Washington

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.

Hillsboro-Deering High School student Tucker Cutter single-handedly raised over $1,700 to provide the school district with two portable defibrillators. He presented the check to the district at the school board meeting on Monday.School board chairman Paul Plater accepts a check from Tucker Cutter for defibrillators. (Michael Pon photo)

The defibrillators cost between $750 and $800.

Although the district has a defibrillator in each of its three schools, Cutter feels accessibility to them is an issue.

“There were other defibrillators, but we didn’t have ones to carry around on the sports fields, and if someone’s heart stopped we wouldn’t have time to get them,” Cutter said. “So I wanted to get ones that could be transported with us and have in case of an emergency on the sports fields.”

Coincidentally, High School Nurse Candice Garvin was writing a grant for one defibrillator and funding for training. Garvin and Cutter agree that all the defibrillators should be the same exact type, so all those trained to use them will have the same sort of training.

According to numbers reported at Monday’s Hillsboro-Deering school board meeting, the success rate at the high school has spiked upward since last year.

High School Principal Christian Elkington proudly sat by as Student Representative Curtis Hines reported that course failures during the first quarter of the school year are sharply down compared to last year’s first quarter. Although the statistic Hines gave do not include how many students are failing courses, they did give a count of how many course have been failed.

In the Senior class, 8 courses were failed as compared to 17 last year. In the Junior class 17 courses were failed this year compared to 30 last year. In the Sophomore class, 38 courses were failed as compared to 67 last year. And in the Freshman Academy, 33 courses were failed as compared to 105 last year.

Later in the evening, Elkington also gave board members a chart listing how many students are in each class at this time, asking permission for courses with less than twelve students to be kept active. The board unanimously elected to do so.

During her monthly financial report at the Hillsboro-Deering school board meeting, business administrator Lisa Braiterman reported that she took the opportunity to opt out of paying high prices for heating oil the district locked into when the prices were running high. Provided that oil does not spike upward again, this move could save the district quite a bit of the cost of oil for the year.

Braiterman said she had originally locked into a price of 3.99 a gallon, but that the supplier had offered to let the district out of the lock-in. The supplier will now allow the district to buy at the gallon price on any day of delivery, plus 50 cents a gallon. With prices floating down around two dollars and change now, that could save the district a dollar a gallon in oil for deliveries for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on the last day of June.

The joint was jumpin’ at the American Legion in Hillsborough last Saturday night. Local residents came out in force to the American Legion for an evening of rock ‘n roll and happy fundraising to help support the Hillsborough Food Pantry Raise the Roof rebuilding initiative.

The great turnout Saturday night is proof positive that when a good cause in Hillsborough needs help, local residents can be counted upon to help with generosity and good will. A festive evening of rock and roll music, dancing and raffles drew a large crowd, and guests were in the mood to raise money and have a great time. Over two hundred advance tickets were sold for the event, and there were three popular bands. Dent, Lonesome Train and the Skip Philbrick Blues Band shook the hall with a wide range of rock, blues and country-rock tunes that drew the crowd out of their seats and onto the dance floor.

While the dancers were moving to the music, raffles were held throughout the evening. Local businesses donated a variety of desirable items ranging from snowmobile jackets to therapeutic massages, and the crowd was opening their wallets to purchase tickets.

The tax rate in Washington rose 40 cents this year due primarily to the local School portion and the County. In 2007 it was $15.10 per thousand of real estate property value, and in 2008 it has been set $15.50.

The Municipal portion, what the town side of the taxes are, went from $4.93 in 2007 to $4.28 per thousand, a reduction of 65 cents.

The State portion also went down, from 2.18 in 2007 to this year’s 2.08, a reduction of 10 cents.

The School portion spiked 73 cents per thousand from the 2007 rate, from $5.94 to $6.67.

The County portion also went up by 42 cents, from $2.05 in 2007 to $2.47 for 2008.

In the interest of high spirited theater, Mary Rose Carter of Hillsboro-Deering High School may have put her mother’s wellbeing, along with her dogs’, at risk of being eaten alive by a carnivorous plant.Troy Ellis, Rchel Carter and a crowd of other Hillboro-Deering High School Theater enthusiasts had some touchy moments taming the plant, but they finally wrestled it into the building on Monday. (Michael Pon photo)

Carter enlisted her mother, Clara Rogers, to pick up the plant, a prop to be used in the high school production of Little Shop of Horrors, from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. It was the cheapest rental she could find for the plant at $950, but it was also convenient, because Rogers was overdue for a trip east to see her family.

Rogers left Dayton for New Hampshire on Sunday with the plant on what she thought would be an uneventful journey. But which ended up in car problems. Her transmission died on Interstate 84 in Fishkill, New York, just east of the Connecticut border.

George Brooks of Windsor was fined $100,000 on Oct. 23 in Hillsborough County Superior Court for discharging oil and gasoline that resulted in severe contamination of the groundwater at his property. Brooks’ salvage yard is on Rt. 31.

Assistant Attorney General Evan Mulholland said there have been monitoring wells on the property for the last two years. Tests have shown that there has been contamination of groundwater at the site with benzene, MtBE and other chemicals.

“There was a reading of MtBE under his two-bay garage a thousand times above the state standard,” said Mulholland.

According to a press release by the Attorney General’s Office, the Court ordered Brooks to immediately cease and desist from repairing or salvaging any vehicles or tanks of any kind on his property, and from undertaking any activity that may result in a discharge of oil, gasoline, or other hazardous material. The ruling also requires that Brooks cease burning any material other than leaves, brush or untreated wood. The ruling comes in a civil enforcement action filed by the state in September 2007.

Incumbents Governor John Lynch and Paul Hodes won in all area towns, with U.S. President elect Barak Obama and U.S. Senator elect Jeanne Shaheen losing in both Weare and Washington, with Shaheen also losing by five votes in Windsor.

Obama won 1,506 to Republican contender John McCain’s 1,002 in Hillsborough, 1,506 to 1,002 in Henniker, 852 to 635 in Antrim, 2,394 to 1,447 in Hopkinton, 580 to 420 in Bradford, 748 to 451 in Hancock, 399 to 369 in Bennington, 538 to 498 in Deering, 595 to 490 in Webster and 67 to 59 in Windsor.

In Weare McCain won against Obama 2,520 to 2,109, and in Washington 316 to 309.

Shaheen won 1,510 votes to Republican incumbent John Sununu’s 1,172 in Hillsborough, 1,320 to 1,064 in Henniker, 803 to 614 in Antrim, 2,190 to 1,571 in Hopkinton, 540 to 414 in Bradford, 686 to 485 in Hancock, 370 to 353 in Bennington, 504 to 477 in Deering, and 556 to 467 in Webster.

Sununu won 2,384 to 2,520 in Weare, 312 to 278 in Washington and 62 to 53 in Windsor.

Over 400 people have signed a petition in Washington to urge a cell phone company to erect a tower in town, so that cell service is available, especially when there are emergencies and accidents. Both the selectmen and the police department have written to Gov. John Lynch for help in urging a company to step forward.

The letter from the selectmen says, “Over the past two years the Board of Selectmen has been contacting the major cell phone companies with the proposition to erect a cell phone tower on town-owned property. Our requests have fallen on deaf ears.”

Although there is some very minimal service, depending on whether you are out in the middle of a lake or on a hilltop, there is no steady service.

“We have no reliable cellular service in town, merely hit or miss opportunities that can be lost by moving a few feet,” Police Chief Steve Marshall described.

Resident Bob Frasier pointed out that a little over a year ago, a woman’s car got stuck in mud on a road in town late at night. Although she did get out of her car and attempt to walk home, she was found face down in the woods three days later, having died of hypothermia.