NH Secrets Legends and Lore

Many people from the central New Hampshire area will speak fondly, often wistfully, of Tenney Mountain. As if it's time had passed. Yet, there is a reason why Tenney has been resurrected time and again over the years. It is because many of the fundamentals of a great family ski area are there, it's just that the formula for its resurrection have not been quite right.

Today, a lot of folks believe that formula may finally have been found and - once again - optimism is bubbling up in the heart of New Hampshire. A combination of local knowledge, ski industry savvy and the financial "juice" needed to confront the dual challenges of restoring Tenney's infrastructure and dreaming big about its future seems to have coalesced with the team of Dan Egan and Steven Kelley - two folks with "just enough crazy in them" to make it happen.

Garry Rayno and Michael Kitch have been keen observers of public policy in NH for several generations, and especially the impacts of policies on the economy. Garry has been a lifelong journalist in New Hampshire and Michael began his NH career as a journalist, specializing in business issues, and served in the early 90s as the State Senate Policy specialist on the budget and economic policy. In this podcast we discuss a recent study from Phil Sletten of the New Hampshire Policy Institute on the value and impact of public expenditures and tax reductions highlighted by Garry in an article at InDepthNH.org's news website (below). The study shows a substantial public benefit and return to the economy from public expenditures like the SNAP program and relatively low value to the economy from tax cuts.

Meade Cadot served as the Harris Center's Executive Director from 1975 through 2009. 

In 2008, after 33 years and the successful creation of a SuperSanctuary of conserved lands, Meade handed the Executive Director reins to Laurie Bryan and became “Senior Naturalist"— emphasis on the Senior. At the end of 2012, he retired from his role as Senior Naturalist and Land Program Director. He continues to spend time at the Harris Center — working on land protection and outings, and sharing his considerable wisdom with the rest of the Harris Center staff — as their first-ever Naturalist Emeritus.

Meade also served as a faculty member in Antioch University New England’s Environmental Studies Department for 34 years.

Tom Irwin, an attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, who joins me on this podcast along with Roger Stephenson of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Biologist Dr. Cynthia Walter of the NH Network, to discuss one of the newer technologies in solid waste management called Advanced Recycling. Tom succinctly outlines the scope of the problem with respect to dealing with plastic waste.

But plastic waste is only one of the issues that we need to address moving forward. Reduction and substitution is also a critical component of building a future where plastics do not pose the threat that faces us today. Finally, there is the overarching issue of climate change and the question of whether Advanced recycling will improve carbon emissions associated with the disposal of plastics or make the problem worse. 

I first met "Dick" Daschbach when we served together in the NH House of Representatives. Dick and I formed an immediate bond and along with our colleagues, particularly V. Michael Hutchings and Deborah "Arnie" Arnesen we formed the backbone of a "peanut gallery" sitting at the back of Reps Hall together and offering a running commentary on the proceedings to one another.

Dick's first job after college but before Law School was as a worker in the US Senate Post Office. He worked a half day and went to Law School the other half.

In 1967 He and his wife vacationed in NH on Lake Spoffard and fell in love with NH. Shortly after that they bought a home in Walpole, NH. He became a legal services lawyer for the area.

New Hampshire would turn out to be Dick and Virginia's "Spot on the Porch" for the balance of their lives (so far!)

On the last day of class in his first year of Georgetown Law School Dick received a call from the office of Senator Russell Long asking him to come and work for Sen. Long. On that same day his first child was born and Dick was appointed as Maritime Counsel to Long's Merchant Marine Committee. US Senate: Office of the legendary Senator Russell Long of Louisianna. Senator Long was the son of Huey Long, also a legendary figure in Louisiana politics.

He was appointed Chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. Richard retired from that position upon the election of Ronald Reagan.

Assistant to the President: Seafarer's Union, a Union representing the men and women who work on US flagged ships. Trying to raise the work standards all over the world so US ships, and employees, could be more competitive.

At 74 he was appointed Chief Judge of the Federal Workers Compensation Appeals Board, a position he would hold for 4 years before returning to New Hampshire full time in his retirement.

Edith Tucker

Described by the great John Harrigan as a first-rate journalist, Edith Tucker had already experienced a full and consequential life before a later life conversion to journalist. She dropped out of college to marry and then, in addition to raising four children, she got involved in local government, first in Pelham, NY and then in Wellesley, MA where she served as Chair of the Finance Committee and on the school board for nine years. She became an activist in the women's movement and fair housing and attended the 1976 Republican National Convention. After meeting the great Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, Galbraith hired her to work for him, assisting him in the transcription and writing of his books and speeches and later serving as his appointment secretary.

Edith was not the kind to let any grass grow under her feet so when a later employer moved his business to her hometown, saving her more than an hour commute each way, she decided to fill in those two hours by going back to college. She was accepted at Wellesley College as a Davis Scholar, majoring in Government. As a non-traditional student she was nervous about her ability to jump back into academic life - especially while working full time. She didn't need to worry, because she graduated summa cum laude and won the Erasmus Prize in history, bolstered by a paper that she wrote about the treatment of Chinese laborers in Massachusetts' Shoe Factories, a paper that influenced the State's adoption of the Chinese Inclusion Act.

In 1994 she and her husband moved to New Hampshire and she went to work at the Berlin Reporter and later moved to the Coos County Democrat, owned by John Harrigan.

A three-term state legislator during the last six years Edith has done a lot of thinking about some of the great issues we face in our country. The wisdom of her thoughts will make this podcast very enjoyable for you.

Rep Mel Myler & Rep David Luneau, both of Merrimack District 9 are the Ranking Democrat members and the Deputy Ranking Member respectively of the NH House Committee on Education. They have been leading the charge within the legislature for greater accountability and equity in public education, particularly with respect to the new Educational Freedom Accounts that provide annual grants to families who place their children in private schools, with virtually no accountability, educational standards, or oversight.

When you listen to this podcast you will find yourself both disgusted by the unjust and likely-unconstitutional (soon to be adjudicated) use of millions of dollars of taxpayer funding being doled out to thousands of families whose children were already in private, often-religious, schools before the passage of the Education Freedom Account law, administered by a private contractor - not the NH Department of Education, and not subject to any legislative oversight.

Parents who enroll their children in the program forfeit all special education assistance to the child, leaving their child as the primary victim of the transition.

The only requirement to qualify for this grant is that the household is beneath an approximately $80,000/year income level but this requirement is only for the first year. If a family enrolls a first grader in the program this year, irrespective of how high their income goes over the course of their child's education, they will be eligible to collect the grant through the end of high school, with no recertification of income level.

3,200 children are enrolled in this program, receiving a public grant of between $7-$9,000 per year per child. 3,100 children were already in private schools before the program went into effect and only 100 students applied to move from public schools to private schools. This represents a direct transfer of wealth, from communities throughout the state to families who were already sending their children to private schools.

Then there is the hopeful news.

For the first time in more than 20 years, a committee was appointed, Chaired by Rep Luneau, with support from the Carsey Center at UNH, a think tank, to do a broad assessment of educational funding, based on empirical data now available. What they discovered is that funding for public education is adequate but that changes to the formula for distribution are needed.

That's right. More money is not the problem. How that money is allocated could substantially improve the equity of public education for all of our kids.

Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism: This is a Podcast shared to NH Secrets from The Radical Centrist Podcast

Daniel Webster was at the center of the great issues that defined his times. He was opposed to slavery, vehemently opposed the Indian Removal Act - that ended in the notorious and, illegal, Trail of Tears - with fellow congressman Davy Crockett; argued consistently for freedom of religion and the protection of religious minorities. Yet even today an ambivalence exists about him that reflects a judgment of him based on current standards.

In his book Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism, historian Joel Richard Paul seeks to draw our attention to the two most abiding principles of Webster: Freedom - that drove his belief that slavery was wrong, and Union, without which securing freedom for slaves in the southern states would not be possible and without which America could not fulfill its most promising ideals.

Paul makes a convincing case that Webster was the force that gave birth to the to the belief that we were Americans, not merely Virginians, or Pennsylvanians or New Hampshireites; That the Constitution of the United States was the thread that wove us together and gave us common cause.

Joel Richard Paul is a Professor of Constitutional and International Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law; Author, Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism

Remembering The NH Primary fight to elect President Jimmy Carter, his presidency and his Global impact.

"Always Leaving a Door Open" to Your mind and your future. That seems to be the thread that runs through the life of Marcel Veilleux.

When I heard that President Carter had gone into hospice care, I wanted to find a way to celebrate the life of Jimmy Carter that intersected with New Hampshire. It brought to mind a day in 1974 when I walked into the Memorial Union Building at UNH and ran into my friend Marcel Veilleux who was working at a storefront kiosk in the front foyerl.

I discovered he was working on the Presidential Primary campaign of an unknown Georgia Governor named Jimmy Carter. I remember I teased him about it - even though I was helping Jerry Brown and Fred Harris myself.

Little did I know that Marcel had just signed on for the ride of a lifetime as Jimmy Carter went from unknown to rockstar. OK, rockstar may be overstating the case, but Carter's quiet competence and humility was just what the American people needed after the Nixon/Ford/Vietnam years.

A few months later, after Carter won in the NH primary, Marcel was off to help in other states and he worked in the administration after that. This was an achievment that was celebrated by his friends at UNH.

My conversation with Marce was a heartfelt reunion and a celebration of President Carter's many contributions to the world. From his presidency to founding the Carter Center to building thousands of houses with Habitat for Humanity, eliminating Guinea worm - a scourge in Africa - to proving fair oversight for elections around the world.s

Marcel himself has had a consequential life from campaign operative and member of the Carter administration to managing a large professional association as well as his own business, and finally as a Pastor of a church, The Lighthouse Christian Center in Westbrook Maine. 

Representative Ellen Read of Newmarket has done a lot of thinking about how to heal the wounds that have afflicted our democracy recently. She is a tireless advocate of a shift to Ranked Choice Voting. And she is not afraid to speak her mind about the way that the current system benefits the leadership of both political parties while it ignores the opportunity to give citizens the opportunity to cast a meaningful vote in any one election.