Colby-Sawyer has named Megan Spainhower of Northwood to the
Dean’s List for fall 2018. Spainhower, who majors in nursing, is
a member of the class of 2020. To qualify for the Dean’s List
students must achieve a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher on
a 4.0 scale while carrying a minimum of 12 credit hours in
graded courses.
Congratulations, Megan!
IMPORTANT
UPCOMING DATE
Saturday, February 2 Deliberative Session of Town Meeting at
Coe-Brown Northwood Academy 9 am. Snow date: Feb. 3 same
location & time.
Ashley Foss, of Northwood has been named to the dean’s list at
Becker College for the fall semester. The dean’s list recognizes
all full-time students whose term grade point average is 3.50 or
higher with no grade below a B- and no incomplete (I) or
withdrawal/failing (WF) grades.
Congratulations, Ashley!
Northwood Emergency Food Pantry Receives Grant From The
Thomas W. Haas Fund Of The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
The
Northwood Emergency Food Pantry recently received a $1000 grant
from the Thomas W. Haas Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable
Foundation. The grant will be used to purchase many of the
needed food items for the pantry in the coming weeks. The
Northwood Emergency Food Pantry wishes to thank the support
provided by the Thomas W. Haas Fund for their generous donation.
The pantry, a non-profit organization, provides assistance to
Northwood residents in need of food throughout the year, as well
as food baskets during the holiday season.
The
Northwood Emergency Food Pantry located at 842 First New
Hampshire Turnpike, Northwood, NH, has been assisting Northwood
residents in need of food for over 35 years. It relies on
a dozen volunteer staff that is responsible for purchasing,
transporting, stocking, and distributing food to clients.
The pantry supports up to 60 families per month and survives
solely on the generosity of others. The Northwood
Emergency Food Pantry hours are the first Saturday of the month
9:30-11am; the second Monday from 2-3:30 pm and the last
Wednesday of each month from 9-10:30am. Emergency
appointments can be made by calling (603) 664-6937 or (603)
942-8663.
The
New Hampshire Charitable Foundation is a New Hampshire’s
statewide community foundation, founded in 1962 by and for the
people of New Hampshire. The Foundation manages a growing
collection of more than 1,800 funds created by generous
individuals, families and businesses, and awards nearly $40
million in grants and scholarships every year. The
Foundation works with generous and visionary citizens to
maximize the power of their giving, supports great work
happening in our communities and leads and collaborated on
high-impact initiatives. For more information, please
visit www.nhcf.org
or call 603-225-6641.
Opportunity Knocks
The
filing period for open town and school positions opens on
Wednesday, January 23 and runs through Friday, February 1 at 5
pm. Check the ad in this week’s Sun which shows the list
of positions to be filled.
The
town and school district depend on volunteers to fill these
slots. Selectmen and school board members do receive minimal
compensation. Many of the positions meet monthly and the
only requirement is a willingness to serve and learn. The
budget committee meetings are condensed into December and
January with only a few meetings during the remainder of the
year.
If
you would like to know more about any position, contact Town
Clerk Savannah Audet or School Clerk Penny Hampl during regular
business hours and they can assist you or direct you to someone
who can answer your questions about a particular position.
There are also a number of boards whose members are appointed in
March. There is currently an urgent need for a zoning board
member to complete the five person board. Alternates are needed
on both planning and zoning boards; training is available and
paid by the town.
A
complete list of elected and appointed boards and committees is
listed in the annual town and school report available on the
town and school websites. Consider serving your community and
being a part of the decision making!
Letter To The Editor
Our
recycling efforts are failing miserably! Why? Granted the
markets are low but now more than ever, we need to do all we can
to keep recycling. If we break even that’s still better than
paying. We all realize the importance of recycling. The only
ones who don’t realize it seem to be the selectmen.
They wasted $20,000 on a useless gate and $8,500 on a compactor
that isn’t big enough to solve the problem with our trash
overflow and they don’t support any of our efforts to improve
our facility. We need both compactors for trash and we need to
find a better way to recycle plastic. Co-mingle is just one
option.
I’ve heard rumors that we are no longer recycling, this is not
true. Taking your time to sort your trash at home and then going
to the transfer station and throwing your trash in with
furniture or demo seems like a waste of time, not to mention
money. All of us want to do the right thing but we need the
support of the people in charge. This situation is not going to
resolve itself. We need selectmen who are at least going to try
to fix these problems, not just shove them aside because they
are either disinterested or they have a grudge against the
facility they need to feed.
We
need a manager at the facility, someone to keep accurate
records, oversee staff, and find the best deals on recyclables.
This position would pay for itself. In 2003 an article was
approved to hire a manager. 16 years have passed! How long does
it take?
When voting time comes around lets remember this mess and vote
for someone who will at least try to fix our problems.
Until Next Time,
Viena Dow
Letter To The Editor
Safety Complex Proposal
Fire stations and police stations are like schools: you gotta
have ‘em.
So
the good news from the public session before the BOS meeting
last week was that there was nobody getting up and saying “we
don’t need this!” Instead, the focus was on the cost and
its impact on our property taxes.
The
good news is that it won’t hit until next year, it will only be
1/20th of the total cost AND it may be less than estimated.
Payments on the 20-year bond begin when the project is completed
in 2020. Then each year, we pay back a portion.
More importantly, the total cost is a “not greater than” total
that includes two $400k contingencies - one for construction
over-runs and one for town over-runs. In addition, there
is an excellent chance that this project - a public safety
complex in a town of less than 5,000 - will qualify for a USDA
grant for $500K, reducing the cost by $1.3 million.
And
now is the time to do this, when interest rates are at historic
low levels around 4%. So for those who want to delay the
inevitable, I say “it will only cost more.”
But
I genuinely sympathize with those in the town who are poor
and/or living on fixed incomes and/or elderly. I’m one of
them. All of the above.
But
I have and will vote for this project, knowing that it is good
for the town and more selfishly, will help to preserve, if not
enhance the value of my home when I seek to sell it.
As
for how we must pay for it - local property taxes - even as we
must pay for our schools with inadequate so-called “adequacy
funding” from the state is the topic of my next letter.
Tom
Chase
Northwood
Presentation About Private Well Contaminants In Northwood
In
New Hampshire, water quality in private wells is typically NOT
monitored by the state or federal government. The Safe
Drinking Water Act, which requires routine sampling, applies
only to public water supplies. The only way to know what
is in water from your private well is to sample it and send the
samples to a laboratory.
It
can be dangerous to be unaware of the quality of your well
water, because in Northwood there are naturally-occurring,
tasteless, odorless, and colorless contaminants in some places
that cause bladder and lung cancer, and other health issues.
Recent research by the Department of Environmental Services
(DES) found that even at the EPA’s Maximum Contaminant level of
0.01 mg/L, arsenic poses a 1-in-300 to 1-in-900 risk of bladder
cancer to someone drinking this low level of arsenic over a
lifetime.
A
very limited sampling of Northwood’s private wells happened
during Northwood’s 2018 Private Well Drive; and over the years,
the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) laboratory
has compiled analytical results for all towns, including
Northwood.
On
Wednesday, January 23, at 7:00 in the Town Hall, the DHHS and
DES will present data about private water quality in New
Hampshire and Northwood. Sets of sample bottles with
sampling instructions and forms will be available from Monday
through Friday of that week in the hallway at the Town Hall for
your use. A price list will be posted nearby the bottles.
The sample pick-up date is Sunday, January 28th at 4:00 in the
afternoon outside of Town Hall. Bacteria samples must be
collected within 4 hours of drop-off. Please be prepared
to pay with a check.
Please be proactive about your health.
Thank You From Northwood Santa’s Helpers
Thank you to the citizens, businesses, and organizations of
Northwood for your support and tremendous response to the 2018
Northwood Santa’s Helpers program.
We
were overwhelmed with the number of fantastic donations of toys
for all ages, stuffed animals, gift cards and cash used to
purchase winter clothing.
Once the toys were organized on tables, the room looked like any
child’s dream come true toy store.
Your caring and thoughtfulness made it possible for 24 families
to be assisted with gifts for their children to enjoy.
Additional thank you to Northwood Heritage Hardware, Northwood
Diner, Northwood Post Office, Northwood TDBank, Wilder’s
Flooring and Northwood Garage for donating space for our
collection boxes.
Your assistance is greatly appreciated by our members and the
families in making this community program possible. We
wish you and your families are safe and healthy New Year.
Northwood Fire-Rescue Association Santa’s Helpers Program
New
NH Historical Highway Marker Honors ‘Nottingham Square’
The
N.H. Division of Historical Resources is pleased to announce
that a New Hampshire Historical Highway Marker has been
installed on Route 156 in Nottingham, the site of Nottingham
Square.
The
marker reads:
“Nottingham Square
The
Town of Nottingham was created by a Royal Charter in 1722. A
plan of the town was completed in 1724; at that time the design
of the Nottingham Square was laid out with the house lots and
the intersecting streets of Bow, Fish, King and North. The
town’s first school, blockhouse and later meetinghouse were
built on this summit. The site of militia drills in 1775 and
home to four Revolutionary War generals, Nottingham Square
served as the center of the town’s business and social life for
more than a century and remains common land for all.”
This is the first marker in Nottingham, and is the 259th
installed in the state.
Any
municipality, agency, organization or individual wishing to
propose a historical highway marker to commemorate significant
New Hampshire places, persons or events must submit a petition
of support signed by at least 20 New Hampshire residents. They
must also draft the text of the marker and provide footnotes and
copies of supporting documentation, as well as a suggested
location for marker placement.
New
Hampshire’s historical highway markers illustrate the depth and
complexity of our history and the people who made it, from the
last Revolutionary War soldier to contemporary sports figures to
poets and painters who used New Hampshire for inspiration; from
18th-century meeting houses to stone arch bridges to long-lost
villages; from factories and cemeteries to sites where
international history was made.
An
interactive map of all of the state’s historical highway markers
is available at the N.H. Division of Historical Resources’
website, nh.gov/nhdhr.
The
New Hampshire Historical Highway Marker program is jointly
managed by the N.H. Division of Historical Resources and N.H.
Department of Transportation.
