Another scheme from our Town Planner?

     I will give the Town (likely Sylvia von Aulock) credit for deciding to present Exeter residents with a survey to provide feedback on the future of Portsmouth Avenue.  (See below.)  However, it appears to be designed to elicit supporting responses for establishing form based code as the design criteria for Portsmouth Avenue.
     Form based code cannot be adequately explained in this posting.  Suffice it to say it is another beautification concept as one can readily see by the use of "enjoyable" throughout the survey.  One also has to consider how would we get from existing to this designers Nirvana?  Again, if there are real issues that are negatively impacting businesses on Portsmouth Avenue, as well as safety issues and these can be supported with solid documentation, then they should be addressed.  But, should taxpayers, in light of other expenses coming at them from sewer and water to maintaining infrastructure, be asked to fund a makeover of Portsmouth Avenue.
     The Town Planner and her handful of supporters need to get off this quest to remake Exeter in the image of Newburyport.  All seem to readily accept we have four separated areas in town requiring attention:  Portsmouth Avenue, Epping Road, Lincoln Street and downtown.  We need to direct tax dollars to the area with the greatest NEED and greatest potential for development and new tax revenue.  Cut out the monkey business and get down to serious business.

Survey: http://exeternh.gov/planning/be-part-creating-new-outlook-portsmouth-avenue-survey



 

Good News

     Great Bay Kids Company (GBKC) has decided to build a new facility in Exeter on land purchased on Epping Road.  While it is likely those that voted earlier this year to allow them to build on Town owned land on the recreational field felt it would keep GBKC in town, market forces is likely to have driven their current and correct decision.
     Again one can can see development will take place in town when conditions are right for development.  While the Exeter Economic Development Commission seems to continue to focus attention on the downtown, we see developers heading for Epping Road, first with Al's Automotive, then a microbrewery and now GBKC.  We seem to have plenty of potential developers for Epping Road.  Perhaps it's time to look at sewer and water service extension?  Clearly new development on Epping Road would provide the payback.

All Boards Meeting again

     No blow by blow accounting here.  An overview is in order.  Frankly the entire meeting, save a handful of individuals was an airing of his or her long held wish list of projects - predominantly for downtown.  Let's get this out of the way.  Those present included many volunteers and the remainder paid Town employees and elected officials.  We'll stipulate that most are well intentioned and desire to do right by taxpayers.  But, what is lacking essentially across the board is the disconnect from what the taxpayers want and can afford.
     Taxpayers have consistently and overwhelming rejected past warrants to do a major renovation of downtown.  Has any real effort been expended to determine what they will support.  While it is an unsupported stretch to believe, as Dan Chartrand would have you believe, that sidewalk disrepair is a "barrier to business" clearly they are a visible sign of the deterioration of downtown that one attendee referred to last evening.  The chair of the Historic and Heritage contingent stated her important issue was to bury the utility lines and remove their supporting poles.  Really?  This is high priority amongst the 10,000 or so voters and taxpayers?  These power poles are driving away out of town visitors?  And of course the lack of parking came up.  Doug Eastman put that into perspective by stating it becomes the roadblock to development when parking is required by a prospective development as restrictive zoning regulations are the stumbling block.  One individual had the answer, a parking garage on Portsmouth Avenue.  Kinda like Portsmouth, the city, don't you think?
     Paul Scafidi said it best when he commented that all the proposals being set forth in the meeting will never in all reality ever happen.  It appears he recognizes that most will not be approved by taxpayers due to their impact on one's pocketbook.  One individual hit the nail on the head.  Downtown is deteriorating be it sidewalks, curbs or street.  The Town must spend money to take care of what they have before taking on such "nice to  have" things like burying power lines, providing bike lanes and the like.
     Scant little time was spent addressing real development outside the downtown area - Epping Road, Lincoln Street and Portsmouth Avenue.  Oh, almost forgot.  Form base code was put forward as solving many of the problems, particularly in the latter area.  What is it?  Basically it is buildings in the front with sidewalks and parking in the back.  And how do we go about retrofitting businesses already in place.  Shrug of shoulders.
     What will be the follow up to this meeting?  Will anything come of it, or will it be business as usual?  Likely you know the answer. 

Downtown sidewalks

     Monday evening during public comment, a couple of downtown merchants spoke to the issue of deteriorated sidewalks and their negative impact on their respective businesses.  They made their points and following their remarks, Chair Selectwoman Gilman sought concurrence from the Town Manager that immediate attention be directed at this issue and to report what could be done now with available funds.
     Sadly, it is likely nothing would have happened this year to begin to repair/replace deteriorated sections of downtown sidewalks, if it even does after these pleas by merchants.  In the past the Board of Selectmen have defeated budget measures to deal with this issue.  Instead warrant articles have been proposed to voters to spend millions of dollars to beautify the downtown by burying utility lines and removing their poles, installing new street lights and, yes, addressing the sidewalks and crosswalks.  Voters overwhelming rejected these warrant articles as too expensive and unnecessary.  Never once were they given the chance to vote on fixing the sidewalks until this year.
     This year's Town budget included $80,000 as a down payment on addressing sidewalks.  While this is totally inadequate, it is a start.  A comprehensive study was to have been done to identify all sidewalk requiring repair/replacement and the estimated cost.  Uncertainty exists whether it ever was done.  Based on the budgeted amount one could certainly question the seriousness of the Town to expeditiously address the deficiencies of downtown sidewalks.  And, what about sidewalks on Lincoln Street?  Sadly no one attended last night to represent those merchants.

Wasting taxpayers' dollars

     I guess I’m just getting too old.  Whatever happened to Department of Public Works (DPW) workers bringing their own thermos of coffee on the job with them?  Now, they drive the Town’s dump trucks, front-loaders and sidewalk tractors to get their coffee at the local convenience store or McDonalds; and it doesn’t seem to matter how far from the job site they have to go to get their coffee (see our April 15^th posting.)

I thought coffee breaks were supposed to be 15 minutes.  These coffee breaks are certainly longer than that because it takes them longer than 15 minutes just to drive there, buy the coffee and drive back to the job site. How much does it cost taxpayers to have the workers drive town vehicles from the job site to the place where they buy the coffee? 

     Another example of being oblivious to the cost is the use (or misuse) of sidewalk tractors. In the winter, the DPW employees ride the sidewalk tractors from the Newfields Road DPW yard to the sidewalks to be cleared.  It doesn’t matter if the sidewalk is nearby or all the way out on Holland Way. This commute puts unnecessary wear and tear on the sidewalk tractors. Why doesn’t the DPW put them on a trailer and drop them near the sidewalk to be cleared? We could easily double the life of these vehicles by doing so.  (And, transit time would be considerable shorter.)  Or, maybe it doesn’t matter to people that decide how to use these vehicles because the taxpayer will just buy them a new one when these wear out.

     This may sound like nitpicking, but it is symptomatic of the concept of who pays for all of this. Obviously, it’s the taxpayer; but is anyone concerned about how our money is spent?The Town Manager is ultimately responsible for the overall management of the Town departments.  What message is he sending to department heads as it relates to issues of performance? 

New leadership of EEDC

     Congratulations to Kathy Corson at being elected by other committee members to chair the Exeter Economic Development Commisdsion.  Kathy has demonstrated her ability to look at the broader issue and to use sound judgement in decision making.  Too often we have seen this committee come under the spell of Dan Chartrand and his single-minded focus on downtown.  The "Exeter" part of the EEDC means there are other areas where issues must be addressed in order to compete for bringing businesses to town to fill unused building spaces and to develop industrial/commercial land.
     Lincoln Street has a parking problem at the train station and adjacent areas.  It is likely inhibiting the growth in ridership of the Downeaster and it is negatively impacting neighboring businesses.  Development of properties at the far end on Epping Road is long overdue.  And, the question remains, "What should be done to render Exeter open to business as it is claimed to be?"  Can the EEDC be a driving force to gather relevant information from existing businesses and prospective businesses to aid the yet to be hired Economic Development Director in coming on stream and being productive quickly?  We'll see. 

It just won't die!

     I just finished reading the Friday Exeter Newsletter. 2 letters to the editor from Dennis Brady, Frank Ferraro and an article on, you guessed it, "Downtown Revitalization". Oh no, not again!
     On Monday night Dan Chartrand and Russ Dean proposed "...a new committee" to specifically study "beautification" of the downtown, at taxpayer expense. They claim "we" need a "blue ribbon committee" to study this issue. Contrary to the reporting, the EEDC did focus on downtown with a special TIF subcommittee.
     Mr. Chartrand and Julie Gilman claim businesses are leaving because of "beautification" issues, like telephone poles. Aside from the sidewalks and unkempt trees, there is nothing I see that points to "deterioration" and why stores turn over.
     You want to do something constructive, prepare a survey directed at business owner satisfaction and have the EEDC subcommittee speak with owners and elicit any town issues that they feel inhibits their livelihood.  Chartrand, in spite of his mystic powers, cannot speak for all business owners.  Instead of trying to "get in the heads of owners", just talk to them. Much more productive. 
     And, by the way, as property taxes are the issue, spending money frivolously on power lines is counter productive to just fixing the sidewalks and getting the job done. Glad Selectpersons Clement and Surman stood up for the voters.

Exeter lawsuits - Part 2

Sorry for this long posting, but a recent post on this blog discussed the four (most recent) lawsuits against the Town. In the previous posting, we wondered about a common thread through all of these lawsuits.  Let’s explore that further.
In the most recent case, a town employee filed a sexual harassment charge against another employee. Sometime after that, the Town Manager approved termination of the employee that had filed the charge.  In this day and age, what competent manager would terminate an employee, no matter the reason for the termination, while a sexual harassment charge was pending? Obviously, the court felt that this was wrong since they agreed with the wrongful termination charge.
The next most recent case was the Pine Road posting.  The Board of Selectmen voted to post the road. However, wasn’t it the Town Manger that told the Board they only had two options: either post the road or forget the issue?  Apparently, there was a third choice. According to legal briefs filed by Exeter’s attorney, there is a state law that specifically addresses situations like Pine Road. Where one town owns a road, but an adjacent town receives most of the benefits of the road, the town owning the road can petition the Superior Court to apportion the costs of maintaining the road.  Why wasn’t the Board told of this option? Did the Town Manager consult with the Town attorney before advising the Board? If he and the attorney failed to research this issue, then doesn’t the Town Manager shoulder the burden of the attorney’s shortcoming?  If the Town Manager did not consult the attorney, then what responsibility does he bear? The point is that the Selectmen were never properly informed.
In the case of Selectman Ferraro suing the Town, that lawsuit was the result of the Town Manager failing to respond, or even acknowledge, a request for information from a sitting Board member.  If this were the first instance of such action, it surely would not have merited such a reaction. However, the Exeter News-Letter has reported previous instances of the Town Manager ignoring requests from Selectman Ferraro.  Should it be acceptable for the Town Manager to willfully disregard requests from his supervisor?  (As an aside, we learned that when Ferraro finally got the information he had requested, he uncovered that the Town Manager had signed a solar energy contract much more expensive than authorized by the Board. This resulted in a $50,000 difference between what the Board voted and what the Town Manager signed. When is the Board going to address this contract issue?)
The final case mentioned in the blog was the lawsuit concerning the illegal amendment of two citizen petition articles at the 2011 Deliberative Session.  A then-member of the Board of Selectmen made a motion to amend the two citizen petition articles, essentially negating any yes or no vote on the articles. The sponsors of the articles pointed to a very recently passed law that specifically prohibited this type of amendment.  The Moderator and Town attorney ignored that point and allowed a vote on the amendments. The Town Attorney was there at the request of the Town Manager who apparently knew that these amendments would be proposed. To our recollection, this was the first time we, or anyone we’ve spoken with, could remember the Town Attorney being on the stage sitting with the Town Manager. The Superior Court found that the amendments were illegal, not just once, but also on the Town’s request for reconsideration.
So, here we have four recent lawsuits that cost the Town hundreds of thousands of dollars. Does anyone else see the common thread through all of these cases?  Are there other cases not reported in the newspaper? When is enough enough?   When is the Board going to hold the Town Manager accountable for his highly questionable decisions and misinformation? They better do something because this is costing taxpayers a lot of money and needs to stop.

Pease Greeters event

The Pease Greeters really do God’s work.  Last Saturday, they welcomed their 700th flight since they started in 2005. Their mission is:
·         To welcome troops passing through Pease International Airport on their way to, or from, Afghanistan or Iraq, or any other areas of conflict in any part of the world.
·         To create within the Pease Trade Port an environment that reflects the respect and high esteem in which we hold all veterans. 
·         To promote broad participation by the general public in this welcoming of heroes, paying special attention to the education of school children by instilling respect  and admiration for the troops through formal ceremonies for each flight.
 Whether it is welcoming flights at 4:00 in the morning or 4:00 in the afternoon, the Greeters are there to let our troops know that they are in our thoughts and prayers.
The Pease Greeters have many supporters, including UNH football head coach Sean McDonnell, who has brought the UNH team to Pease to welcome flights. But, they are not the only local football players who support the Greeters. The annual Exeter Gravy Bowl, held on Thanksgiving Day by a decidedly "post graduate" group of football fans, has raised money for the Pease Greeters for the past eight years.
This Monday night, May 5^th,  at 7 PM, Coach McDonnell will be the special guest of the Gravy Bowlers for their annual "NFL Draft Party for the Pease Greeters", which will be held at the Grill on the Hill at the Exeter Country Club. The event is open to the public and there is no cost to attend. So, stop by and say hello, find out more about the Greeters and maybe take part in their NFL Draft.
This will also be a great opportunity to learn the latest news about the UNH football program, which is fresh off an appearance in the national semi-finals and a recently completed spring camp.
Word has it that another big name supporter of the Pease Greeters plans to show up Monday evening. Having served in the military for 35 years, Scott Brown will take time away from his campaign for Senate to come and show his support for the Pease Greeters.
Find out more about the Pease Greeters at www.peasegreeters.org