Latest news with #DanaWormald
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The lack of housing in New Hampshire is hurting families. Are state senators listening?
Housing is in short supply throughout New Hampshire. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) In the most recent UNH Granite State Poll, New Hampshire residents said housing is their top concern. More than three times as many people cited housing compared to the next most important issue, taxes. Yes, we are experiencing a statewide crisis of housing affordability. This crisis constrains economic growth and community vitality. Yet the New Hampshire Senate is poised to vote on a state budget that turns its back on housing, cutting funding for important programs that help our cities and towns meet their housing challenges and missing opportunities to help developers build housing that Granite Staters can afford. The Housing Champions program was created by the Legislature in 2023 with a $5 million appropriation to provide grants to cities and towns to help them voluntarily change their zoning ordinances to be more 'housing friendly.' Communities that made these changes were recognized as 'Housing Champions' and are eligible for additional funding, such as grants for infrastructure improvements. So far, 18 communities have achieved this distinction, and others are poised to follow. Despite this celebrated success, the Senate has proposed zeroing out this program. This shortsighted decision takes away the principal incentive ('carrots, not sticks') for our cities and towns to make important zoning changes. Earlier this year, the Senate passed Senate Bill 81 (then tabled it to add it to the budget) increasing the annual allocation to the state's affordable housing trust fund from $5 million to $10 million and making an additional appropriation of $25 million to the trust fund. The annual increase acknowledges the rising cost of building homes — the same money just doesn't go as far as it once did. The additional one-time appropriation acknowledges the housing deficit we're in — we need to build many thousands more homes just to meet current demand and help our economy grow. Even with good zoning, the developments that house our workforce require significant financial resources. Witness the several developments that have stalled recently in Concord because of higher costs. Senators gave themselves the opportunity to add SB 81 to the budget and then ignored it. Finally, the Senate has proposed reducing funding to the Housing Appeals Board, an innovative approach to addressing appeals of local planning and zoning decisions. The Legislature created the fast-track of the Housing Appeals Board in 2020 recognizing the delays that housing developments faced when local decisions were appealed to court. Time is money, and delays add to development costs. The Housing Appeals Board has been nationally recognized as a light-touch, small-government approach, and it has shown to be an effective and efficient means of hearing appeals. In the midst of a housing crisis, it is nonsensical to pull back on a proven way to speed up final decisions on development proposals. Our current lack of sufficient housing is a drag on economic growth and is hurting New Hampshire's families. It's time for the Senate to put its money — our money — where its mouth is: fund these vital housing programs and help move the Granite State out of its current housing crisis and toward a better, brighter future.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Because of suspicious minds, New Hampshire communities are caught in a trap
A chalk message written just outside the State House arch earlier this month in downtown Concord. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) Even in my most generous moments, I struggle to find benevolence in the American right's various pursuits. I can hear the response on the left as I write: That's because there is none. But I'd rather not move through my days believing tens of millions of Americans are actively wishing harm on their neighbors. Fear and warped nostalgia seem to be at the heart of the right's rising cruelty, but to reject another's pain out of hand, no matter how corrupt its source, feels like an equally unhealthy path. All of that said, we are a few elections and a million miles past Kumbaya. So, for whatever good it does, I spend a lot of moments trying to stake out mental territory between the unproductive wastelands of helplessness and hopelessness, anger and apathy. You don't make it easy, New Hampshire GOP. This month alone, we watched as Gov. Kelly Ayotte held a celebratory signing for a pair of bills meant to prevent any New Hampshire town from providing sanctuary to men, women, and children whom other people have deemed of 'illegal' humanity. And, in a staggering affront to experiential wisdom, lawmakers also decided to actively promote discrimination through passage of the anti-trans House Bill 148. Plus, House and Senate Republicans have proven so committed to selective and compartmentalized freedom that they've passed a book banning bill that essentially makes it easier for one parent to decide what the children of other parents should be allowed to read. After all, nothing frightens the party of guns more than unchaste words broadly aimed. Two of the most celebrated elements of America's carefully manufactured identity are 'sanctuary' and 'diversity,' and New Hampshire Republicans are laying siege to both. To that end, immigrants are being scapegoated without cause for any number of societal ills — crime, the housing crunch, depressed wages — and so the 'law and order' gang, including Ayotte, feels just fine about drowning the spirit of Emma Lazarus in New York Harbor. And, because conservatives have worked so hard to strip transgender Granite Staters of their humanity, legalized cruelty has been made acceptable even for the so-called centrists who are less naturally inclined toward hatred. And the book banning measure reflects America's McCarthyite instincts to read subversion into every artistic act that rejects or challenges American mythology. What I don't understand, have never understood, is what kind of society the right dreams of. America's strength is in its communities — and I once believed that was a bipartisan position. Each of us is, after all, accountable to our neighbors, the people with whom we share so much even if our interactions are limited to the occasional friendly wave. Yet all of these crusades pursued by Republicans are expediting the dissolution of communities. Whatever defense the right raises for the persecution of certain immigrants, the price paid at the neighborhood level is far too high and will last a generation or longer. When due process is denied by fiat, when the innocent are purposely ensnared in an inescapable net, when cultural profiling is not only tolerated by invited, how can 'melting pot' bonds be formed and nurtured? When discrimination is sanctioned and diversity is criminalized, how are our city blocks and cul-de-sacs strengthened now and tomorrow? How are we to find our empathy when the stories of different lives, lived honestly, are erased by paternalism? At a very basic level, there are two ways to take part in society. You can see people as threats or you can see them as partners. When the popular pendulum swings toward 'threat,' which is the state and nation we are living in now, the risk of community deterioration grows. It is only through the embrace of partnership that villages thrive. What does that sense of partnership look like on the ground? It looks like affordable housing built not just in lower-income communities but affluent ones, too. It looks like support — in all its forms — for the local public schools that don't just educate our kids but weave families of all backgrounds together. It looks like thoughtful immigration reform that places the target on root-level solutions and not the exposed backs of the huddled masses. It looks like environmental policies that elevate sustainability — by definition a lasting public good — over momentary, irreversibly destructive greed. It looks like lifting up those with the least instead of further enriching those with the most. It looks like building a shared and intermingled future instead of more and taller fences. In my heart of hearts, I guess I know that the point of all that's happening right now is that there is no ultimate point. The right is not working toward something glimmering and distant but for something immediate, for political ends, and it's the immediacy that's so destabilizing, demoralizing, and directly harmful. To win in America today, our right-wing politics and policies tell us, somebody else must not only lose but be punished, too. And in such a world, our communities are not half as important as our barriers, our borders, and our suspicions.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill derided by authors as enabling book banning heads to Ayotte's desk
HB 324 would require all New Hampshire school boards to adopt a complaint process that parents could use to object to obscene materials – and potentially remove them. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) If New Hampshire adopts a law to make it easier to remove books from school libraries, 'Nineteen Minutes' by Jodi Picoult could be one of them. The 2011 novel, set in the fictional Upper Valley New Hampshire town of Sterling, depicts a deadly school shooting committed by a student who was bullied for his sexual orientation. It has been banned in more than 50 school districts; many of those removals were driven by its inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters and themes. This year, Picoult and other authors are warning that the proposed New Hampshire bill, which is heading to Gov. Kelly Ayotte's desk, amounts to a book banning bill and should be vetoed. Those pushing for the bill say it is targeted only at obscene content with no educational value. 'We know from history what the next chapter looks like when we don't fight book bans, and we know that that is a story that does not end well,' said Picoult at a May 12 press conference hosted by the organization Authors Against Book Bans. On May 15, the Republican-led Senate voted on party lines to advance the bill, House Bill 324, to Ayotte. HB 324 would require all New Hampshire school boards to adopt a complaint process that parents could use to object to obscene materials — and potentially remove them. Currently, school districts can choose their own policies for how to allow parents to object to materials. Under the proposed law, parents may submit written complaints alleging that a book or other material is obscene. To qualify, the content must appeal 'to the prurient, shameful or morbid interest of minors,' and depict nudity, sexual acts, or sadomasochistic abuse in a way that is 'patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors.' The material must also lack 'serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic, or political value for minors,' and be inappropriate to the age group to which it is made available. If it doesn't meet all four of those requirements, it cannot be removed. Under the law, the school principal has 10 school days to review the material in the complaint and determine whether it violates the law; if a parent disagrees with that decision, they have 14 calendar days to appeal to the local school board. If the school board also deems the material to be appropriate, a parent can appeal one more time to the State Board of Education, a seven-member panel whose members are appointed by the governor and Executive Council; that board will have the final say on the material. The law carries consequences for school districts and teachers who don't comply with it. School districts can be sued by the state's attorney general, Department of Education, or any person 'claiming to be aggrieved' by the district for not following the law, and educators can face discipline for violating the educator code of conduct. Rep. Glenn Cordelli, the Tuftonboro Republican who proposed the bill, disagrees that it is meant to ban books. 'I see it more as a parents' rights bill for parents to object to materials in some schools,' Cordelli said in an interview Thursday, just before the Senate vote. Cordelli has read on the House floor passages from some books he says should be removed, including 'Here and Queer: A Queer Girl's Guide to Life,' a 2022 advice book for teenagers, and Speak, an award-winning 1999 young adult book about a high school freshman who is raped. Both books are present in New Hampshire school district libraries, Cordelli says. But Picoult and a handful of other authors at the press conference said the excerpts are often taken out of the context of the bigger story that is being told. Picoult said she respects a parent's right to read books themselves before reading them to their kids, something she did too when her children were growing up. 'But there's a colossal problem when that parent decides the book isn't right for anyone's child,' she said. 'These parents will tell you that the books are exposing kids to topics that are salacious or revolutionary. What kids are really being exposed to are lives and mindsets different from their own, which creates compassion and empathy.' Lara Prescott, the author of the 2019 novel 'The Secrets We Kept,' about the CIA's plot to smuggle Boris Pasternak's 'Dr. Zhivago' out of the U.S.S.R., noted that her book was banned from publication in China due to a love story between two women. 'It's hard to believe we're seeing echoes of that in our own country today: teachers and librarians being criminalized for the books in their classrooms,' Picoult said at the press conference. She added: 'I want my son to grow up exposed to all kinds of stories, perspectives, and voices,' Picoult is a plaintiff in a 2024 lawsuit featuring authors challenging a similar law in Florida, and she said if HB 324 were signed in New Hampshire, the state could expect similar litigation. The bill touched off heated debate on the Senate floor Thursday. Democrats said the definition went too far and could be used to apply to classic works of literature, such as Shakespeare, which sometimes includes sexual content. And Democrats said the state already has obscenity laws that make it illegal to provide pornographic materials to students; HB 324 is aimed at broader books that feature LGBTQ characters, they alleged. Sen. David Watters, of Dover, argued the bill would allow parents who have particular beliefs about LGBTQ students or other political beliefs to remove materials that other parents might be OK with. 'It violates free speech,' Watters said. 'It violates the right of certain parents and their children to have access to materials.' Republicans said concerns over banning Shakespeare were overblown, pointing to the four criteria that must be met, including that the material has no 'literary' or 'artistic' value. 'Shakespeare is there to stay,' said Sen. Daryl Abbas of Salem. 'I wasn't always a fan of Shakespeare, but his books are staying.' And they said the bill is aimed at obscene material. 'We're talking about flat-out pornography and things that if I, as just a regular citizen, handed to a child, I could be arrested for,' said Sen. Victoria Sullivan of Manchester. 'And this is why it's escalated to this point.' 'All people should be represented. You know, if you want to have a book (with) two moms, two dads, great. But with 'Gender Queer' in a second grader school, and it's got pornographic drawings, and the parents find that, and they go to their school board and they read excerpts from it, that's a problem,' said Sen. Denise Ricciardi, of Bedford, referring to a book often removed from school libraries for sexual content. The bill will make its way to Ayotte's desk in the coming weeks. At that point, she can sign it, veto it, or allow it to pass without her signature.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lawmakers pass sweeping zoning reform bills, but some say housing funding is lacking
The New Hampshire Municipal Association deviates from pro-housing groups by strongly opposing any state-passed laws to force cities and towns to change zoning. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) As they consider laws to encourage more housing this year, New Hampshire lawmakers have so far been more interested in the stick than the carrot. The Legislature has pushed forward a number of bills intended to overhaul zoning procedures that housing advocates say impede badly needed development. Some bills, such as ones to help expand accessory dwelling units and allow for 'mixed-use' developments in commercial zones, represent the biggest state-driven changes to zoning laws in years. But lawmakers are less focused on another policy tool: financial incentives. In its version of the budget, the House has stripped out funding for a program designed to encourage cities and towns to voluntarily change their zoning codes to be more housing friendly. Now, pro-housing groups are pushing the Senate to restore at least some of that funding, arguing the zoning changes are only one piece of the puzzle. And the New Hampshire Municipal Association — which broadly opposes any bills that would override local zoning codes — argues financial incentives for towns should be the state's sole approach. The Senate Finance Committee has an opportunity this month to dramatically reverse some of the House's cuts. The Senate has already passed independent bills that together include $90 million of spending on housing — all of which could be added into the budget if desired. But the Senate is also grappling with projections suggesting lower-than-ideal business tax revenues, suggesting that it can restore some, but not all, of the House's budget cuts in April. In total, the House cut $643 million from Ayotte's budget; revenue projections from the Senate Ways and Means Committee suggest the body could restore only about half of that spending. Nick Taylor, director of Housing Action New Hampshire, an advocacy group, notes the House-passed budget contains no new funding going toward affordable housing development. The House defunded the Housing Champion Program, which provides special grants to towns and cities that change their zoning codes to meet certain standards deemed friendlier to housing development. Under the program, towns that do so can receive state assistance for infrastructure funding and per-unit production grants. Eighteen towns qualified in 2024, according to the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs: Boscawen, Concord, Derry, Dover, Enfield, Farmington, Hinsdale, Hooksett, Jaffrey, Keene, Lebanon, Manchester, Nashua, Newport, Portsmouth, Rochester, Salem, and Somersworth. Ayotte's budget did not continue funding the program, which first passed in 2023. Instead, it extended the lapse date for the $5 million appropriated in 2023, allowing more time for the existing money to be distributed. But the House's budget would end the program and redirect the unspent money. House lawmakers also rejected proposals by Housing Action NH and others to increase the amount of funding going to the state's affordable housing program — which helps to finance affordable housing projects — from $5 million per year to $10 million, and to double a tax credit program that funds the state's Community Development Finance Authority from $5 million a year to $10 million. For lawmakers to focus only on zoning and not financing is a mistake, Taylor says. 'Relaxing the regulatory piece is a big deal when it comes to allowing for more attainable market-rate options like (accessory dwelling units), like mixed-use development, (and) manufactured housing. But when you really get to the deeply affordable levels, you need the financing piece there too. And that is in danger of being left out of the equation this session.' Brodie Deshaies, legislative advocate for the New Hampshire Municipal Association, agrees that more funding should be devoted to allow municipalities to craft pro-housing zoning codes that work for their residents. But the Municipal Association deviates from pro-housing groups by strongly opposing any state-passed laws to force cities and towns to change zoning. 'It seems zoning mandates are a priority, and that has no guarantee of more affordable housing, more workforce housing, even more housing in general,' he said in an interview. 'Just because you've mandated that a municipality can't have a specific zoning ordinance … what is a (landowner's) incentive to build or to work with a developer to build?' He added: 'In the current Legislature, we're seeing no collaborative process, no willingness to work with municipalities,' he said. 'Instead, it seems very (strongly) working against municipalities.' Deshaies also predicted that though concern over the state's housing crisis dominates New Hampshire polls, many residents will not like the zoning laws when they apply to their own towns. 'I think a lot of residents and municipalities are going to look and say, 'When I thought more housing, I was not thinking this,'' he said. Republican lawmakers who are pro-housing offer a different perspective. To them, the financial incentives championed by Housing Action and the Municipal Association are much less important than the regulatory reforms. Rep. Joe Alexander, a Goffstown Republican and the chairman of the House Housing Committee, says that he supports the Housing Champion Program and would vote to fund it as a standalone bill. But he said the state can still pass meaningful legislation to boost housing without financial incentives. Alexander pointed to a pair of bills moving to Ayotte's desk that he said will have the biggest impact: House Bill 631, which would require municipalities to allow multi-family developments in commercial zones, such as shopping areas; and House Bill 577, which would allow homeowners to build a detached accessory dwelling unit by right and expand the size limitations to do so. Both bills would allow cities to set zoning requirements, such as appearance, for those developments. Lawmakers are also moving along Senate Bill 188, which would allow homebuilders to use third-party inspectors to approve new homes rather than wait for state inspectors, and House Bill 428, which would prevent towns from making new changes to the state building codes, Alexander noted. SB 188 is moving to a vote on the House floor with a positive recommendation from the Housing Committee, and HB 428 passed the Senate on May 15. 'I'm not necessarily thinking that if we throw money at it, it's going to solve the problem,' Alexander said. 'I actually truly think the free market is going to be able to build affordable homes if we cut the red tape, cut the spending. We'll build affordable homes when there's enough supply. The market will adjust.'
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
If we want to grow, we need to invest
"The New Hampshire House's proposed budget does not just hurt programs and the people they serve. It hurts our state's ability to compete in the 21st century." (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) After a winter full of guardrail-breaking politics, I arrived at the State House Tuesday on a rainy spring day, ready to protest and testify before the New Hampshire Senate about a budget I believe will shrink our state's future. Then came hours of thoughtful, passionate testimony from caregivers, health care workers, state and local officials, nonprofit leaders, and fellow parents. I had to leave before the Finance Committee got to my name on page 14 of the sign-up sheet, but I took solace in how many who came before me said versions of what was on my mind. Below, though, is the framing I didn't hear Tuesday that I still can't shake. As we think about a future that works for everyone in New Hampshire, I hope it reaches a persuadable audience. The New Hampshire House's proposed budget does not just hurt programs and the people they serve. It hurts our state's ability to compete in the 21st century. It doesn't fund a future. It retreats from it. We talk a lot in New Hampshire about economic growth and keeping young people here. About attracting workers and building strong communities. But budgets are where rhetoric meets reality. The budget passed by the House — now under review in the Senate — does not make New Hampshire more competitive. It makes it harder to stay, harder to raise a family, and harder to grow. Being pro-growth means being anti-poverty. It means investing in the people who make our New Hampshire work — in their housing, their child care, their health care, their education, their job training. But at a time when the U.S. economy just contracted by 0.3% — driven in part by trade imbalances and decreased government investment — this budget pulls back from the very people and services we should be supporting most. When state leaders offer only cuts, local property taxes jump just to keep the lights on. And with housing, child care, and everyday costs soaring, middle-income families are barely hanging on. Many of our teachers, nurses, and first responders can't even afford to live where they work. Across New Hampshire, we're short over 23,000 housing units. But the House budget eliminates the Housing Appeals Board, making it harder to build, even as 1 in 4 homes on the market now costs over $1 million. More than 16,000 Granite Staters are out of the workforce because they can't find child care. But in the proposed budget, there's no meaningful investment in providers or parents. The budget also eliminates the Family Planning Program. This strips access to affordable reproductive health care, contraception, and cancer screenings, especially for low-income and rural folks. We're still 15,000 workers short since the pandemic, but the House budget cuts job training and Medicaid provider rates, pushing caregivers and health care workers further out of reach. The $50 million cut to the UNH system is particularly shortsighted. Amid these workforce shortages, we're gutting one of our most vital talent pipelines for tradespeople, nurses, engineers, teachers, social workers, and in-state students who tend to stay and work locally. Many UNH campuses also serve rural and low-income communities already stretched thin. If we want young people to stay, work, and raise families here, we need to fund the things that make that possible — homes they can afford, schools they trust, child care they can find, and jobs they can build on. Gutting those things tells young people like me that this is not the state we grew up in. Are we still that state? Where if you work hard, play by the rules, and respect the fact that your neighbor's path isn't your own, you can still get ahead? These cuts don't tell that story. We're closing the Office of the Child Advocate as over 1,300 survivors of abuse at the Youth Development Center pursue justice. We're ending the Commission on Aging as 27% of our population will be 65 or older by 2030. Pulling $10 million from the Renewable Energy Fund while the Seacoast and Upper Valley face repeated flooding. Expanding education freedom accounts — siphoning public dollars into private schools with no accountability as public schools remain underfunded and understaffed. Eliminating the Council on the Arts amid constant assaults on cultural freedom and innovation — in the 'Live Free or Die' state. None of these actions solve problems. They shift burdens, weaken services, and undermine long-term growth. My wife and I are doing well. We have a safe home, reliable child care, and stable careers that help us pay for it all. But life in 2025 is exorbitantly expensive and a state that relies on high earners like us — while cutting the support that helps others rise — is not building a future. It's running out the clock, scaring off talent and investment, and pricing out the working people who keep us strong. There is still time to get this right. The Senate can reject this budget, close loopholes that let out-of-state investors avoid paying their fair share, bolster housing support, reinvest in public education and workforce training, and protect the public services families count on. And citizens across this state can keep demanding a smarter, more honest approach to growth. Real competition requires real investment. And making good on 'Live Free or Die' means funding the freedom to stay and thrive.
