City Manager's Report 2/2/2009
New Chamber Director and new Economic Development Director
The Chamber has hired Bill York to be its new Director. Bill is originally from Gorham and used to be the General Manager for the Reporter in Berlin but has been in Plymouth for the last 15 years. In Plymouth, he worked for a newspaper there and in sales and marketing. His office is at the Brown House
Max Makaitis of Hart's Location, NH has been hired to be the Economic Development Director for the Androscoggin Valley by the AVER/NCIC/Chamber collaboration. The position is funded for 18 months through a grant obtained by this group through NCIC. Max has an extensive background in private sector development and development in Lithuania. His office is also at the Brown House.
HEB Engineering Agreement
We are in the process of working out an engineering agreement with HEB for the six projects that were identified as potential "stimulus" funding projects. Again, the idea is to have some projects engineered and ready to go (shovel ready) should the funding become available. While there is no guarantee at this point that any of these projects will be eligible for funding, it can be guaranteed that if a community does not have projects ready to go, the community will receive no funding if the funding does become available. We are aiming to be back to Council by next Monday with the proposed engineering agreement for Council's consideration.
Hodes, DES and NCC Stimulus Funding Meetings
Last week Congressman Hodes held a session at Representatives Hall in Concord with local communities on the proposed stimulus funding. Attached are my notes on what he spoke about. Even at this point, he said all the numbers are subject to change. The one thing he seemed pretty certain of was that a stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, would be on the President's desk for signature by February 13th.
This Friday February 6th, DES will hold the second of its stimulus funding informational meetings in Concord. Because of over-attendance from municipalities, they are holding one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I will attend the one in the morning.
Finally, on Thursday February 12th, the North Country Council is holding a meeting in Bethlehem at the Inn at Maplewood on stimulus funding to try to get some consensus in the North Country about projects that should be supported. I have attached their invitation letter and the list of projects that they are initially proposing.
Meeting with displaced Fire tenants
Last Thursday a meeting was held at the local employment security office with tenants and property owners displaced from the downtown fire. Also in attendance were representatives of the Chamber, the City and the New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development. The situation of each of the property owners or tenants was reviewed and various possible resources which might be of use to them discussed. Most of the property owners and tenants had some type of insurance and are dealing with those insurance companies and seem to be pretty clear in the direction they are heading.
The 3-story brick wall remaining after the fire on the property next to Skinplicity and what will happen to it is still a problem that is being sorted out. Fortunately, the landowner of this burned property had insurance on it, and the City was able to locate and contact that insurance company. It was originally thought that the wall could be dismantled relatively inexpensively by hand. It was quickly found out that the wall was much more solid than originally thought and that taking it down was going to be a fairly large and expensive project. The City will invoke the RSA 155B process with respect to both burned properties.
Rocket Environmental Clearance
As part of the whole matter with Rocket Snowmobile on Jericho Road, the State was brought in because of the concern of hazardous waste on the property. As a result of that, the State DES issued an order based on various violations on the property at the time. With the attached notice, the DES is releasing that order as having been complied with. Rocket Snowmobile has been evicted from the property and no longer operates from it.
Public Works Activity Report
The Public Works Activity Report is attached. Old Man Winter is taking its toll on the Department particularly with respect to salt and vehicle maintenance. In some ways however, such as with fuel, the Department is doing better than we expected. Hopefully, the good will be good enough to offset most of the bad. Clearly, January and February will be critical months in this regard.
Legislative Matters
HB 641 is a bill that has been introduced which would modify the so-called spiking provision charges in the omnibus retirement bill that was passed last year and caused a stir in many communities that would have paid large amounts into the retirement system when they paid out large severance packages to their employees. This bill would provide for a credit for amounts already paid into the retirement system for things like overtime and special detail pay and then would phase in the spiking assessment charges over four years. It also requires each employer to report annually the base pay paid to each member of the retirement system. None of this addresses the real issue of the overall abuse of the retirement system by large severance payouts being made by some municipalities.
Time Warner Communication
Attached is the latest Time Warner communication on their negotiations with their various programmers and broadcasters.
Manager's Timekeeping
Attached.