Hillsborough

The Hillsborough selectmen proposed a 3.5 percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for all town employees at last Tuesday’s meeting. According to town administrator John Stetser, the federal government set the regional COLA for New England at 5.6 percent.

Although the proposed COLA is not as high as the regional number it is higher than last year’s 2.2 percent municipal employee raise.

Although the police department had proposed a Collective Bargaining Agreement – which included items such as Longevity pay, Educational Incentives, Overtime and compensatory Time starting at 40 hours – the selectmen decided to forego any discussion of those issues this year due to concerns over meeting budget demands.

“The year 2009 looms ahead of us with dark fiscal clouds that may call for strong actions the Board must take to stay within budget,” chairman Paul Haley said in a letter to the police department. “The coming year promises little except falling revenues, tax liens, unpaid water/sewer bills, increased welfare and overtime reductions. Many towns are already moving into a belt-tightening mode, as is the State of New Hampshire.”

As a result of a meeting between the Hillsborough selectmen and the water/sewer commissioners on Dec. 9, the town may be moving toward paying its share of the water/sewer fees, just as any of the other approximately 900 customers who pay for the service.

According to town administrator John Stetser, the meters that reflect water usage on municipal facilities will be recorded throughout 2009 so the town will have an idea of how much to budget for the service.

“I need a year of history reading the meters, so that we know what to put in the budget for 2010,” said Stetser. “Beginning in January, water and sewer will begin reading the meters to start making an estimate fro the 2010 budget. The other [customers] are bearing the cost of subsidizing the municipal buildings.”

Although the town facilities have enjoyed the service free of charge since the water and sewer services have been available in town, the school district has already been paying their fair share for many years.

“I don’t know why,” said chairman of the selectmen Paul Haley in regards to why the town was not paying its share. “I think we should pay as we go.”

Although it has been in existence for a couple years, the teen clinic sponsored by the Hillsboro-Deering Family Health Center has undergone a bit of a face lift in an attempt to make their services more available to local teenagers.
Under a new name, Teen Wellness Center, and with new hours, Physicians Assistants Kathryn Wrynn and Jennifer Story hope they can get the word out to more teens about the clinic.
Every Wednesday from 3-4 p.m., the H-D Family Health Center offers a clinic that features confidential visits for birth control, STD testing, pregnancy testing and other health information.
While it is not a “free clinic,” Wrynn highlighted that reduced fees are available for those who qualify, and no one will be turned away due to inability to pay.
The clinic’s fee scaled system is based on the student’s income.
“Most of the teenagers end up getting full feescale, so ultimately they don’t end up paying a lot out of pocket,” Wrynn said.
Attendance at the clinic varies each week—some days they can see five teens, and at other times they may go a couple weeks without seeing a single teen.

Tim Grass of Deering was appointed to fill the seat left by Kathy PepperTim Grass as the Deering representative on the Hillsboro-Deering school board on Thursday night. Grass was competing with Stuart Huggard for the seat, but the board chose Grass by a 4-0 vote.
Huggard and Grass were the only two Deering residents to submit a query for the position. Grass will serve until March. Grass’, Rich Pelletier’s and Pam Butler’s seats will all be on the ballot in March.
Butler has decided to step down after fulfilling a three-year term. Pelletier, who was appointed to the board after Babette Haley stepped down in June, has not yet thrown his hat into the ring. And Grass has not made any mention of whether he will run to keep his seat in March.

As the Hillsboro-Deering school board began looking over the budget proposed by the administration for the coming year, two philosophies about how to go about trimming and adjusting it emerged. One is to come up with a figure to cut from the budget and allow the administration to decide where cuts should be made to accommodate it. The other is for board members to decide where individual cuts should be made.

With board members Pam Butler and Richard Pelletier in favor of giving the administration a number to cut, and Paul Plater and John Segedy in favor of deciding where individual cuts should be made, the board is evenly split on the issue.

The newly appointed Deering representative, Tim Grass, will be getting his first chance to voice his opinion at the Jan. 5 meeting, when he will be sworn in. Meanwhile, he has been given the proposed budget to look over by that date.

Currently, the budget is set at about $200,000 more than the default budget. The default budget uses the numbers from the current year’s budget, plus any contractual obligations, to set a number for the default if the proposed budget is defeated in the March vote.

The Hillsborough selectmen unanimously voted to spend $150,000 on renovating the first floor of the Community Building to house the town offices Tuesday night. Jim Bruss of Bruss Construction, presented plans for the proposed work on the building. The Community Center building is located behind the Fuller Public Library, where Hillsborough District Court has leased space for some years.
The $150,000 is money that will be attributed to the 2009 budget, and so may not be used until Jan. 1. Town administrator John Stetser explained that $100,000 will be written into the line for maintenance projects, and that $50,000 will come from a trust fund that was set up in 2002 to move into the court’s space.
Stetser pointed out that voters will have a chance to review the move to include the $100,000 at the town’s budget hearing in January, when voters may vote to adjust parts of the proposed budget. If the voters do not approve of using the $100,000 at that time the project will have to be put on hold. The $50,00 from the trust fund may not be expended by the selectmen unless they are voted in as agents to expend the fund in March.

“She was in the sunshine, and all these dragonflies started swarming around her,Diane Dick works on her final piece of art, for her son, Sam.” recalled Diane Dick’s husband, David. “She had been diagnosed with cancer. She took it as a sign of hope – that she would have more time to live to see her sons grow.”
Diane was attending their youngest son’s kindergarten graduation in Elm Brook Park in Hopkinton when the dragonflies appeared. On Saturday, five years later, Diane’s life was celebrated at the Hillsboro-Deering Elementary School, where hundreds flocked to view her artwork and share their memories of her.
Diane taught at the Elementary School until the last day she could possibly do so.

After thousands of dollars worth of phone calls were made to scores of third world countries through the phone lines in the Hillsborough town offices, TDS Telecom has put a block on any international calls.

Town officials received a 20-page phone bill for calls made in the first week of December totaling $6,100. The calls were made to countries throughout the globe on six continents. From Cuba to the Philippines to Libya, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal and many other countries. Recognizing that no one in the town offices placed the calls, TDS will not be charging the town for the bill.

“We have to negotiate with the different long distance vendors and make sure they know it is fraud,” said Marc Violette, Marketing manager for TDS’ New Hampshire branch. “Typically, if they understand it is fraud they just say they understand. Hackers do many different things. They’ll sell access to telephone lines across the world. They make the money while using somebody else’s telephone lines.”

The trustees of the Fuller Library, the Hillsborough selectmen and Jim Delisle, president of JHD Construction Services met on Tuesday to discuss how best to go about installing a sprinkler system in the Governor Smith mansion. The mansion houses the library.

The trustees are also concerned with how best to expend the $250,000 gift given the library by an anonymous donor.

Delisle presented proposals from five architectural firms, however the trustees firmly stated they wanted to have a plan that took the future of the library into consideration. The trustees worry that any plan that does not look to the future could lead them into expensive modifications of the sprinkler system down the line. For this reason, the trustees are inclined to continue working with architect Keith Dewey, who has been working with the trustees on plans for several years.

But the selectmen are concerned that Dewey will cost much more than other architects. His is the largest estimate of architectural costs out of the five.

The Masiello real estate group will be closing its Hillsborough office and consolidating in its Peterborough office as the area continues to contend with a slow market.

“They are looking at it as a business decision,” said local realtor Lou Ann Rousseau. “They are going to close us and merge us with the Peterborough office, and we’ll probably work out of our home. I would certainly like to keep my Hillsborough presence. I can do that from a laptop and emails.”

Along with the rest of the economy, the real estate market has dropped considerably in Hillsborough, with the gross for most agencies seeing more than 50 percent cuts.

“We did a little over $5 million, which is certainly down from the average of $11 million and $14 million,” Rousseau said of this year’s business. “And that is in line with what other agencies are doing in town.”

Rousseau believes it will be another year before sales pick up. When she first entered the business in 1990, there had been another slump with lots of foreclosures and values decreasing.