the town dump — common answers often arise, Gagnon said. Life skills come up, such as financial literacy, cooking and the ability to tap into community resources, but so do so-called dispositions, such as being resourceful, community-oriented, collaborative or resilient. 

Franklin’s portrait of a graduate touches on six characteristics: a commitment to community; learning; resourcefulness; responsibility; wellness; and humanity, which the document defines as “recogniz[ing] the impacts others have on me and my impact on others.”

The Henniker School District has crafted a portrait with three tenets: envisioning a graduate who is a “respectful collaborator, effective communicator, and knowledgeable problem solver and creator.”

All of this may sound abstract, but when they work well, portraits allow school districts to structure their educational approach to facilitate these skills, Gagnon said. 

“It’s important it doesn’t just stay as a poster on a wall,” she said. “You’ve got to say, ‘What are we doing to help our learners become what we’re envisioning for them?’ That can drive lots of changes in the system.”

That’s what’s happened in Franklin, according to Franklin High Principal David Levesque. 

“This year, we’re embedding it into everything we do,” he said. 

 The Franklin School District crafted its ‘portrait of a graduate’ after a series of community forums, meetings with local businesses, and even polls taken at the town dump. (Franklin School District)

The result has been more interdisciplinary learning, such as field trips into the community and an increase in extended learning opportunities — internship-like programs that allow students to explore different career paths. 

One government class attended city council meetings and formed a mock council to better understand how local government works. In another class, students prepared a YouTube video to teach others about mindfulness, building their communication skills, their understanding of wellness and their grasp of technology. In a class that paired physics with sports, the cheerleaders were just one example of hands-on presentations.

“That’s the direction we’re trying to get to, where we’re not just using a paper or a trifold” poster to assess learning, Levesque said. 

In response, he said, the school has seen improvements in students' attendance and engagement. “The portrait of a graduate thing has saved us this year,” he said. 

An approach for the entire school system

In Nashua, the team working on the document has opted to call it a portrait of a learner, rather than a graduate, because if the ideas aren’t implemented until high school, “it’s kind of too late,” Burns said. 

Instead, he wants the Nashua portrait to be used from preschool all the way until graduation. Eventually, the document will provide not only guidance, but a framework for assessing students and measuring their growth in non-academic skills in much the same way their academic progress is monitored. 

“Prior to this … we didn’t have a way to report out on it, and we definitely weren’t speaking the same language” about non-academic skills, Burns said. 

Nashua’s document is still being drafted, but Burns says it emphasizes critical thinking, grit and relationship-building. 

Nashua is “not spending a ton” on the process, but creating a portrait of a graduate can be expensive. Franklin has spent $650,000 on the effort since 2019, which includes site visits to other schools around the country and students' experiences in the community. The funding was provided through grants from the Barr Foundation, a Boston-based nonprofit focused on education reform, among other initiatives. The same foundation provides grant funding that the New Hampshire Learning Initiative uses to support districts in creating their portraits. 

Other states have a statewide portrait of a learner. The New Hampshire Learning Initiative has crafted a portrait of a New Hampshire learner that includes five skills: critical thinking and problem-solving; communication; collaboration; adaptability; and learner’s mindset. However, the portrait isn’t part of state graduation requirements or the state’s minimum standards for public school approval, known as the 306s. 

Because of New Hampshire’s emphasis on local control, “the majority of the work is happening at the local level,” said Eastman. “While we have a statewide portrait, we know that local supersedes states.”

With that in mind, Eastman expects to see more communities creating a portrait of a learner. 

“Life skills have become very important to the kids, the parents and to the community,” she said. 

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Teachers accuse education department of secrecy in drafting standards for public schools

By Rhianwen Watkins, Granite State News Collaborative

The minimum standards for New Hampshire schools are going through their every-10-year update, and educators across the state have voiced strong opposition to many of the proposed changes.

The criticism is somewhat similar to comments contained in a recent review of the proposed standards by the Office of Legislative Services that found the proposed standards  may violate the state constitution.The office  provides advice on legislation and rules to the N.H. Legislature.

Beyond that, they have accused the N.H. Department of Education of hiding information from the public, and leaving educators — the ones arguably most knowledgeable on the topic — out of the process.

The minimum standards document outlines the required elements for educational programs, for graduation, for class sizes and for other important standards that schools and educators will be held to for the next 10 years. 

The document also directly affects communities, as the requirements outline what aspects of education the state government will pay for. Any costs that are not deemed a requirement in the document will become the responsibility of local taxpayers.

That is why educators have been so focused on the document and worried about its potential implications.

A background summary 

In 2020, the Department of Education gave Fred Bramante, director of the nonprofit National Center for Competency Based Learning  a $50,000 contract to form a team to draft an update of the minimum standards, often called the 306 rules. 

Two years later, in November 2022, Bramante and the 13 members of his team presented their update to about 50 educators at a two-day event in Laconia. Among them was Christine Downing, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Cornish, Plainfield and Grantham school districts.

After reading the draft, educators immediately expressed alarm and argued that the two-day event did not provide enough time to give a fair response.

After hearing overwhelming criticism from educators and frustration over the fact that they’d been left out of the drafting process, Bramante formed a new group, which included Downing and three other teachers union members.

The new team drafted a revised version of the document, and Downing sent it to the department of education on Jan. 22, 2023. 

Less than a month later, the Department of Education released a new version — using the document it got from Downing, but with immense edits, including important changes in wording and deletion of multiple sections.

Christine Downing; image from video for Kearsarge Regional School District.

Downing and the other educators objected strongly to eliminating limits on class sizes, changing “certified teachers” to “licensed teachers,” and changing the word “shall” to “may” throughout the document when referring to specific education requirements, which they say makes those requirements optional rather than mandatory.

Bramante has a different outlook from the educators. He said that, overall, he’s content with the document the state agency came up with, and said the State Board of Education is “under no obligation to accept anything we recommend.”

Questions over the contract

Downing left the team Feb. 8 when she learned Bramante’s National Center for Competency Based Learning had been awarded an extra $25,000, on top of its original $50,000 fee in November 2020.  

The NCCBL had already been given three unpaid yearlong contract extensions prior to the amendment for the additional $25,000. 

The contract extension states, “The NCCBL continues to provide direction and leadership in the revision of Ed 306. The original contract initially included provisions for public outreach. However, the scope of our public outreach and engagement with stakeholders has significantly exceeded our initial expectations, and these efforts are still ongoing. As a result, our vendor, NCCBL, has had to extend their outreach activities beyond what was originally agreed upon in the contract.”

“Where is this so-called public outreach?” Downing asked. “I don't see it.”

Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut disagrees. 

“I think that this has been and continues to be maybe the most transparent process around a set of rules,” Edelblut said. “I think it's appropriate, given the content of the rules, the importance of these rules, that we have been so transparent and open.”

He said more than a dozen listening sessions were held across the state, where educators could raise concerns with the department. 

However, multiple educators have complained that many of those sessions were held during the day, when parents were at work and educators were teaching, and therefore unable to attend. 

That included the two most recent hearings on April 3 and 11, both which started at 1 p.m. The one on April 11 was part of the board’s monthly meeting.

Megan Tuttle, executive director of NEA-NH, put in a written request to the state board to move the time of the April 3 hearing, but that request was denied.

“I'd love to see the State Board of Ed hold an evening meeting, so educators could come to it without having to get some coverage or putting schools in a position where they have to be without their educators,” Downing said.

In addition, the department held no virtual online sessions, where people from distant points could tune in to the discussions.

Edelblut noted that Downing’s series of educator review sessions should be considered part of the transparency process.

Frank Edelblut, New Hampshire’s education commissioner. Photo courtesy of National Assessment Governing Board.

“I don't get paid by the Department of Ed,” Downing said. “I don't get paid by NCCBL. They don't own my work. I own it, because I'm doing it completely as a volunteer — as a 30-plus-year educator who's concerned about how our public schools are under attack.”

Downing also questioned why Bramante’s NCCBL needed three contract extensions.

“As a taxpayer, I'd be going, ‘Huh — over three years ago, a sole-source contract was issued to an organization, and we're over three years later, and they still haven't done it,’” she said. “A real question needs to start going around this whole sole-source contract, and again, with this new round of funding that was issued.”

Right-to-know requests denied 

Over the past couple of years, multiple right-to-know requests over the educational standard revisions were denied by the Department of Education.

In November 2022, Reaching Higher NH asked to see the most recent version of the standards document, but Elizabeth Brown, attorney for the education department, said any reports received from the NCCBL are “draft agency documents” and exempt from disclosure. 

Reaching Higher disagreed.

 “We believe that any changes to the Minimum Standards are a matter of public interest, as they serve as the foundational rules that govern all of our public schools,” the organization stated on its website. 

In October 2023, multiple news organizations — including the N.H. Press Association, the Granite State News Collaborative  and the N.H. First Amendment Coalition — filed a right-to-know request, asking the NCCBL and the Education Department to release any documents drafted in their meetings about education standards, citing New Hampshire’s right-to-know law.

The department again denied the request.

How is the 306 revision process different from 10 years ago?

David Ruff, executive director of the Great Schools Partnership, said the revision process 10 years ago was very open and inclusive of educators.

Ruff said the standards update was not contracted out to a consultant. Rather, the Education Department — with a commissioner and board members who are not involved in the current changes — updated the standards with the help of a “task force” that included school superintendents. 

Ruff said his role was to facilitate meetings with educators to hear their feedback.

“There was a series of outreach gatherings in the field to get opinions from educators across New Hampshire,” Ruff said. “I know that a lot of the people who were on that task force reached out on their own to talk to people in their spheres of influence.

“I would describe the whole process as pretty engaging, pretty thoughtful, and really focused on how to improve learning for kids,” Ruff said. “I think (the department) did a nice job of reaching out to get input from the field.”

When asked whether there were concerns that changes in the document could result in state funding cuts, Ruff said that wasn’t a “sticking point” because people thought their concerns were “being addressed.”

Overall, Ruff felt the process was “pretty straightforward” and “standard” for updating a public document.

“Great accolades to the department and the people on that task force for really buckling down and getting some good work done,” Ruff said.

So, why has there been so much conflict during this round of updates 10 years later?

Legislative efforts to change the process moving forward 

“It appears that the board and Commissioner Edelblut have tried to commandeer the process of drafting minimum standards. And in doing so, they've tried to avoid input through educators and parents,” said Andru Volinsky, lead lawyer for the 1990s court cases that established that the state government was constitutionally required to pay for an “adequate education” for every child in the state.

While Edelblut says educators have been very involved in a highly transparent revision of minimum standards, educators and some legislators disagree.

“We, as educators, really had to fight to get our way to the table,” said Tuttle.

“I believe sunshine is the best disinfectant,” said Volinsky. “And the more the process is hidden, the more suspicious we should be.”

“Frankly, if we did not have Christine Downing, devoting untold volunteer hours to working with educators and gathering data, suggesting language and revisions, we wouldn’t even have a clue that we do have about what the commissioner and the state board are trying to do,” said state Rep. Hope Damon, D-Croydon, a member of the House Education Committee.

 Downing thinks that, going forward, state laws need to be strengthened to ensure educators have a role in setting state minimum standards for education. She proposed amendments to two bills, HB 1163 and HB 1107, that would establish a 306 commission to review the updates on school minimum standards every 10 years.

The amendments would define exactly who must be part of the commission, including a specific number of principals, school administrators and teachers representing all grade levels. That would ensure that educators have a role in the entire process.

However, neither amendment has gained much traction in the Legislature, and Downing says she doubts they will “see the light of day.”

What did Downing’s group find?

Nevertheless, lots of progress was made during Downing’s extensive educator review sessions, which outlined issues with the board’s most recent 306 revisions.

Educators found that not all sections of the current document from 10 years ago have the same expiration date. Although a large number of the current standards are up for revision, multiple sections are still valid.

Standards around English language arts, technology and engineering ed programs, and language programs were last updated in 2016, making them valid until 2026. 

Seven more sections were updated in 2019, and therefore don’t expire until 2029. The final four sections were updated last in 2022, and therefore are valid until 2032. 

Why do the sections have varying expiration dates?

Even though the large part of the process happens every 10 years, sometimes questions are raised around certain sections within those 10 years, and those sections get individual focus and can be updated as seen fit.

Downing questioned why the public has not been told of this, and why there is such a push to revise all of them at once, instead of prioritizing the ones that have actually expired.

Downing’s official recommendations to the state included taking more time to work on revisions that have not yet expired, providing an opportunity to update them in a way people can agree on.

The public comment period ended April 30, and the next step is for the State Board of Education to send its final proposals on minimum standards to the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules in June. 

Whether the board decides to implement recommendations from Downing and educators across the state will be known once their final draft is made public.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Housing is one way to improve health, and life in general

By Kylie Valluzzi and Scott Merrill, Granite State News Collaborative

New Hampshire’s housing crisis is about a lot more than having a roof over your head. It also involves economic growth, job creation and tax revenue. 

And now, a new awareness is developing: the profound impact of housing on well-being and health care. There’s a growing realization that making affordable housing more available could be a key to enabling Granite Staters to lead healthier lives.

Housing is one of several “social determinants of health” that some researchers believe have a greater influence on people's well-being than traditional health care.

In New Hampshire, 40.7% of residents have at least one social risk factor known to affect health outcomes and 15.6% have three or more factors, according to the Census Bureau’s 2021 Community Resilience Estimates for Equity. 

Risk factors include poverty, age, disability, access to health insurance, housing security and race. 

In Hillsborough County, New Hampshire’s largest county, 61,974 people have three-plus risk factors, the report says; that’s 14.7 percent of all the residents of the county. Of New Hampshire residents between ages 35 and 64, 41,000 have no health care coverage.

Across the state, a network of researchers, policymakers and health care providers is working to address how these risk factors affect health outcomes for New Hampshire residents.

At the University of New Hampshire, the Carsey School for Public Policy is setting up a community loan fund to improve health conditions; plans are to address affordable housing and other social determinants of health. 

The fund is being modeled after a program at the University of Vermont, said Michael Swack, director of community development at the Carsey School’s Center for Impact Finance. 

Patients with housing insecurity — that is, people unable to pay rent or utilities, or who need to move frequently — have above-average rates of respiratory disease, chronic illness, and challenges with medication management. On the other hand, people with secure housing report fewer hospital visits and, when they go, shorter hospital stays, Swack said, citing UVM’s research.

One question on the minds of the UVM researchers, Swack said, was “’Who were the most expensive patients?’” 

“They found some of those patients included people experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness,” he said.

UVM Medical Center in Burlington launched several initiatives to address housing insecurity among patients. One was Bonvouloir House, a medical respite program run by the Community Health Centers and funded by UVM Medical Center. It offered a clean, safe environment for recovery from medical procedures or ailments for five years until it was abruptly shut down in 2023. 

Over its tenure, the program served more than 200 patients and saved the hospital system an estimated $9 million. However, in July, the program was abruptly shut down because of challenges in meeting the increasingly complex medical needs of its residents. 

Lessons learned

The New Hampshire effort has learned from this start and stop in Vermont. In contrast, Swack said, the Carsey School’s initiative is broader than one hospital and is rather a coalition of hospitals, community development organizations, health centers, government agencies and funders. The project is creating a fund that will be capitalized from multiple sources and fund multiple projects.  

“Projects affecting health outcomes can range from housing, decarbonization of buildings, including health centers and schools, to transportation, telemedicine, healthy food and more,” Swack said. “We hope to create a portfolio of investments across the state that contribute to positive health outcomes.”  

Going forward, the fund will be managed by the N.H. Community Loan Fund, a nonprofit community development financial institution that has successfully invested in communities across the state for over 40 years. Swack hopes that this fall, the fund will be open to investments, after which specific projects will be outlined. 

Another key player in the community loan fund’s development is the N.H. Hospital Association, whose involvement sprang from the work being done by Swack and others at the Carsey School.

“We were interested in creating a model for investing in social determinants of health, and what we’re doing with this fund is creating a model for investment that has never been done on a state level,” said Steve Ahnen, the hospital association’s president and CEO. 

Things that affect people’s health are often outside the hospital system, he said, such as a person’s culture, background, environment, housing, education, and other factors such as food insecurity.

 “As health care systems transition from a ‘sick-care’ system to one based on keeping people healthy — health promotion — we need to think more broadly than the four walls of a doctor’s office or clinic,” he said.

Driven by data

One way — but not the only way — that hospitals can address health promotion, Ahnen said, is to invest in housing. 

“I don’t think there’s a hospital in New Hampshire that isn’t looking at ways to deal with housing,” Ahnen said, referring to the need hospitals and communities in many parts of the state have for workforce housing and affordable housing.

“One thing we found was that a lot of hospitals have a lot of land,” Swack said, and land donations or long-term leases could help create affordable housing. “One of the biggest drivers of affordable housing costs is land, and using the N.H. Community Loan Fund means we don’t need to develop a whole new infrastructure for our fund.”

“The things that are driving health outcomes are things that we as a community need and are responsible for,” Ahnen says. “Hospitals do community needs assessments and work with community partners, but the reality is no one single entity can solve all problems on their own.”

Part of the hope for the loan fund, Ahnen says, is that it will bring stakeholders together outside of hospitals. 

“Insurers are a group we are very interested in talking with,” he says. “For them, a healthier population can mean more control in spending.”

While housing is a central issue for hospitals, Ahnen says transportation, child care and food insecurity also need to be addressed. “We’re looking at ways to partner together on major issues,” he says. “If we all work together, I’m optimistic we can have some impact.”

Ahnen says that, moving forward, the group wants to be driven by data to determine where the greatest challenges for health outcomes exist. 

“The good news is that we have a growing consensus around looking at these issues in a systemic and sustainable way,” he says. “There are great opportunities to partner with businesses and, if we can get multiple entities involved, we can have an even greater impact.”

The Marion L. Phillips Apartments in Claremont, owned by the Claremont Housing Authority. Courtesy photo

Against the wind

Efforts to address New Hampshire’s affordable housing crisis, such as the Carsey School’s initiative, are facing some difficult headwinds.

In its annual report issued in June 2023, the National Low Income Housing Coalition ranked New Hampshire the 13th most expensive state for renters, with a $29.86 hourly wage needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the state’s average fair market rental rate of $1,553 a month. 

Of 153,349 renter households in New Hampshire, 36,782 fell below 30% of area median income and 68,108 households were below 50% of area median income. 

According to the N.H. Housing 2023 Residential Rental Cost Survey Report, the state’s rental vacancy rate of 0.8 percent for all rentals indicates an off-balance market for tenants and landlords. A vacancy rate of 5 percent is considered balanced, according to the report.

“45% of New Hampshire renter households are paying 30% or more of their household income on rent,” the report said. “Lower-income families are likely to be paying an even higher percentage of their household income towards rent.” 

And buying a home is a struggle for many, as well.

From 2000 to 2020, state median household incomes rose 73 percent while new home prices climbed 111 percent, according to a N.H. Association of Realtors report.

In August, the Realtors’ affordability index fell to 59, the lowest on record. That means the state's median household income is just 59 percent of what is necessary to qualify for a median-priced home under prevailing interest rates.

The median price for a New Hampshire single-family residential was $490,000 in August 2023, up 9 percent from August 2022, the highest ever for the month, and the second-highest of any month in state history.

“To make up for the current deficit of housing units and return the state to a healthy housing market, 88,400 new housing units will be needed by 2040,” the Realtors’ report says. “To maintain the state’s homeownership rate of 71%, 58,000 of these units should create homeownership opportunities and 30,000 should be rental units.

On the bright side, according to a July survey done by the Saint Anselm College Center for Ethics and Society, 78 percent of New Hampshire voters think their communities need more affordable housing to be built and 58 percent want more affordable homes in their own neighborhoods.

The percentage of people who think New Hampshire should change its planning and zoning laws to allow for more affordable housing has more than doubled since 2020, to 60 percent, according to the survey.

Max Latona, a philosophy professor who runs the Center for Ethics and Society at Saint Anselm, said the lack of affordable housing is holding people and communities back from achieving their potential, and building affordable housing is something communities ought to do. 

“This basic lack of housing is undermining our well-being at a community level and at a social level. We need more housing to help us flourish,” Latona said.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org. 

Debate over Nashua asphalt plant is a ‘classic case’ of environmental justice

By Scott Merrill and Kylie Valluzzi, Granite State News Collaborative

Last June, neighbors in Nashua celebrated an environmental victory: City officials had rejected a proposal to build a hot-mix asphalt plant in the city’s North End, a neighborhood that historically had been a mix of industrial and residential.

City zoning laws would allow the plant to be built in that neighborhood, but the Nashua Planning Board found that the “transitioning nature of the neighborhood” toward residential justified rejection of the asphalt plant.

Critics argued that the asphalt plant proposed by Newport Construction Corp. would have been in the wrong place, a residential area that includes low-income communities and communities of color, as well as schools, businesses and churches. The case has ignited a fierce debate about environmental justice and the true cost of progress. 

Today, however, the neighborhood’s victory remains in doubt, as the fight continues on several fronts.

First, Newport Construction has filed suit challenging the planning board’s decision, contending that the city’s own rules should have allowed construction of the asphalt plant. 

Second, the N.H. Department of Environmental Services’ Air Resources Division is reviewing the company’s air permit application to see if the asphalt plant would comply with state and federal air pollution standards. 

As these fights continue nearly one year later, the people who live in the area argue they should have more of a say in what’s acceptable in their neighborhood, and object strongly to the proposed asphalt plant.

“Who wants to live or work in a place where the daily experience is overshadowed by the coming and going of dump trucks and tractor-trailers and is set to the soundtrack of crushing rock and diesel motors? The City of Nashua in 2022 is not the same as the city of 1952,” Rob Pinsonneault, an environmental science teacher at Bishop Guertin High School for 14 years, wrote in an opinion column published in the New Hampshire Union Leader in December 2022.  “It is the wrong industry in the wrong place at the wrong time.” 

“People who live in that neighborhood deserve better.”

New Hampshire is the only New England state without an environmental justice law or policy protecting socially vulnerable people from the burdens of development and ensuring environmental benefits are equitably distributed.

Even so, a growing stream of organizations — hospitals, health care workers, legal experts, community rights organizations, and other individuals from around the state — are working to uphold environmental justice principles and to find solutions for difficult problems involving sustainability and quality of life.

That’s what happened in Nashua last year, when the proposed asphalt plant was rejected.

A ‘classic case’

“This is a classic case of environmental justice,” said Tom Irwin, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation of New Hampshire. His organization joined the fight opposing the asphalt plant, as did 350 NH Action, a state group advocating for climate justice, plus members of Nashua’s faith community. 

Also in the fight is environmental attorney Amy Manzelli, whose clients include Riverfront Landing LLC, an apartment complex that is fighting for the right to intervene in Newport Construction’s appeal of the planning board ruling. It was denied the right to intervene by the N.H. Superior Court in March, and has appealed that ruling to the N.H. Supreme Court.

Manzelli says it would be a “tremendous deprivation of justice” if the Conservation Law Foundation and Riverfront are not allowed to intervene. 

“The city will do justice to the city's interests,” she says. “But the only one who can do the best justice by Riverfront is Riverfront, the one who has millions and millions of dollars at stake.”

A Supreme Court hearing on the appeal is expected by this summer.

Last June, the Nashua Planning Board rejected the Newport Construction application for a permit, citing concerns about balancing the health burdens and the benefits of construction for those in the community and finding that the plant’s permit would violate the city’s site plan ordinance, which is tied to its master plan.

“We’re just making the people who are most marginalized sick,” said Tonia Knisley, a Nashua resident who’s been speaking against the plant since she heard of it in 2022. “And it doesn’t matter how much you disguise a smell of a chemical; you’re still inhaling the chemical. It’s still affecting your body.” 

Knisley lives on Burke Street, a mile from the proposed plant site. Her grandchildren attend Dr. Norman W. Crisp Elementary School, seven-tenths of a mile from the site.

The neighborhood is not unfamiliar with “waste-site situations,” she said. Behind the elementary school sat a dump in the 1960s, which has long since been filled and is now home to the school’s track. But she suspects toxins from the dump caused health problems.

"My opinion is that I don't want it. It's in the middle of a residential neighborhood and, historically, that has never been a good combination,” she said. 

“In my opinion, it should not be built in that area,” said Angela Mercado, director of Nashua’s Community Engagement Training Center. “We should think and add parks or more housing. That area is very close to the main streets; it has many neighborhoods around. 

“Nashua is growing and has many newcomers, the rents are so off the market, and we need affordable rent and recreational parks for our community, instead of the asphalt plant that would create traffic,” Mercado said. 

‘Nobody knew what was happening’

Efforts to stop Newport Construction’s proposed asphalt plant at 145 Temple St. began in the spring of 2022, when state Rep. Alicia Gregg, D-Nashua, began knocking on people’s doors in her ward to explain potential problems with the plant, including noise and air pollution.

“This is a community that is already marginalized, and I knocked on every door and nobody knew what was happening,” Gregg said. “One woman who came to the door with an oxygen tank became emotional when we spoke about the issue of air pollutants, and I encouraged her to do something. I reminded all the people I met that they are the real experts in their neighborhood.”

Manzelli argued to the Nashua Planning Board last year that the plant would not be consistent with Nashua’s master plan, “Imagine Nashua.” 

Nashua’s planning and zoning ordinances state that site plans must be “consistent with the goals, objectives and strategies adopted as part of the city’s master plan,” Manzelli said. She argued to the planning board that residents of the Temple Street neighborhood were particularly vulnerable because they trail state averages on various socioeconomic measures.

People with less than a high school education in the Temple Street neighborhood are 2.6 times higher than the New Hampshire average, the unemployment rate is 2.25 times higher than the New Hampshire average, people of low income are 2.6 times higher than the New Hampshire average, and people with limited English proficiency are five times the New Hampshire average.

“The developer is never going to say they didn’t care about ‘those people,’ but the fact that they disregarded this residential community and described it as the perfect site for an industrial hot-mix asphalt plant demonstrates they didn’t care for these people,” she said. “Nashua as a whole is one of the most diverse communities in the state.”

Manzelli’s client and the Nashua city government had economic studies performed that showed the plant would have driven down nearby property values by millions of dollars. 

“A lot of these homes around the plant are not owner-occupied; they’re renter-occupied,” she said. Landlords taking an economic hit could need to increase rent, or sell. “These folks would be very, very, disproportionately affected by any decreases in value,” she said.

Environmental issues she raised included the plant’s impact on water resources, given how much of the neighborhood was covered by impervious materials — concrete, asphalt and buildings — paired with the substances proposed to be stored, transported, used, and manufactured. 

“People were concerned about all of the possible impacts from the plant,” Manzelli said, such as pollution, traffic, and a decrease in property values.

Defining environmental justice

Environmental justice work takes place in an interdisciplinary field of community advocates, lawyers, public health experts, business leaders, and others committed to principles of justice. The issues they raise range from heat-related illnesses, dangerous roadways, food insecurity, unsafe housing, air, noise, water pollution, and many more. 

The term environmental justice emerged in the United States in the 1980s and has two distinct uses. The more common use refers to a social movement by which fairness is addressed regarding environmental burdens and benefits.

The other use refers to an interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes theories of the environment and justice, environmental laws and their implementations, environmental policy and planning, and governance for development and sustainability.

Over the last 10 years, towns and cities across New Hampshire have drafted statements focusing on sustainability, equity and quality of life. Rights-based ordinances have emerged that express a community’s desire to protect health and safety of people and ecosystems. 

Nashua’s master plan includes a statement that all people in the city “should have access to resources that enable a healthy, safe and vibrant life” that is aligned with the city’s site planning ordinance, which steers land use policy. 

Creating a community network

Soon after Arnold Mikolo learned about the asphalt plant proposal, he went to work identifying people in the Temple Street area who would be affected by it. Mikolo, a Conservation Law Foundation environmental justice community advocate, participated in forming an advisory group that included others willing to help organize the community. 

Citizens Against the Asphalt Plant, started by community activist Jo Anne St. John with the help of Rep. Gregg, Mikolo, Pinsonneault and others, met at St. John’s house in the lead-up to the planning board meetings that began in 2022. 

Pinsonneault completed a Ph.D. earlier in his teaching career and now is completing a master’s degree in environmental law and policy at the University of Vermont Law School. St. John introduced Pinsonneault to the Conservation Law Foundation and the asphalt plant issue last year. 

St. John “heard about my background and said, ‘Boy, do I have an issue for you,’” Pinsonneault recalls, since the asphalt plant would be only a couple of blocks from his home on the Merrimack River. 

St. John, who has been active in Nashua politics since she and her husband moved to the city from Massachusetts in the 1970s, became involved with stopping the asphalt plant after reading an article about it. She connected with Irwin at the Conservation Law Foundation, who suggested she meet Mikolo. From there, she reached out to Pinsonneault and Gregg.

Pinsonneault and his wife moved to Riverfront Landing on Bancroft Street in part, he says, to support the neighborhood rejuvenation.

In his December 2022 opinion column, Pinsonnealt took issue with Newport Construction’s argument that nuisances like noise, traffic and pollution would be accounted for and counterbalanced by increases in jobs and other benefits to the local economy. He argued the plant’s economic advantages would be outweighed by health burdens placed on residents, and the effects on businesses and property values. 

St. John says she was very disappointed by a meeting in late September, held by the N.H. Department of Environmental Services to address rules for future public hearings regarding Newport Construction’s appeal. 

“They’re focusing on air quality issues and people will only be able to speak about this aspect,” she said, and not about emissions from trucks or other issues. “These are people who aren’t going to understand a lot of the technical language about air pollutants. They’re not going to be heard. It seemed like an insult to the public.”  

Gregg, a domestic violence survivor, says she understands the dangers of voices not being heard. 

“We need to look at things more broadly and from our own communities’ perspective,” she says. She didn’t go door to door in 2022 to win votes, she said; rather, “I wanted to hear people’s voices. And throughout this process we wanted to show respect to the planning board, and we did.”

Newport Construction Corp. is continuing its effort in Hillsborough County Superior Court to build an asphalt plant at 145-147 Temple St. in Nashua. File photo by Nashua Ink Link

Building a belief in the system

Manzelli says that, for her, the asphalt plant issue is primarily about justice in general and restoring people's faith in the system. 

“In my career, the importance of these cases isn’t so much on environmental justice, but on justice,” Manzelli says. “In cases like this, I hear people say things like, ‘I didn’t know this was possible.’ Cases like the one in Nashua make people want to participate in government more.”

Manzelli says the Nashua case allows people to see that “not every developer’s application is going to be rubber-stamp approved.”

“Ultimately, it’s about building that kind of belief or that kind of faith in the system, and this is what's going to help people facing environmental burdens.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Breaking barriers: New state plan aims to improve public transit and cut emissions

By Kylie Valluzzi, Granite State News Collaborative

The Friendly Bus offers transportation in Keene, provided by Home Health Care and Community Services. Provided photo

In 2010, Ethan Crossman, age 10, moved from Rutland, Vermont, to Barnstead, New Hampshire. As a child, he remembered Rutland to be a walkable city; he walked to school every day with his friends and biked around the neighborhood.

But when he moved to Belknap County, just south of New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, it was no longer possible for Ethan to walk to school or the store, or bike to and from friends’ houses; they were just too far apart. Ethan felt isolated. Everything was 30 minutes away, he said.

As he got older, “it was always a struggle to have enough money to have a car running and the cars would break down,” Ethan said. “Most of our conversations would be about coordinating, ‘Oh, how do I get a ride here?’ and ‘How do we figure out how to get there?’ and ‘This car’s in the shop.’”

It’s no secret that rural America is lacking in public transportation systems. But for people like Ethan to build a successful life, and to help deal with transportation emissions that are worsening the climate crisis, accessible transportation options are vital.

That’s why the N.H. Department of Environmental Services' new Priority Climate Action Plan stresses the support and expansion of public transportation options in New Hampshire.

Culturally, Ethan said, driving is a cornerstone of American society. But not everyone can drive or has access to a car. Ethan’s mom and brother, for example, both have disabilities. His brother is unable to drive and his mom drives only out of necessity. 

When he attended the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Ethan said he realized that “life is more pleasant when you don’t have to be scrambling for money, scrambling to try to get a vehicle running, and just not having that feeling of isolation.”

“I just want to live in a society where everyone can participate, rather than those who are able-bodied enough and have enough money to drive,” he said.

Better funding for public transportation would also be a step to reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, transportation is New Hampshire’s largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. As reported previously by the Collaborative, 45.9% of N.H. greenhouse gases were caused by transportation. About 40% of that was from passenger cars alone.

Public transit in NH, currently 

According to the N.H. Department of Transportation, there are 12 local bus systems in New Hampshire, including intercity service that connects New Hampshire communities to the larger region, and specialized services for seniors and individuals with disabilities.

Yet only 34 of 244 population centers have a regular fixed bus route. Over 40 communities lack any transportation services at all, according to a 2022 report from the N.H. Transit Association.

For long-distance travel, passenger rail service in New Hampshire is provided by the Amtrak Downeaster with stops in Dover, Durham and Exeter, and by the Vermonter, with a stop at Claremont Junction as well as Vermont communities in the Connecticut River Valley. But for getting to work or visiting your mother, rail service is not a solution.

In 2021, New Hampshire ranked 48th among the 50 states for total public transportation funding, including local, state and federal allocations. It was the only New England state that year to allocate no state funds for general public transit operating support.

Since then, the Granite State was allocated $24.3 million through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to improve public transportation options in fiscal year 2022 and 2023. The state would “expect to receive approximately $126 million over five years” under the law to improve public transit. But that is still a small figure in comparison to the $532.2 million allocated for roads, bridges, roadway safety, and major projects.

On the other side of the river

This year, Vermont allocated $48.8 million to support public transportation, as well as $43 million for rail projects and $27.9 million to continue implementing programs to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector, as reported by trucking news magazine Land Line.

Vermont has 13 local and regional public transportation service agencies, including one regional authority, one transit district, two towns and nine private nonprofit corporations.

Green Mountain Transit of Chittenden County is one of those agencies and provides over 2.5 million trips each year, mostly in the greater Burlington area. In 2020, GMT partnered with the Special Services Transportation Agency to create the O&D Transportation Program, O&D being “Older Adults and Persons with Disabilities.” 

The service operates in addition to Vermont’s other agencies to fill gaps in other services such as fixed-route transit, non-emergency medical transportation or ADA (Americans with Disabilities) transportation. O&D transit relies on volunteer drivers in private vehicles, but also uses various vehicle fleets of ADA-compliant vans, sedans and minivans. The program depends on the involvement of local partners: agencies tasked with providing services to riders and making the local contribution to funding, and transit providers who maintain and operate the vehicles.

GMT has an estimated operations and management budget of $17.8 million for fiscal year 2024, according to the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission’s Transportation Improvement Plan. Of that, $9.6 million comes from federal grants and $2.3 million from state funding. 

Southeast Vermont Transit operates the MOOver, which serves Windham and southern Windsor counties, both located on the New Hampshire border. MOOver provides free door-to-door transportation for riders age 60 or over and for persons with ADA-defined disabilities.

Why should we invest in public transit?

According to the American Public Transportation Association's Transit Savings Report, people who ride public transit instead of driving can save an average of $13,000 annually, or $1,100 a month.

Additionally, in New Hampshire, a 2021 study by the Rockingham Planning Commission and Strafford Regional Planning Commission found that every $1 invested in the transit services provided by Cooperative Alliance for Seacoast Transportation (COAST) generated about $4.08 of activity in the local economy. 

Expansion of public transit was also a key recommendation in the state’s 2024 Plan on Aging. In 2030, a third of New Hampshire’s population will be 65 or older. A lack of public transit can make it difficult for older people to participate in civic life, see loved ones, get to a doctor’s office, or obtain other services, especially in rural areas. 

There are five urban transit agencies across the state, including Nashua Transit System, which provides service to nine communities within the Greater Nashua and Milford regions, and Manchester Transit Authority, which is the primary transit provider in nearly a dozen communities ranging in size from New Boston to Manchester. 

Additionally, COAST serves the Seacoast region, Wildcat Transit serves the University of New Hampshire and nearby towns, and CART serves Chester, Derry, Hampstead, Londonderry and Salem.

Five agencies serve the state’s rural communities. Yet, access is still scarce. Even today, Ethan’s conversations with his family revolve heavily around transportation.

“When I talk with my dad nowadays, the majority of the conversation is about what [car’s] broken and how are we going to come up with money to fix it,” he said.

What the PCAP suggests

On April 1, the N.H. Department of Environmental Services applied for federal environmental funding, requesting almost $50 million to fund six measures, including $5 million for support and expansion of public transportation options. 

According to the grant application, the money would be used to distribute “subawards to eligible entities that manage public transportation in the state.” Subawards would be based on adding or maintaining passenger miles of public transportation and achieving the goals of the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program within the grant’s time frame. The state will not learn until July whether it will get any of that money.

Even a small increase in investment could be life-changing, Ethan said. 

“If something existed where my mom could visit her friends or go to the store on a bus, that would increase her quality of life,” he said.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Legislature’s lawyers say revisions to minimum education standards could violate the N.H, Constitution

Legal concerns echo policy worries being voiced by critics

By Kelly Burch

The N.H. Department of Education’s proposed revisions in New Hampshire’s minimum standards for public schools may violate the state constitution. 

That’s according to written feedback on the standards, known as the 306s, provided by the Office of Legislative Services, an arm of the N.H. Legislature. 

Reviewing a draft proposal for legal compliance, the office flagged more concerns than are typical in a rules review, according to Christina R. Muñiz, senior committee attorney with the office’s Administrative Rules Unit. Those concerns include a potential constitutional issue, which is “pretty rare” to see in the rulemaking process, she added. 

The 306s, a set of administrative rules that govern the minimum standards for public school approval in New Hampshire, have been under revision since 2020. The process typically takes place every 10  years. After paying a contractor $75,000 to facilitate a revision, the state Department of Education introduced its own draft of the 306s in February, and accepted public comment on that document. Granite Staters provided more than 200 pieces of written testimony in response.

Despite that, the draft proposal is moving toward formal adoption. The review by the Office of Legislative Services is typically done before an updated version is introduced to the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (JLCAR), which can approve, conditionally approve, or object to the rules. Neither the office nor the committee is concerned with policy; instead, they focus on ensuring that the rules work as intended under New Hampshire law. 

Despite that, the concerns highlighted by the office align closely with those expressed by educators and members of the public who have been critical of the 306 update. The fact that the same issues arose from both a policy and legal standpoint is “really powerful,” said Christina Pretorius, policy director for Reaching Higher NH, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on education in the Granite State. 

“It really goes a long way in showing that, regardless of your political background, your views on education … that fundamentally there are some serious and very legitimate concerns with this rule proposal,” she said. 

Undermining an adequate education?

Muñiz said the possible constitutional issue centers on changing the word “shall” — which is legally binding — to “may” — which is not—  in “most of the rules.” That seemingly small shift “may create a situation where you don’t have a constitutionally adequate education throughout the state,” she said. 

The New Hampshire Constitution requires the state to fund an adequate education — the subject of over 30 years of lawsuits. Critics of the 306 revision have previously expressed worry that the change could result in less education funding from the state, since fewer subjects would be required. 

Ultimately, the state Supreme Court would need to consider the question of constitutionality, but a finding that the rules are unconstitutional is “a possible outcome,” Muñiz said.

The office’s review highlighted other legal concerns, including the fact that the rules seem to redefine “equity,” tossing aside the current accepted definition. That made portions of the rules on equity unclear, according to Muñiz.

“If a word has a definition, use that definition — don’t make up a new one,” she said.

Educators have expressed concerns about changes in sections on equity throughout the revision process, saying they could water down protections for vulnerable students.

Next steps

With the initial review complete, the Department of Education will likely adjust the draft before submitting a final version for legal review. That must happen at least three weeks before a meeting where the JLCAR — made up of five state representatives and five senators — is set to consider the rules. 

Once the Department of Education brings the updated rule proposal to the joint committee, the committee cannot reject it for policy reasons. It can object in only four circumstances, which are outlined in New Hampshire law:

• If the rule isn’t within the authority of the agency

• If it isn’t within the intent of the Legislature

• If it is not in the public interest

• If it has an economic impact that hasn’t been explained

Critics have said they may try to stop the adoption of the rules based on the public interest provision. However, under the law, that provision cannot be used to make policy objections; instead, it’s used when a rule is unclear or cannot be uniformly applied. 

“It’s not contrary to public interest just because people don’t like it,” Muñiz said. 

Although public comments are now closed on the draft proposal, the public can submit written or verbal testimony to the JLCAR once the 306s are on a meeting agenda, Muñiz said. The feedback must be related to the four outlined circumstances for the committee. 

Pretorius, of Reaching Higher, said it’s important for the public to continue to stay engaged, not just at the state level but with their local school districts. Meanwhile, Reaching Higher is continuing to compile and make public the written feedback from community members and educators.

“We’ve seen a number of very specific recommendations that can make the proposal stronger and advance a vision of a high-equality education system in the state,” she said.

Read the Office of Legislative Services’ Documents

Follow the Granite State News Collaborative’s series on Competency-Based Education to stay up-to-date on this developing story. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.