This week was very busy for me on a personal level but the news has been fairly quiet.

1. On Thursday, January 17th I attended monthly the Weirs Action Committee meeting. Preparations are under way for the upcoming Bike Week. Several items were discussed but what I want to bring forward is a complaint about the location of the “Port-a-Potties” during the event. I spoke with the City Manager, Eileen Cabanel about this and she had Lee Johnson, from the Department of Public Works contact me directly. I am glad to report that Laconia is going to work closely with the businesses that are affected by the location (and odor) of these facilities. At the next meeting, February 21^st at the Weirs Park House I will be asking for input as to possible solutions to the problem. In fact Lee has offered to attend the March meeting on his own time to work on a solution.
2. As was reported recently in the Citizen, the Greater Laconia – Weirs Beach and the Greater Franklin Chambers of Commerce merged to form the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce. On Tuesday I had the honor of attending the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce Awards Luncheon. It was an exciting opportunity to meet several of the business leaders in the area and there was an overall excitement about the economic activities happening in the area.
3. On Tuesday evening I attended the monthly board meeting of the Lou Athanas Youth Basketball League, where we discussed how the season is progressing and about upcoming events. On Saturday, February 9^th at 6:30 PM in the MMS Gym there will be a food-drive/fund-raising “Free Throw Shooting Contest” and the board has issued a challenge to the City Council and School Board to participate in this event and has also issued a competition between the Council and Board for bragging rights as to who makes the most “free throws” on this night.
4. On Wednesday we heard Governor Lynch give his State of the State Address. It is interesting that he has proposed providing tax credits to businesses in Coos County that create “well paying” jobs but has put nothing forward on creating an economic stimulus or incentive to the rest of the state. He also glossed over the budget crisis that New Hampshire finds itself in the midst of. He said that he would not support any spending legislation but there was nothing heard about cuts in the current spending plan that increased spending more than 17%. Also absent from his speech was any mention that tax increases are “off the table” to repair the problem he and the Legislature have put us in. I am curious what his plan is to fix this crisis.

I have just read the Wednesday, January 16^th article written by Charles M. Arlinghaus ‘How to prepare for the budget crisis that is about to hit’ and I encourage everyone to read this article. It talks about the difficulties facing New Hampshire in the upcoming future and identifies the problems created by the legislature when they overstated the revenues available during this biennium budget. The New Hampshire House Ways and Means Chairwoman, Susan Almy is defending the estimates used while reducing revenue estimates by $50 Million.

It appears that there are some in Concord that want to use this short-fall of revenue as an excuse to impose a broad-based tax (income and/or sales taxes) on us. The rhetoric in favor of this new taxation is that it will decrease our overall tax burden by lowering our property taxes. The majority of our property taxes are used to fund Laconia’s School District and City budgets, with a portion going to Belknap County. We already know that this next city budget will be difficult to achieve because of the expenses for the Nursing Home that have been passed onto Belknap County.

You can argue that we pay a State Property Tax for education but we all know that is a small percentage of the overall tax rate. Does anyone really believe that a broad-based tax collected at the state level in Concord will filter down to Laconia’s budgets? I tend to believe that our representatives at the State House will keep the lion’s share of this new revenue and we will not only be paying high property taxes but will be taxed in everything we purchase and on all of the money we work so hard to earn at our jobs.