Election Day is Tuesday, March 10. Polls will be open from 7 am to 7 pm. Voting will take place at St. Joseph Church Parish Center located on Rt. 4 next to the town hall. The Northwood Voter Guide was distributed in last week’s Sun. The voter guide provides a complete list of all warrant articles that will be on the ballot. Additional copies are available at the town hall during regular business hours and may be viewed online at www.northwoodnh.org The official ballot will also include election of all open positions for town and school district. Contested races include selectman: Robert Holden (i), Rick Wolf;  road agent: Ron MacElman, Michael Lockard; planning board-2 seats: Robert Strobel (i), Joseph McCaffrey (i), Betty Smith; police commission: Richard Cummings (i), Ken Rick and school board member-2 seats: Scott Bulger (i), Tim Jandebeur (i), Barbie Hartford.  (i) indicates incumbent. There are 3 people on the ballot for 4 open positions on the budget committee. A resident may want to consider promoting a write in effort if interested in the open seat. 

The print edition of the annual town report is available to pick up at the town hall or at the polls on Election Day. A pdf version is also on the town website-please note that it may take a few minutes to download due to the size of the document. The annual report includes town and school warrants, proposed budgets, financial reports, reports of departments and commissions, and contact information and schedules of town departments.

World Day Of Prayer

The 2015 World Day of Prayer service will be held at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Friday, March 6 at 1 pm. As has been the custom for many years, all churches in Northwood will join together for this community prayer service.  St. Joseph’s Church is located next to the town hall, near the intersection of Rt. 4 and Bow Lake Road in Northwood Center.  Everyone is welcome to attend.

Northwood School will be hosting a Red Cross Blood Drive on Friday afternoon, March 13, 2015 from 2:30-7:30, in the cafeteria. The need for blood donations is very high at this time. Due to the winter weather, many blood drives have had to be cancelled causing an increase in the need for donations. Appointments are recommended, but not required. To schedule an appointment please call 1-800-RED CROSS (733-2767) or go online at redcrossblood.org. 

Hope to see you there! 

Several Local Volunteers Will Brave The Shave To Support Childhood Cancer Research

St. Baldrick’s Foundation event to raise money for lifesaving research

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a volunteer-driven organization dedicated to raising money for children’s cancer research, will host one of its signature head-shaving events at Cooper Hill Pizzeria on March 21, 2015, from noon to 4:00 pm, where more than a dozen will brave the shave in solidarity with kids with cancer and raise money to Conquer Childhood Cancers!

Why all the shaved heads? Worldwide a child is diagnosed with cancer every three minutes, and one in five children diagnosed in the U.S. will not survive. With only 4 percent of all federal cancer research funding dedicated to pediatric cancer research, St. Baldrick’s Foundation volunteers, supporters and donors are needed to continue the battle against this devastating disease.

Sheila Holmes from Halos and Cheryl Higgins from Cheryl’s Haircuts will once again do the shaving of those heads, and the occasional beard, of those who have signed up prior to the event as well as any who stop by on the day of the event and wish to join in the fun. For the donation of $20.00, anyone (male or female) is welcome to support this great cause, and get their head shaved. For $50.00, a t-shirt is given along with the shave.

There will be drawings for donated items all afternoon, as well as a couple of specials from the menu of Cooper Hill.

This is the third year that this event has been hosted by Cooper Hill Pizzeria, with last year realizing over $8,000 in donations. Please join us for this worthwhile event. About St. Baldrick’s Foundation

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives. St. Baldrick’s coordinates its signature headshaving events worldwide where participants collect pledges to shave their heads in solidarity with kids with cancer, raising money to fund research. Since 2005, St. Baldrick’ s has awarded more than $154 million to support lifesaving research, making the Foundation the largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants. St. Baldrick’s funds are granted to some of the most brilliant childhood cancer research experts in the world and to younger professionals who will be the experts of tomorrow. Funds awarded also enable hundreds oflocal institutions to participate in national pediatric cancer clinical trials, and the new International Scholar grants train researchers to work in developing countries. For more information about the St. Baldrick’s Foundation please call 1.888.899.BALD or visit www.StBaldricks.org.

Letter To The Editor

Please be sure to vote next Tuesday to elect the candidate of your choice who will represent you for the next three years. I feel privileged by the voters of Northwood who have allowed me to serve as their police commissioner for a number of years.  I seek your support on Election Day to continue to serve the community in this position. I am a lifelong resident of Northwood, have served as chairman of the recreation commission and currently represent the police commission as a member of the safety complex committee. My other community service has been with the Saddleback Lions Club as member and past president.  I am a veteran, having served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam.

As chairman of the commission this year, I endorsed the moving of our meetings to the town hall at a later time of day to allow greater access to the public. I ask for your vote to continue to serve you as Northwood Police Commissioner. 

Richard Cummings

Letter To The Editor

My name is Yvonne Dean-Bailey and I am running in the Republican Primary for the State Representative Special Election on MARCH 31ST in the towns of Northwood, Nottingham, Deerfield and Candia. I am running because I believe we need fresh, exciting, and passionate conservative voices in Concord. I am running because I am tired of the reckless spending, increased taxation, and the increased fees that have become commonplace in the capital. My generation is the one that is going to get the bill and quite frankly, we can’t afford it.

We need young, passionate leaders that will advocate for fiscally conservative policies in Concord so future generations will not have to bear the burden of big government spending. If elected, I will be a strong voice against risky spending and increased taxation in Concord. I will work to bring local control back to New Hampshire towns and school boards.

The job of the government is to protect our liberties and our Constitutional rights as American citizens and Granite Staters. I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and a member of the NRA. I am free speech advocate and I will fight for a better economic climate for consumers and businesses in Concord. If elected, I will fight for the Constitution, I will fight for our families and I will fight for our businesses. Please consider supporting me in the Republican Primary on MARCH 31ST. If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected]

Yvonne M. Dean-Bailey

Northwood

Discover Your Family Roots!

The Chesley Memorial Library will hold a basic genealogy workshop led by David Ramsey on Saturday, March 14, from 1:00-3:00 p.m. 

Spend an hour or two learning the basics of genealogy through Ancestry Library Edition.  Participants will learn how to use the Ancestry programs to find information about their parents and grandparents. 

Please bring any information you have about your relatives… births, deaths, and marriages all help to narrow down a search. 

It’s fun to discover who came before us!  Where did previous generations come from? How did they live? What did they fight for? And how did their lives affect yours?

Historical records and photos hold so many answers about the fascinating people in history. Ancestry Library Edition puts them at your fingertips, enabling both research and inviting critical thinking.  Ancestry Library Edition provides access to billions of historical documents, millions of historical photos, plus local narratives, oral histories, indexes and other resources in over 30,000 databases that span from the 1500s to the 2000s.

The Chesley Memorial Library once again has access to Ancestry Library Edition thanks to the Friends of the Northwood Libraries. Join us for the basic genealogy workshop or stop in and use one of our public access computers to start your genealogy search today.

Letter

To The Voters Of Northwood:

On March 10th you will be asked to vote on authorizing the selectmen to appoint the town highway road agent.  Currently you, the voter elect whom you prefer.  Before you give up that privilege to vote would you please consider this; currently State Statue says an appointed or elected Highway Agent is under the direction of the Board of Selectmen.  We know this is true because the Selectmen directed our Highway Agent to do other projects around town that do not pertain to Highway Maintenance.  The taxpayers spent money to send our Highway Agent to UNH for a program to better educate agents on maintenance, construction, paving, plowing, etc., which our border towns have done also.

We also have a Highway Advisory Committee made up of business owners and very knowledgeable people in these areas. On two occasions I know of we asked a resident who worked for the UNH Program to advise the committee, Highway Agent and Selectmen on the needs of the roads and how to meet the needs in a cost effective manor, none of which has happened.  As I see a difference in the roads in our border towns where their agents have the same UNH education and under the direction of their Selectmen I’m not sure our selectmen will make the proper decisions for us.

I feel the current way of electing our road agent is appropriate but at the same time we must make sure the Selectmen take the advise of the resources we currently have.

Thank you.

Bruce Hodgdon

Northwood Recreation Update

By Kathy Coe, Recreation Director

Saturday, February 21st was a very cold day for ice fishing. Despite the cold, many members of the community still participated in the Ice Fishing Derby.  The derby was held on Harvey Lake from 8 AM to noon.  Thirty nine children competed to win prizes in four categories in the following age brackets: 6 years & under, 7 – 10 years old, and 11 – 15 years old.

The early birds caught the first fish of the day.  The winner of the first fish was Owen Wood, 7, at 9:32. The winners of the longest fish were Emma-Lee Place, 6, fish length: 12 3/4”; Ben Place, 9, fish size: 13 3/4”; and Cole Hodgdon, 13, fish size: 11 1/2”.

Participants then competed for the 2nd longest fish.  The winners of the 2nd longest fish were Allison Quinney, 6, fish length: 11” and Spencer Conway, 7, fish length: 13”.

The winner of the last fish caught was Corbin Carri, 8, at 11:28. Congratulations to all that participated.  Don’t forget to check out the web site for information about upcoming programs at www.northwoodnh.org  or contact the Recreation Department at 942-5586 x209.

Letter To The Editor

The Dying Middle Class

“The middle class is being killed. The middle class has been slammed. They are in worse shape than they have been at any time since the 20’s.”

So said Vice-President Joe Biden the day before he visited New Hampshire last week.

He could have been talking about Northwood’s middle class, now facing a possible huge tax increase as it considers all-day kindergarten, a math specialist, another 7th grade teacher, cost of living increases, new contracts for town employees, new additional fire and highway equipment, athletic field construction, town hall modernization, a public safety complex study, and other projects, totaling some $1,300,000.

There are also many articles squirreling away lots of our tax money in rainy day trusts and funds. Some trusts charge taxpayers of today for the needs and wants of taxpayers in the future. Others charge taxpayers for potential unforseen expenses.

The proposed town and school district budgets already total $15,437,433. Add the proposals in the warrant articles and our total town budget approaches 17 million, or about $4,000 for every man, woman, child, and pet in Northwood.

Unfortunately, what with the taxes, trusts, and fees, many of us middle class citizens can’t afford our own rainy day funds. Maybe the middle class will end up drowning in a flood of old, new, and growing taxes.

Michael Faiella

Northwood

Letter

To all Northwood Residents:

The Board of Selectmen created a committee to look at the best way to improve the Police Station and the Ridge Fire Station.  The Public Safety Complex Study Committee consists of elected officials, town employees and members of the Northwood community.  The committee started meeting in May of 2014 and have met monthly since.  The committee did extensive research to include reviewing existing facilities, toured newly constructed safety complexes in other municipalities of equal size to our community and studied projected demographics for the town of Northwood.   The committee discussed the best way to improve these buildings and believes the best option is to build a safety complex combing Police, Fire and Emergency Management facilities into one structure as a cost saving effort.

The committee, in an effort to be transparent, further recommended an independent study and conceptual design and ultimately created a warrant article that will be #23 on the ballot on March 10th. The purpose of the warrant article is to conduct an independent assessment of the functionality of the fire and police stations, determine the needs of each department, recommend potential land locations for a combined safety complex, and develop a visualization of a possible facility that would meet the determined needs.

Thank you for your consideration,

Chief Glen  Drolet

Chair, Public Safety Complex Safety Committee

Gibson Picks Up Second Career NEWMAC Academic All-Conference Selection

14th honoree in program history

Wheaton College junior Mike Gibson (Northwood, N.H./Coe-Brown Northwood Academy) has been named to the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) men’s swimming and diving Academic All-Conference list for the second time in his career.

With his second career selection this week, Gibson now joins Aaron Fix ’05, current head coach Barrett Roberts ’07 and Matt Sexton ’14 as the only members of the men’s swimming and diving program to earn multiple NEWMAC Academic All-Conference honors.

Gibson is currently majoring in economics with a minor in community health. Gibson also has earned several Dean’s List selections at Wheaton along with serving as a writing tutor, tour guide, peer tutor and public service assistant during his time at the college.

Honorees must have met the following criteria to be included on the Academic All-Conference list: earned a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5/4.0 scale or 4.35/5.0 scale after the 2014 fall semester, achieved second year academic status at his institution, and been a member of the varsity team for the entire season.

Wheaton wrapped up its 2014-15 campaign with a fifth place finish at the NEWMAC Championships last weekend.

Letter To The Editor

There has been a full court press by a small group of residents to get the remainder of the residents to spend 100 thousand  dollars or so (which then will reoccur in the budget every year), and to be clear, the small group genuinely believes it’s to their benefit. 

There are “studies” that come down on both sides of the argument. I have questioned what passes for quality education, not “adequate” education  far too many are apparently satisfied with...  I also, to the irritation of many in the “small group”, pointed out that kindergarten serves as day care, a simple fact that some act as though it never occurred to them.  Is it only day care? of course not.

But then as though to rub salt in the wound of  a mediocre education process the common core curriculum is going to become part of the kindergarten program with the excuse that we will lose funding (read “bribing”) to turn the children of this community over to a national program of one design inculcation.  Forget creative, spirited teachers (who are always the ones that make the difference!) or tried and true methods of teaching.  “Teach to the test” (we detest) was the constant complaint by many good teachers – well, common core will be (and is in other states) testing on steroids.  Data mining (of students and teachers) on steroids too - 1984 here we come.

Ironically a past letter by one who has chronicled Northwood history, Joann Bailey, pointed out how Northwood dealt with the issue of kindergarten from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.  Gladys Gardner conducted  class for 24 years apparently to great satisfaction of parents, who by the way paid for it themselves.  A genuinely hometown solution.  No federal grants, no common core, no Big Brother.

Joseph McCaffrey

Northwood

Letter To The Editor

MacElman for Road Agent?

If you missed Candidates Night last Wednesday, 2/28, don’t feel guilty.  Most everybody did.  But you did miss an opportunity to interview the two candidates for the Road Agent position: Ron MacElman and Mike Lockard.

I use the word “interview” because this is how I saw it: an opportunity for the three Selectmen who were in attendance (but not absentee would-be selectman Rick Wolf) and us few voters to conduct a job interview of these two applicants.  Unfortunately, neither performed very well.

Selectman Holden began by asking their qualifications.  I hoped that this would lead to a list of learnings – both formal and on-the-job – and a summary of work experience, including companies worked for, positions held, responsibilities taken on and achievements or accomplishments.  You know.  It’s called a resumé!

Neither candidate provided one.  Mr. MacElman spoke vaguely about working for 20 years on all kinds of jobs with various companies.  Mr. Lockard spoke vaguely of taking some courses at UNH and elsewhere and being able to operate all kinds of equipment.

More was said, but neither spoke knowingly about the Road Agent’s position, nor did they provide compelling evidence as to why they should occupy it.  But one of them will.

I will probably vote for Mr. MacElman, if only because he is not currently employed by the town, as is Mr. Lockard, in the Road Department.  Electing Mr. Lockard, assuming he keeps his laborer’s position, results in a situation where he becomes his own boss, in my view.

The way out of this situation is to vote for Article 20, that authorizes the Selectmen – in 2016 - to appoint the highway (road) agent, and in the process, to set standards and job qualifications. So we will live with this arrangement – and one of these men – in the short term.

Tom Chase

Northwood

Letter To The Editor

To the Editor,

Elections are next week; I’m running once again for School Board. Why? Almost four years ago we had a mess. Our million dollar debacle of a SAU along with our elected officials couldn’t answer easy budget questions. They were in a raging battle with the Budget Committee who was threatening to sue. We were in a ridiculously stupid and costly lawsuit with our previous Superintendent. The budget was illegally overspent by $538K. The education of our students was in a free fall and our teachers wanted a $7,000 raise. Daunting.

Today, the lawsuit is settled. We have a new Superintendent, Sped. Director and Business Administrator. No lawsuits. We have a new Principal that is hands on and in every corner of Northwood School. I do not expect to run out of toilet paper, ink and envelopes this year. The School Board is working well together and we have given back substantial money two years in a row. We have a mutual respect with the Budget Committee, they having approved unanimously our budget two years now. Our ducks are all lined up and I think you’ll see some great improvements, both strategically and quickly.

So why? I still have goals. There are no excuses now to really get into gear educating our students to the best of their ability. I’d appreciate your vote.

If you want to help, vote. If you want to help me help you please approve the school budget, the teacher contract, the support staff contract and finally the teacher retirement incentive plan which will save many dollars. These warrants are all integral parts of our long term goals. I appreciate your support and I won’t let you down.

Tim Jandebeur

Northwood

Letter To The Editor

To The Concerned Citizens Of Northwood:

I have been a resident of Northwood for 27 years and a member of the Northwood Fire Department for 24 years. I’ve gone through the ranks from firefighter, lieutenant, captain, to deputy chief and have enjoyed the ride and representing the town as a firefighter.

Through those years I have seen 5 chiefs in which the members of the fire department vote in, every 3 years, and then the selectmen have the final say and appoint and swear in the chief. This policy has always worked out well.

This year we voted in a new chief by a 15 to 10 vote. The selectmen changed their thoughts and decided to interview both candidates, who by the way were, I thought both equally qualified. They decided by a 2 to 1 vote to put in the existing chief, who lost to the Fire Department vote by 5, as they felt he would be a better candidate.

Why should we keep on voting for chief if the selectmen put in who they want? Are the firefighters not smart enough to decide on their own chief? If you support the Northwood Fire Department then help get back our small town and vote for Rick Wolf for selectman.

Fred Bassett

Letter To The Editor

I am THE candidate running for Selectman who resides in Northwood full time, year round.

My objective is to restore Northwood to a higher level of transparency and confidence with Town leadership. We appear to have gone from having the best Town Administrator (David Stack) to oversee and effectively manage our town to a questionable current Administrator.

I presently serve on the Northwood Planning Board and am one of 3 Town Police Commissioners.

I have resided with my family in Northwood for more than 3 decades.

I am endorsed by Northwood’s N.H. State House Representative, Bruce Hodgdon.

Rick Wolf