By BILL CHAISSON
Per the governor’s remarks, we have Mayor Charlene Lovett to thank for $530,000 in appropriations to Claremont in his budget. That the mayor was “frankly relentless” is all to her credit, but I don’t think this should be asked of her. In fact, when I hear that you have to go to the governor in order to get public money for your city’s needs I almost believe I can hear the violin music playing, so much does this resemble “The Godfather.”
All props to school board member Jason Benware for asking Gov. Sununu a straight question: will he veto the education bills that are making their way through the Senate (having been approved by the House)? Further props to Mr. Benware for not throwing something heavy at the governor when he completely dodged the question.
Sununu had the nerve to say “I’ve always said the power of funding the schools doesn’t belong in the courts and it’s not about lawsuits.” Uh, the power of funding the schools is in the state constitution and the fact that the state government doesn’t respect that is how it ended up in the courts. He went on to say that the legislature “had the power of the purse to drive that forward.” Which didn’t answer Benware’s direct question at all.
The governor goes on to state proudly that he has proposed spending $65 million to rebuild schools. In a world where it costs $80,000 to replace the glass on the front of Arrowhead Lodge, $65 million will not go very far across all the schools in the state. I get the distinct feeling that not a lot of people in Concord have a clear idea of how much things cost today.
The governor complains that the legislature wants to raise “massive amounts of taxes” that would just “pile more money in the system.” What? We are living in a state that, surprise, has $65 million in one-time surplus funds while many, many schools in the state are chronically underfunded because their local tax bases aren’t worth much. Plan much?
The conservative perspective on this is that places like Claremont are like a family that has been making bad financial decisions and has now found themselves in debt and without the resources to pay. Said family must therefore tighten its belt, reduce expenses and tough it out on their own.
Is this really how families operate? If you know that your cousin has inherited the debts of your uncle through no fault of his own, do you just leave him to drown? Because that is the situation in Claremont. The corroded infrastructure and crumbling real estate that we live with now is not the fault of the present leadership. Everything has been let go for decades and now they have to figure out what to do.
Under the aegis of Guy Santagate money came into Claremont from the state and private investors to rescue Monadnock Mills and turn it into a mixed use facility that is still not fully occupied. Which is to say, if the present leadership were to reach out to the state and private investors with a similar plan and continue the rebuilding project, there is no reason why the tax base could not be rebuilt.
What seems to be in the way is a political ideology that forbids us to think of the state as analogous to an extended family. Tax dollars collected from a part of the state that is presently flush should go to a region that is presently strapped. Why? Because as in an extended family, fortunes go up and down through the years in different branches.
The famous example of this is in New York State. In the early 1970s New York City went bankrupt and the state bailed it out, meaning that upstate taxpayers helped the city to recover. At present upstate New York is in tough shape. Downstate is doing quite well and grousing about helping out upstate. They are doing so fitfully, but they are doing it.
In 20 or 30 years when the N.H. seacoast region is devastated by rising sea level and unprecedented storms, they might be glad they helped out Sullivan County back in the day.
We need a governor, and frankly a state legislature, that thinks in terms of what is good for the whole state and engages in some coordinated long-term planning. Doling out a few hundred thousand dollars here and there to the most persistent elected officials is the opposite of the right way to go about things. In other places this is called “pork barrel spending,” and it is regarded as cynical.
How can Claremont really be expected to be happy with getting $530,000 for practical necessities like sidewalks and energy efficiency when they know that Sunapee is being given almost twice as much for improving recreational lake access? To return to the extended family metaphor that is as if your rich uncle gives you a little money toward your mortgage payment and then buys a new car for your cousin who already has a nice car, but not as nice as the new one.
We, of course, can not look a gift horse in the mouth, especially since our mayor put a lot of effort into attracting the attention of said horse. But will the Republican governor’s budget be accepted by a legislature where both houses are dominated by Democrats and the governor is spending money now to make his budget look leaner than it really is? Probably not. So, where would that leave us? It would leave us without pork and still waiting for our piece of pie.
Bill Chaisson is the editor of the Eagle Times and, as a vegetarian, doesn’t really like the smell of pork.
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