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This week's stories: (click on the headline
to jump to story)
 Sparks
are flying in the classroom
Kindergarten
abutters mull their options
New
software would help keep Web site fresh
Petition
drive seeks changes to newest zoning revisions
Thanks
to volunteer help, a family can go home again
Goffstown
Sparks are
flying in the classroom
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By RUSS CHOMA
Staff Writer
rchoma@yourneighborhoodnews.com
Chris Baker is fishing around on his workbench
with a pile of scrap metal. There are some long narrow rods,
a weird-looking bolt and a handful of screws.
Baker shuffles the pieces around, pauses thoughtfully and then
ignites his welding torch. Slowly, the pile of scrap starts taking
form into one singular form as he methodically melts one piece
into the next.
Baker takes a break to talk and points out the makings of a gangly
skeleton.
Baker, is piecing together his creation
in the Goffstown AREA High School welding workshop. He's not
a GAHS student. In fact, he graduated high school years ago.
But Baker and the other three welders in the workshop are participating
in the creative welding class offered through the Goffstown Adult
Education Enrichment program.
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PLAYING WITH FIRE: Marty Kelly
uses a gas welding torch to assemble a sprinkler from pieces
of scrap metal. Kelly and Tom Baker, background, are both students
in Rocco Caradonna's Creative Welding class. (Russ Choma Photos)
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In the woodworking class one workshop over,
another group of amateur craftsmen is measuring and sawing creations.
Down the hall, a group of women learn how to make stained-glass
creations, while another group of adult students practice conversational
phrases that would be useful if they ever dine out in a Spanish-speaking
country.
The adult education program is only a year old, but already the
classes are a hit and not just the more fun-oriented enrichment
classes. Almost 250 students attend a variety of night classes
twice a week, on any number of subjects.
There are three separate tracks: enrichment courses, diploma-oriented
classes and GED study courses.
Tess Marts, director of the program since its inception in January
of last year, said the program has filled a definite need, in
particular the diploma and GED tracks.
"It's something that the demographics in the state have
suggested that Goffstown could certainly benefit from," Marts
said. "If you look at the state census for people who have
less than 12 years of high school, our numbers are significant
comparatively."
"Manchester certainly had a program for a long time, but
it's not easily accessible for people with limited transportation
and child care needs," Marts said.
The advantage of the Goffstown program, in addition to the local
facility, is classes are held at night, allowing students to
take classes and hold down a job.
Marts said adults hoping to finish their high school education
aren't the only ones who have taken an interest. Increasingly,
college courses are requiring up-to-date instruction in subjects
such as algebra, biology and chemistry all offered by the
Goffstown program, Marts said.
SAU 19 Superintendent Darrell Lockwood said the school was simply
too valuable of an asset not to offer more classes.
"Our community's most expensive asset is our school buildings,
and we operate them for maybe seven hours a day," he said.
"Now, they're open 12 hours a day.
"The traditional classroom of today won't service everyone,"
Lockwood said. "There are kids who don't do well in that
setting. And there are adults who didn't do well in that setting
but now want to come back because they realize the importance
of an education.
"We have a population of adults and young adults who can
benefit from the myriad of facilities we have, whether it's a
shop or a classroom or a darkroom," he said. "It's
exciting really exciting. And folks in the community are
starting to pick up on it."
In the welding workshop, Baker said he'd consider taking another
welding class and was contemplating purchasing his own equipment.
"There's so many shows on TV, like 'Monster Garage' and
'Junkyard Wars,' where you see welding and it looked fun," Baker
said.
He is working under the approving eye of instructor Rocco Caradonna,
who says the enrichment is a good and, in some cases only, opportunity
for people like Baker to explore things like welding.
"They're getting the basics, and if they enjoy it and want
to pick it up at home, they know the safety requirements,"
he said. "But as far as I know, we're the only public
school in the state that offers this."
Marts said registration is currently open for a shorter limited
summer semester and for the fall program.
Enrichment programs typically cost $60 to $90, while diploma-oriented
courses cost $100 each.
For more information on what classes are available, Marts can
be reached at GAHS at 497-4841, ext. 356.
Goffstown
Kindergarten
abutters mull their options
By RUSS CHOMA
Staff Writer
rchoma@yourneighborhoodnews.com
The proposal to build a public kindergarten
on Tibbets Hill Road took another step forward, but may still
be far from a done deal.
At the April 15 planning board meeting, the 23-lot housing development,
which includes space for the kindergarten, received final approval.
The proposal passed by a vote of 4-1, with Joseph Beau-chemin
casting the single dissenting vote.
Although it received ap-proval, not everyone present at the meeting
was in support. A group of residents who own property abutting
the proposed development have expressed their opposition, and
may move to overturn the board's decision.
Michael Ryan, a Goffstown attorney representing some of the abutters,
said there is a 30-day period during which his clients may file
an appeal of the decision. Ryan said his clients, David and Christy
Garrison and the McRae family, are considering possible steps.
Whether to appeal the planning board approval of the plan hasn't
been decided yet, according to Ryan. "They're still weighing
their legal options," he said.
Ryan said those options include filing an action with the Superior
Court, depending on what specifically is going to be opposed
by his clients. He said his clients have a number of concerns.
"Number one, is it an appropriate site for a school given
that this is an open space development?" he said. "Second,
traffic issues. I don't think my clients feel they were adequately
looked at."
Ryan said there is also concern about the number of waivers the
planning board granted Timberstone Realty, the company proposing
to develop the property.
"We're also concerned about the number of waivers that were
granted," he said. "They seemed to be (given) because
a school was going in. Under other conditions, they may not have
been granted."
Although waivers from some regulations are not uncommon, Ryan
said his clients are concerned with the number that were granted
by the board. He said his clients are not the only ones with
concerns.
"I've been approached by a number of people in town who
are worried that this (many waivers) sets a really bad precedent
for development in Goffstown," he said.
Ryan declined to identify those people, but said they include
former town officials and private citizens.
"There's also concern that this whole process was just very
rushed through and that the voters, when they voted for it, really
didn't know there were all these issues out there," Ryan
said.
Tony Marts, a principal of Timberstone, said little when asked
about the prospect of the development hitting more snags.
"I'm not making any predictions," he said. "We're
doing all the work we can to get this project done."
Marts said aside from the possibility of an appeal, the only
remaining step before the site is completely approved is to receive
a wetland crossing permit from the state Department of Environmental
Protection.
Town Planner Stephen Griffin said that from the planning board's
perspective, all the issues with the land are resolved, although
actual building plans have not been discussed.
"The school needs to create a site plan as to how it plans
to design that site, and that would go through the planning board,"
he said. "It's not a case of if it can go (at the site).
It's what's the plan will be, and is it safe?"
Griffin said this is not necessarily a requirement.
"By courtesy, the town and the school board run their projects
through the planning board, but are not required to," he
said.
Superintendent Darrell Lock-wood has been unavailable for comment.
School Board Chair-man Scott Gross, however, said plans are going
forward.
"We are going to proceed," he said. "I can
tell you that we have appointed people for a building committee,
so we'll probably start that group up pretty quickly."
New Boston
Thanks to volunteer
help, a family can go home again
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By LARA SKINNER
Staff Writer
lskinner@yourneighborhoodnews.com
Summer weekends at the home of Herman and
Lucille Walker meant New England-style clambakes.
The small house at the end of Butterfield Mill Road in New Boston
has held memories for the couple since 1955, when they moved
to town from Massachusetts with their five children.
For the past few weeks, however, the Walkers and their middle-aged
daughter, Barbara, who lives with her parents because she is
unable to live on her own, have called a motel room their home
instead. That's because age seems to have caught up with all
of the Walkers, including the house.
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GOING HOME: From left, Barbara,
Herman and Lucille Walker have to call a motel room home until
the middle of May. Friends, neighbors and state organizations
are working to bring the Walkers' aging house back to a livable
standard so the family can stay in town instead of being moved
to an area nursing home. (Lara Skinner Photo)
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But thanks to the free labor of inmates
at the Hillsborough County House of Corrections, the Walkers
will be moving back into their home that will be completely refurbished.
Volunteer laborers gutted their home during the first week of
April because the house was in a serious state of disrepair.
During the winter the family lost the heat in their home twice,
and the water pipes burst because a window in the cellar wasn't
properly sealed. Last summer, the septic system started to fail
and a floor fell into the cellar.
Without the help of neighbors, the Baptist Church, the prison
labor program and Southern New Hampshire Services, the Walkers
probably would have lost their house and everything in it.
Although the church has come to the aid of the Walkers before,
this time the request for help with the septic system turned
into a complete house restoration.
"We asked for only a little," Herman Walker said. "And
we're getting so much more."
The pastor's wife, Marlys Johnson, said she and members of the
congregation have worked on small "Band-aid" fixes
on the house over the years.
A request for a septic system, however, was beyond her powers,
so she began researching what programs the state might offer
to help the couple.
"(The Walkers) knew they had reached the end of their rope
with what they could do with the home," Johnson said.
So she ended up talking with Ken Teates of Southern New Hampshire
Services, which runs the HOME program.
HOME was started in 1994 as a way to use federal grant money
from the U.S. Depart-ment of Housing and Urban Development to
help people who own single-family homes and are in situations
like the Walkers, Teates said.
But what he found in New Boston was more even more than the HOME
program could fix.
"It's just been a long time since (the house has) seen any
help," he said.
It took the help of many organizations to get the house to a
point where Teates could even start thinking about how the HOME
program could help. Prisoners in the labor program from the Hillsborough
House of Corrections spent at least a week gutting the house
of its contents, from furniture to wallboards, he said. They
filled a construction Dumpster at least 20 times over, and the
town of New Boston hauled the debris away.
Members of the Baptist Church helped clean as well, and cooked
lunch for the prisoners every day.
Nonah Poole didn't hesitate when she found out about the project.
When she moved to New Boston in the 1960s, she lived right down
the road from the Walkers. They always had time for events at
the Joe English Grange and the county fair, she said. Bowling
was another favorite pastime of the Walkers, she said.
Poole was happy to clean alongside the prisoners, and she was
surprised by the condition of the house.
What bothered her even more was the fact that the Walkers could
have lost their house, and then would have been placed in a nursing
home in another town.
"It really depletes the community when all of these older
people are taken away," she said.
Poole said she has seen other couples move to Goffstown because
New Boston doesn't have any kind of elderly housing available.
Luckily for the Walkers, she said, the people in town were willing
to help.
Contractor Roger Robatielle, who owns R&R Construction out
of Laconia, said someone donated the work to put in a new septic
system at the Walker's home. Robatielle, a regular contractor
for projects organized through Community Action, is donating
some of his time to fix the Walker's home.
Windows, Sheetrock, floor supports and new inside walls are on
his list of things to do. Someone else will install new plumbing
and electric wiring, Robatielle said.
Everyone who has worked to keep the Walkers in their home has
given them something more, he said. The community has helped
the couple retain their dignity.
"After all these years, I think (splitting up the family)
would just finish them," Robatielle said.
It's a problem that many communities struggle with on a regular
basis, added Mary Maggioncalda. She is the administrator for
Policy Devel-opment and Community Plan-ning at the Department
of Elderly and Adult Services in Concord.
Helping elderly people remain independent in a community is often
weighed against moving an individual or couple to an assisted
living or nursing home facility, she said. It's a question of
money as much as available resources.
Sometimes, people will refuse to leave their home. There is only
so much that the department can do.
"Sometimes, it takes a few visits to gain their trust,"
Maggioncalda said.
Services such as Meals on Wheels or a cleaning person can be
arranged through the department, she said. They also try to work
with family members as a support network. If all else fails,
Maggioncalda said they will arrange for a court-appointed guardian
to determine what's best.
Keeping elderly people independent and able to maintain their
dignity in a community is the top priority, though.
"We may not be able to assign a dollar figure to that,"
she said.
It is easier, however, to assign a dollar figure to a year's
worth of care in a nursing home. When Johnson was looking for
the different programs available to help the Walkers, she found
that between the HOME program, rural development and town resources,
there would be about $43,000 available to help rebuild the house.
People have come forward to donate supplies for the repairs,
so the cost could be higher.
"To take those people out of there one of them, for
one year at a county nursing home, that's $73,000 a year,"
Johnson said.
Nursing homes aren't used as much for long-term care as they
used to be, Maggioncalda said. People go there to recover from
an illness or an accident, and then they go home.
Herman, Lucille and Barbara have about another month before they
can go home. Every day they wait for lunch from Meals on Wheels,
and the television in their room is often set to game shows to
help pass the time.
When the childhood sweethearts finally return home, Lucille said
she will miss the large kitchen and dining room that they added
on to the house years back. The room had to be torn down during
the cleaning effort.
"They can't do everything," Herman said.
Still, the town, church and state are doing what they can to
keep the Walkers in their home, explained Johnson.
Dunbarton
New software
would help keep Web site fresh
By LARA SKINNER
Staff Writer
lskinner@yourneighborhoodnews.com
Searching the town's Web site is pretty
easy. Links lead to where they should, and it's possible to get
to both the school and library sites from the town's main page.
Updated information isn't always as easy to find, however. A
link to the minutes from the selectmen's meetings brings up a
page that hasn't been updated since June of 2003.
Kim Burkhamer, who is the secretary for the selectmen, is all
too familiar with the work needed for upkeep on the Web site.
When she joined the Web committee three years ago, there were
10 people who volunteered their time. Now it's just Burkhamer
and Janet Chamberlain, and more than 200 pages worth of Web site
work.
One information update they did manage to keep up with is posting
election results by 9 a.m. the morning after the voting.
"That really opened up everyone's eyes in town as to what
it can do," Burkhamer said.
She went to the community forum New Boston Speaks and heard that
people wanted to see more information posted on the Web site.
With a lack of volunteers and an increase in information to post,
Burkhamer did what any person in her position would do.
She researched different software companies and found The Virtual
Town Hall, a company out of Portland, Maine, that develops software
to design and maintain a Web site.
However, this doesn't take the responsibility of updating information
out of Burkhamer's daily schedule completely.
The committee is considering entering into an agreement with
The Virtual Town Hall (VTH) for the purchase of software, a user
license agreement and general Web hosting.
Working with (VTH) will make it easier for all the town departments
to take care of their own pages within the Web site. Burkhamer
said the software used to create and update the pages is much
more user-friendly.
And it could take some pressure off the people who work to keep
the site going now.
"As volunteers, we may not be able to (post an update) right
that second," David Chamber-lain said.
Chamberlain is the owner of MV Communications, and he donates
space on his server system for the town's Web site. Town departments
rely on the volunteer base for updates, he said.
He and his wife, Janet, have helped with the Web site since it
was started, and he likes the fact that the site is "home
grown."
"What (The Virtual Town Hall has) done is they've identified
a niche," Chamberlain said.
MV Communications will still donate the Web space for the town's
site, but VTH will take over management of the information.
Designing the pages with the software available can also increase
the types of things offered on the town's Web site.
"It becomes much more interactive," Burkhamer said.
One option is to create a data base of assessing information.
Instead of having to go into town and thumb through the maps
in the assessing office, people can go online to find out what
the town records have on file for a piece of property.
Eventually, Burkhamer said, she would like to have an interactive
calendar where residents could post events, as well as a chat
board.
Burkhamer said she doesn't yet know the cost of the initial purchase,
but said the town would pay about $500 a year for VTH's services.
She is waiting to hear what the other town departments have to
say about the package before taking the proposal to selectmen.
If everyone likes the idea, Burkhamer said she would like to
have the new software installed and running as soon as possible.
Dunbarton
Petition drive
seeks changes to newest zoning revisions
By LARA SKINNER
Staff Writer
lskinner@yourneighborhoodnews.com
Zoning regulations are in a constant state
of revision. But some residents don't like the latest changes
made by the planning board, and have started a petition to request
a rehearing on the maximum length of dead-end roads.
Regulations for dead-end roads were only one item on a list of
changes the board has been working on for at least the past year,
Chairman James Marcou said.
On Wednesday, April 7, board members voted unanimously to change
the maximum length from 600 feet to no length requirement at
all.
"We have finally gotten down to the wording that we want
to use," he said.
Part of the decision was to meet the needs of emergency equipment
in town, Marcou said. Shorter roads are more difficult to navigate
or turn around on. Fire trucks, in particular, need space to
move around and get close to homes in an emergency situation.
Dead-end roads are commonly used in housing subdivisions, and
Marcou said the regulation change included language that makes
developers responsible for the length of the road.
Ellie Stein attended the board meeting when the decision was
made, but she said she still isn't quite clear on how taking
away the maximum length requirement will help the situation.
She also thinks the board's decision seems counter-productive
to the master plan.
"Why are they changing the subdivision regulations now when
we have a master plan process that we are well into?" she
said.
Margaret Watkins is on the master plan steering committee. Taking
away the maximum length of a dead-end road is a sweeping change,
she said, and could compromise the work the steering committee
is doing on town planning.
"The master plan is the community's story," she said.
"Our regulations need to reflect what the community wants."
Planners should always keep the safety of the community in mind
when planning roads, Marcou said. Even if the people in town
convince the board to rethink the regulation change, Marcou said
things could change again later on.
"(The board is) well aware that as we get into the master
plan, that there will be new zoning to go along with the master
plan," he said.
Watkins and Stein gave the petition to the planning board during
its meeting on Wednesday, April 21. If the board decides to schedule
a re-hearing, the date will be posted in the paper and on the
community board outside of the town offices.
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