City Manager's Report 5/21/2007
Mason Street Bridge Deck
This project is well underway with the contractor having stripped the deck and the membrane and is well into cutting away and cleaning the spalled concrete areas in preparation for a new membrane and paving courses. It turns out that there is quite a bit more spalled area than the Engineers allowed for in the bid. It is expected that increased costs will be offsite by buying the special concrete pre-mixed rather than mixing it by hand at the site, thereby saving a large labor cost.
New Hampshire Property Tax Exemptions
Attached is a timely article from the LGC Town and City magazine on property tax exemptions as they are treated under State law. Copies of this article have also been provided to the Board of Assessors for the City which is responsible for determining each year in the first instance what properties do and do not qualify for exempt status.
Student Government Day
Attached is a copy of the Thank You the City received from the students at Berlin High School who participated in the Student Government Activities at City Hall. After the lectures by Councilor Lafleur to the classes and the visit to the City Council meeting, the students attended a staff meeting the next morning and engaged with the staff in some of the public policy issues. Hopefully, it was educational for them and the staff certainly enjoyed it. We should be able to do similar events in the future, and hopefully the students will take more interest in their local governments.
Legislative Items
- Fine Filter requirements
Chair Judith Spang and her House Resources, Recreation and Development Committee visited Berlin on Thursday May 10th. This committee is currently reviewing the so-called 'Fine Filter' requirements that stand in the way of the proposed 136 miles of trail being developed in the new Jericho Mountain State Park.
The Committee was given an orientation about Berlin at City Hall, given a quick tour of the City and then taken to the Park where they spent the afternoon with the Mayor and others riding ATV's around the Park.
The Committee is supposed to have amended language available for review by the Trails Bureau before another scheduled meeting of the Committee this Thursday in Concord. Needless to say, a lot is riding on what they come up with.
- Retirement System
Due to lobbying by Group II members (Police/Fire), the proposed legislation (HB 653 & HB 876) to begin to deal with the hemorrhaging NHRS seems to have come a bit off track. Due to the complexity of this, the entire Legislative Bulletin article on it is attached. The action needed is to Senator SnGallus and the other Senators know that they should support the passage of HB 653 with all the provisions recommended by the Senate ED&A Committee.
- HB 803 would amend RSA 80:88&89
Well we didn't get the main thing we wanted which was a reduction in the three year wait time to sell a tax-deeded property, but we are starting to have some success around the edges. The changes in HB 803 (attached) which has passed the House at least reduces some of the confusion and makes the scheduling a little easier by elimination the elusive 30 day period in which the City has to sell a tax deeded property.
- HB 692 - Industrial Exemption Bill (attached)
We have discussed before why this is a bad bill, but it has apparently passed the House and is on its way to the Senate. The last thing Berlin and the other towns in the North Country need to be doing is beating each in a race to the bottom to see who can lower property taxes more for potential industrial concerns. We need to better make our concerns know to the North Country legislators who sponsored this bill.
Mesh Network Project Weather Tower
The grant requirement on the Berlin PD is to have this mesh network project completed, up and working by the beginning of September. We are all working together to try to pull together all the loose ends to make this happen, but it is going to be tight. We are having the area around the Fraser weather tower surveyed so that we can quickly accept an easement for it which is essential to the project.
DES Visit on Chlor-Alkali site
The NH DES and USEPA were here again on Wednesday May 16th to discuss a future use study that will be done on the cell house site.~Such a study is done for all superfund sites about future use possibilities – in some cases influencing how the cleanup will be performed.~ In this case, E2 is the company that has been hired by EPA to perform the study.~ They will work directly with the City Planner to develop a scope of work – as part of the process the City has to sign off on the study. Ultimately, we are directing the study, not EPA as they are the technical advisors in the process.
The project manager for E2 will be visiting Berlin in early June to start the study.
Meeting with Laidlaw wed 5/16
On Wednesday May 16th, the CEO of Laidlaw Energy Group Michael Bartoszek and an associate Darwin Cusack met with Pam Laflamme, Norm Charest, Jim Wagner and me to tell us a bit about there plans for the NADC property. Although there has still not been an actual closing on this property that we are aware of, it is pretty clear that some earnest money that has been provided as well as a letter of intent. We were provided with some pictures showing the biomass plant utilizing the existing black liquor boiler with everything else except a brick warehouse removed. The picture showed a public walkway along the river and an area for dealing with wood chips. It also showed green houses on the property because they are a user of the type of excess heat that the biomass boiler would give off. The Co-gen facility will for the present remain a separate parcel. The property is 120 acres and Laidlaw would own the southern 60 acres and NADC would retain the northern 60 acres and presumably be working with Laidlaw on how the rest of the property would be developed.
We indicated to them that we had not been able to find a whole lot of information on Laidlaw other than that they are penny stock. titleMr. Bartoszek indicated that he is a Wall Street securities guy who started this company in 1999 as an investment fund. We talked quite a bit about the limitations and difficulties all power companies face in the North Country with respect to being able to wheel power out of the North Country.