Beyond the ballot: Understanding the election’s impact

For the last few months, we’ve all been caught up in the election campaigns at both the state and federal levels. But now the election is over, and we know who won and who lost. But what do the results mean and what can we expect in the coming months? Joining us on this episode of “The State We’re In,” are veteran reporter Ethan DeWitt of the New Hampshire Bulletin and Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, and executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership, and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

Melanie Plenda:

First, let’s talk about the election results. As veterans of New Hampshire politics, were you surprised by the results?

Ethan DeWitt:

To be honest, not really. I think when you look at the top of the ticket results, the challenge for Kelly Ayotte was to outperform Kamala Harris. Polls were showing that Kamala Harris had an advantage, as Democrats have in this state since 2000 in the presidential race. But as we've seen from Governor Sununu, simply because the state elects a Democrat for president doesn't mean that they won't elect a Republican for governor. 

So at the top of the ticket, I was not too surprised. In terms of the legislative races. I think that they largely followed the top of the ticket in some ways, but also I think the House we've seen realigns itself to how it has looked in past cycles. None of this kind of one- or two-vote advantage, but a more sizable majority for the Republican Party.

Anna Brown:

Like Ethan, I wasn't surprised by these election results in New Hampshire. I think the last poll that I saw the day before the election was very telling. It showed that about 10% of voters who had voted for Biden in the last election cycle were planning on voting for Kelly Ayotte for governor. That's very consistent with New Hampshire's recent history and even longer history of ticket-splitting. It is also worth noting that in the Executive Council and Senate, the way the districts are drawn, it's very hard for Democrats to win in a majority of these districts. So going in, I was already sort of expecting the votes to go that way. I think the House of Representatives ultimately can be the least predictable and oftentimes, for me, the most interesting results. That's really where we really did see that Republican advantage in New Hampshire, which I think was probably driven by their anti-tax messaging that, once again, was sort of Kelly Ayotte coattails.

Melanie Plenda:

Anna, you and your organization have been surveying voters. Why do you think voters made the choices they did? 

Anna Brown:

As I mentioned in the New Hampshire state races, tax and budget issues are really what end up, I think, driving a lot of voters to the polls. Other issues — such as the abortion issue, for example —I think have played out in previous elections. But the Republican candidates in New Hampshire had a very unified message this time — that we are not looking to change New Hampshire abortion law as it currently stands. That obviously resonated with voters.

I think Joyce Craig and other Democrats were pointing out Kelly Ayotte's history with certain corporate boards and saying we should be taxing the rich and looking at the interest and dividends tax maybe. That did not ultimately succeed with voters. I think that Kelly Ayotte's message of ‘don't mess up New Hampshire’, was a very successful message. So I think that the Democrats sort of failed to rally around a clear issue that resonated with voters in the same way as the simplistic message that the Republicans really hit a home run with.

Melanie Plenda:

Several state races were also decided. Let’s talk about the Executive Council first. Anna, first, explain what the council does and then tell us your thoughts? 

Anna Brown:

The New Hampshire Executive Council is uniquely powerful in the United States. They approve governor-appointed contracts over $10,000, so the governor actually kind of needs to have the Executive Council on their side to implement their vision for state government for all of those appointments, including judicial appointments. We know that state courts, state supreme courts, in particular, are going to become increasingly important as the U.S. Supreme Court is sending issues back to the states, such as the abortion issue. So I think that the Executive Council is going to definitely be an ally to Governor Ayotte. We've had a 4-1 Republican majority, and I'm not expecting any great battles there. 

Melanie Plenda:

Next, let’s talk about the state senate. Republicans expanded their majority there. What does that mean for the next cycle?

Ethan DeWitt:

Again, this expanded from a 14/-10 Republican advantage to a 16-8 Republican advantage. That is a veto-proof majority. I'm unsure at the moment what issues there might be in which a Republican Senate would want to override a veto by a Governor-elect Ayotte. But that is the most apparent transformation of the Senate.

Other than that, I think it’s, just like with the council, going to give her a lot of padding. Especially with the House, which has traditionally leaned more libertarian, and that has caused problems for more moderate Republicans like Governor Sununu. Sununu throughout his time as governor, kind of used the Senate as sort of a backstop to some of the budgets that the House would put forward. Because the House gets to draft a budget before the Senate does, and the House drafted something that's deemed too conservative, he, would call on the Senate to kind of “fix it.” So this might be a tool for Ayotte, especially with the wide majorities now in the Senate. She may be able to use that, but it kind of depends on how the Senate is run.

Melanie Plenda:

Republicans also expanded their majority in the House of Representatives. What impact will that have?

Anna Brown:

I think that the biggest impact this will have is on a few issues that Republicans tried to get over the finish line last year and the year before  and didn't quite have the votes with that very tight Democrat-Republican split.

Probably the first one that leapt to mind, as soon as I saw the results come in, was some version of a parental bill of rights. There were many versions of those bills, but basically, think about — What do schools have to disclose to parents? What do schools have to get permission from parents, whether we're talking about student pronoun use, student names, books in the classroom, books in the library, different curriculum choices. So what exact form does that bill take? Yet to be seen, but it’s absolutely an issue that many Republicans are passionate about,

Ethan DeWitt:

I have heard from top Republicans that there is a bill that was filed ahead of the election that got a lot of attention. It would create a deportation task force in the state. The bill does not define that, because we don't have the text of the bill, but I've already heard from top Republicans who are also in leadership, who say they don't support that. So I think that's going to be an interesting wedge issue. 

The other thing I would point to with this increased majority, in addition to the parental Bill of Rights, is an expansion of Education Freedom Accounts. There was a push, including by Governor-elect Ayotte, to try to make those universal. But again, that comes against the backdrop of this budget and potentially having to tighten it. If you make that program universal, then the budget for that program could, theoretically, increase quite a lot.

I think that looking at the budget generally is going to be really interesting to see. When you looked at the budget two years ago under a very, very closely divided almost 200-200 House The majority Republicans did something I thought was pretty remarkable and surprising. They decided to cut a deal with Democrats. Despite a lot of them having come up the ranks from the libertarian side, including House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, they cut a deal with Democrats. A lot of the people on their side didn't like that. Now they've got a lot more security in numbers and they will try to forge ahead with a more conservative budget.

Melanie Plenda:

Now that these elections are over, things will be gearing up soon for the next election in New Hampshire, which is related to Town Meeting. These elections don’t get the same turnout, but they can have a big impact on voters’ lives. Ethan and Anna, explain why these matter and what you’ll be following. 

Ethan DeWitt:

Obviously this is the most local format to make your voice known when it comes to your own town's budget, so town meeting season is always important.

I think a few things will be interesting. There is a new voting law that will be in place that requires voter ID. There is also a new law that requires that there be accessible voting machines provided by the state to towns. I think that will be in place as well. I think that there will be some questions about special education funding. I've heard this week that the Department of Education sent out a letter to school districts saying that this state is facing a shortfall of special education funding and that towns will have to make up more of that budget expense, and I think that'll be interesting to watch as it pertains to school district budgets.

Anna Brown:

I was actually already going to be watching special education funding- related issues because we saw that to be a real problem in some towns and districts this past year as well, because the number of students in these programs has been increasing and some of that also carries increased staff costs. We've also seen health care costs for schools go up quite a bit. So Pembroke, for example, I know, had almost a crisis situation with their school funding at their local meetings last year.

So if you're in a tough budget year as well, there's going to be a lag before the state implements its budget changes, and those would filter down to the local level. But I wouldn't be surprised if those conversations do happen at the local level already, because all of these problems are going to be compounded going forward, and we haven’t talked about what’s going on with school-funding lawsuits in the state. That’s another big question mark.

Melanie Plenda:

That was fascinating. Thanks to veteran reporter Ethan DeWitt from the New Hampshire Bulletin and Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, for sharing your thoughts.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org

Bridging the divide: Tackling America's post-election ‘perception gap’

The 2024 presidential election results are in, and it seems like Americans are more polarized than ever. For years, we’ve seemed to live in an increasingly polarized society of Democrats and Republicans, red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives. But how divided is our society? And is that perception truly the reality? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” More in Common Executive Director Jason Mangone discusses the organization’s research into the “perception gap” and its efforts to unite increasingly divided societies. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Rosemary Ford:

First, tell us more about More in Common, and what you do. 

Jason Mangone:

More in Common is a nonpartisan research organization that tries to reduce the harmful aspects of polarization. That means that we try to understand the forces driving us apart, see common ground and bring Americans together to tackle our shared challenges as a practical matter. That means we release dozens of studies and polls every year, and the punchline of a lot of our work is sort of in the name. We think that Americans have way more in common than we think we do.

Rosemary Ford:

Tell us about the perception gap study. How did that come about? How was it conducted? 

Jason Mangone:

To begin with, it's probably worth defining what we mean by perception gap. So a perception gap is the difference between what someone thinks their political opponent feels about an issue and what their political opponent actually feels about an issue. It’s implicit in the idea that we have more in common than we think we do. There's some sort of fundamental misunderstanding going on that we don't really get one another — particularly in the arena of politics. That's because we think politics is a really poor lens for understanding someone in general. 

We wanted to look into these ideas, which is sort of the inspiration study. We released our first perception gap study in 2019, and we've been releasing various perception gaps ever since. To give an example of how we conduct these studies, let's say that we wanted to gauge Democrats' perception gaps on a particular issue. We begin by asking thousands of Republicans whether they agree with something. So, for example, we've asked thousands of Republicans, “Do you agree that Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix our mistakes?” Turns out, about 93% of Republicans agree with this statement. We then asked thousands of Democrats, “What percentage of Republicans do you think agree with that statement?” It turns out that all Democrats estimate that only about 35% of Republicans would agree with the statement. That means that, on the issue, “Do you agree that Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix their mistakes?” there's a 58% perception gap — 93% of Republicans agree with that statement, but only 35% of Democrats think Republicans would agree with that.

Rosemary Ford:

What were the key findings of the study? 

Jason Mangone:

One in particular, I think, is the idea of patriotism, love of country and understanding of our history that's been cycling through our politics for the last eight or 10 years. I think there's a stereotype where we think that Republicans think that American history is perfect, that we've done no wrong, and we stereotype Democrats as classifying our entire history as sort of sinful. 

I've already highlighted an example of the Democrat perception gap here, but Republicans estimate that only 45% of Democrats agree with this statement. In other words, we think that our political opponents either love our history and our country blindly, or they want to dismiss our history completely. In truth, an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with the idea that our country has both achieved great things and also made some harmful mistakes along the way, and that both of these things are true at the same time. So all that is to say, our ideas of our sense of history and our ideas of patriotism are much more aligned than we think they are. We have a ton of perception gaps. 

In addition to the idea of patriotism, I also wanted to highlight one around immigration. It turns out that over 85% of Republicans agree that properly controlled immigration can be good for America. Democrats estimate that only around half of Republicans agree with this statement, so they underestimated by about 35%. On the same issue, around 75% of Democrats disagree with the idea that we should have open borders, but Republicans estimate that only around 40% of Democrats hold this view, meaning there's a 35% perception gap.

All that is to say, as it turns out, is that most Americans want a secure system of legalized immigration and most Americans want both order and compassion for immigrants. Obviously, that's not how we talk about it in the political arena.

Rosemary Ford:

How expected were these findings? 

Jason Mangone:

We knew that there would be gaps in people's understanding, particularly when the lens through which you're looking at those gaps is politics. We do a really, really bad job of understanding who people are and who are political opponents. So that wasn't altogether surprising. 

What was most surprising to me was some of the drivers of these gaps. Anytime that More in Common does a study, we break the American population down into seven segments that we think are much more representative about how people view themselves in the world than sheer red or blue demography. The farthest left and the farthest right are referred to as the wings.Those groups in the middle are referred to as the exhausted majority. So it goes from progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, the politically disengaged, the moderates, traditional conservatives and devoted conservatives.

The most surprising thing to me, pretty much, anytime we do a perception gap study is that if you look at the rates of perception gaps, it's almost a perfect V shape, which is to say the perception gaps are perception gaps are greatest among those people on the wings of politics, and they’re lowest among the politically disengaged, right in the middle. The surprising thing there is that the people that are the most politically disengaged have the best understanding of what their political opponents actually think about various political issues.

Rosemary Ford:

What role is social media playing in all of this? How does that influence the perception gap or influence it?

Jason Mangone:

First off, I never like to come across as completely anti-social media. I think that it's given people freedom to express ideas, which is vital and important. I also think that it's a relatively new technology, and we're figuring out how to fit it in to our day-to-day lives right now.

With that being said, when it comes to politics, most of the algorithms in social media are driven by engagement, and the most engaging content tends to be divisive. It's also true that the people who are likely to share political views on social media are progressive activists on one wing and devoted conservatives on the other. So I wouldn't say that it's entirely social media's fault. I would say that progressive activists and devoted conservatives tend to be the most active on social media. Those algorithms tend to highlight the most divisive views because they tend to be the most engaging. It's what we want to consume.

As a result, a lot of our political discourse becomes driven by people on the wings. I think the important distinction there is that it's not entirely the social media companies’ fault. A lot of it is who's actually willing to get out there and share political views on social media. It turns out that it’s the people who are most politically engaged, who frame things primarily through the lens of politics, and those people in general tend to be people on the wings.

Rosemary Ford:

Why should the average person be concerned about the perception gap? 

Jason Mangone:

I think it's really a call to have some political humility. Don't think about people as entirely political animals. One of the implicit ideas in perception gaps is that you could look at perception gaps between any two out groups — Democrats-Republicans, Yankees fans-Red Sox fans, and I'm sure that there are misunderstandings among a lot of them. The point is that when we look at things through a primarily political lens, we tend to misunderstand, because politics is a really, really bad lens for understanding a human being. I think how the average person should react to it and why they should be concerned by it is that, because politics shapes so much of our culture and so much of how we think about ourselves nowadays, it's a call that we're really misunderstanding one another.

Rosemary Ford:

In light of the election, what do you expect to see with the perception gap?

Jason Mangone:

I will caveat what I’m about to say by saying that we have a poll hitting the field where we ask a number of perception gap questions, because whatever is in the media tends to have the highest perception gaps. I would guess that the largest perception gaps are going to be around issues associated with the biggest news, and today it's the fact that former President Trump won not just the Electoral College, but the national popular vote. So I would imagine that the largest perception gaps will be around people's perspectives on Trump, not just as a political figure, but as a human being. 

Rosemary Ford:

Do you have suggestions for bridging this divide? 

Jason Mangone:

I'll start with what the worst idea is. The worst idea is to say, “We're going to get a bunch of us together and we're going to talk about politics, because we all disagree with each other.” We need to talk, that's fine, but an example is the holidays. Around my dinner table, around the holidays, there's some Trump voters and there's some Harris voters, there's some Republicans, there's some Democrats, there's some upper-middle-class folks, there's some working-class folks. We don't go to that holiday dinner saying, “We're gonna get together and talk about our political differences.” No, we get together because we're a family. We share our common values and traditions, and the food's really good, and all the other stuff might come up as a result. But the point is, we see one another in our common humanity, because the thing that got us there is much more important than sheer demography that's ultimately colored blue or red. 

So that's a really long way of saying, get involved in your community in ways that have nothing to do with politics. Join a club, join the board of your local Little League, become a volunteer firefighter — there's a million things that you can do. But the point is, get together, where people across the political spectrum might be getting together for reasons that have nothing to do with politics.

Rosemary Ford:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Survey reliability: How much do polls affect elections?

With the 2024 election behind us, the seemingly daily reports on new polls have ended for now. But what do polls really mean? How accurate are they? What impact do they have on voters and elections? University of New Hampshire Professor Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, talks with host Melanie Plenda about just that.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Where do polls come from and how long have we been using them to analyze political races?

Dr. Andrew Smith:

Polls have been around for an awfully long time. The oldest one that we've been able to identify in the United States is in the 1824 election. They were referred to as straw polls back then, but they were started by a newspaper, the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian, and it was done to, frankly, increase the number of people who bought the newspaper at that time and to help inform readers as to what people in the Harrisburg, area thought about the 1824 election. Throughout the 1800s, we saw an expansion of these, particularly in the later half of the 1800s as the penny press really developed in the United States.

By the turn of the century, there were quite a few national straw polls and well over 100 individual local area straw polls. So it's not a new thing, but it's really important to remember that the reason that the media got into the polling business was to sell newspapers. I think that's a critical thing to remember, because the reason that sells more newspapers is that people are always interested in what is going to happen. I think it sold newspapers then, and it's kind of clickbait for the press now to run polls. 

Melanie Plenda:

That leads to my next question – what sort of an impact do they have on races and voters? 

Dr. Andrew Smith:

There's very little research that shows that polls have much of an impact one way or the other on elections. There's always a fear that a poll showing one candidate leading by a large amount will either lead the supporters of a candidate who's losing supporters to give up and stay home, or maybe cause the supporters of a candidate who's leading to say that they have already won and don't have to bother to go to the polls. But there's very, very little evidence that supports any of that.

The only real data that I've been able to identify that shows that polls had an impact was in the 1980 presidential election. What happened that year was that the exit polls were released early. This was the Carter v. Reagan election, and Jimmy Carter actually conceded defeat before the polls in California closed, and some Democratic congressmen in California asserted that they lost because many people that were going to go vote after work decided, “What’s the point? The election is already over.” So that's really the only evidence that we have. 

Melanie Plenda:

How has polling evolved in the past decades? I would imagine technology and changing social demographics have changed things.

Dr. Andrew Smith:

The polling industry is in the midst of a paradigm shift, and it's similar to what happened in the 1960s and 1970s, when polls moved from in-person surveys to telephone surveys. The technology for telephones improved, the coverage of telephones improved, so most households in the country had a telephone by the late 1960s. But it took a long time for researchers to come up with the best practices, the methodological strategies, in order to use this new technology. 

It's important to remember that the big driver of that methodological change in the 1960s and 1970s telephone surveys was the cost, because in-person surveys were an order of magnitude more expensive than telephone surveys and  harder to manage, and then organizing the data and analyzing it. So the time frame was worse. Telephones made that much shorter. 

Now, with web surveys and the development of the internet and the expansion of coverage of the internet to most households in the country or the internet plus a cell phone — we can kind of call that the quasi-internet — we changed how we can go at people because of the cost. It costs far less with an internet- or a web-based poll, because you don't have to have an interviewer. We're seeing the industry move to that, and the clients as well. The development of the internet, the development of cell phones, and the declining response rates, I think, are the biggest drivers of this change in methodology. 

So we're in this process where economics are driving us to change the way we do survey research, and we haven't developed the best practices as an industry yet to say this is how you should do it, this is the more accurate way, these are the procedures that lead to more accurate predictions in polling, and it's going to take several years before we're out of the woods with that. So I'm very cautious about it.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s dig a little deeper. How can the average person tell a “good” from a “bad” poll?

Dr. Andrew Smith:

The human instinct is to trust the polls that show us the outcome that we prefer and say that the other one must have serious methodological flaws. But I think that's a bad way to approach it.

What I would trust is surveys more that start with a random sample — a probability-based survey. So if you see the word “probability” in the methodology section of the survey, which I would encourage everybody to read, I’d give that more weight.  If it makes no mention of probability, that probably means that there is no random sampling going on. 

The second thing that I would do is look for something called a transparency initiative stamp, or a logo on that survey, or an indication that this organization is showing their work. APOR, the  American Association of Public Opinion Research, recognizes that there are a lot of different methodologies out there and asks, “The best thing we can do is ask survey research to show us what they did. How did they draw their sample? Where did they get the sample from? How were the surveys collected? When were the surveys collected? Who's paying for the surveys?” All of those sorts of things you need to take into account.  If a survey does not have that transparency initiative seal approval, I would be less willing to accept the results of that because it shows they are less willing to show their work. 

Melanie Plenda:

So talk to us a little bit more about why a sample group and the makeup of that sample group is so important.

Dr. Andrew Smith:

Well, what we try to do in surveys is draw a sample from the population that is representative of the population. And by doing that at random, we can use the central limit theorem to say that the estimates that we get from our sample are within this range of where the actual population number would be if we could go out and interview everyone in the population. Even with a random sample, you don't necessarily have one that's completely representative of the population. In fact, it's pretty much impossible to do that, but you want to be pretty close, and the central limit theorem at least allows us to say within a range of how close we think our estimate is from the overall population. 

Melanie Plenda:

That’s fascinating. Thank you for joining us and talking about the polls.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

How to learn about local candidates for office, the people who can impact you directly

While national or statewide candidates get lots of coverage, and voters likely know their stances on the issues, local candidates are often unfamiliar to voters. But local politics directly touches our daily lives and families. Who is making policies and how do we choose them? In New Hampshire, that can be a daunting process, thanks to the large citizen legislature. However, there are tools out there to help research the candidates and decide who meets your needs and priorities. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating voters about the political process, as well as executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law, discusses these tools.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Anna, with elections on the horizon, can you tell us about some of the tools Citizens Count offers to voters?

Anna Brown:

There are 400 state representatives, which means there's roughly 900 candidates that are going to be on your ballot. So probably the tool we're best known for is our candidate profiles, where we provide background, issue positions, and so on. We offer other tools for voters as well.  If you look up your town, we can show your polling location and your clerk info. We have a section called “Prepare to Vote” under our advocacy toolkit that offers information about what to bring to the polls, registering, and absentee ballots. We also have other tutorials on what to do after the election. How do I contact an elected official? How do I advocate for my cause? Then finally, we also offer a candidate comparison tool that lets voters see, “OK just for the candidates on my ballot, where do they stand on certain issues?”

Melanie Plenda:

Why are these tools necessary?

Anna Brown:

I've been covering New Hampshire elections for a while now, and every single election I have seen there are races that come down to less than half a dozen votes. There are multiple recounts, and when you're talking about a recount in New Hampshire, it's literally paper ballots, the secretary of state's office inspecting them one by one, with observers in place. In the primaries, when there's a tie it’s not uncommon enough that they actually have official dice to help settle ties. 

So I always tell voters in New Hampshire that your vote counts. It isn't just a feel-good statement. There's all these candidates, roughly 900. It can be really hard to find information about those folks. Some of them don't have email addresses or websites, so that's where Citizens Count comes in, and we're trying to fill that gap. Because the other thing that's true, they don't always fall on party lines. In New Hampshire, you will find Democrats who are against gun laws. You will find Republicans who favor more lenient laws related to abortion than what is currently on the books. So I always encourage people to check out those individual candidates and don't just rely on the “D” or the
“R” next to someone's name.

Melanie Plenda:

How do you compile this information? Can you describe the process?

Anna Brown:

Our best tool is our candidate survey. We will contact them by email, snail mail, phone, follow up again for the folks that we can't find. I reach out to local parties and county parties sometimes, and we do get over half of candidates to respond to our survey. So most of our background information and issue positions are straight from their own mouth, and that's very important to us. We don't want to have any spin on our issue positions. 

Melanie Plenda:

How much work does that take to put all this together?

Anna Brown:

There's three of us full time, some part time, and every election we also get an elections intern. Shout out to our current elections intern, Anna Steele, who has been incredible this year. It is a lot of hounding candidates, a lot of phone calls, a lot of stuffing envelopes. We also really are trying to hold each other to that rigorous standard of staying nonpartisan and engaging with candidates. When candidates come back to us and they say, “I don't like how that question was worded, or it was biased, or I just want to submit a statement,” we want to work with them. If anybody ever comes to us, including many candidates, and says, “Where are you getting your money from? What is your real agenda? Who's on your board?” These are all questions that we want to be completely transparent about, and so we do a lot of engagement there as well.

Melanie Plenda:

There’s also a constitutional amendment on the ballot related to the ages of judges in the state. Can you tell us about that? 

Anna Brown: 

Many people may not know that the New Hampshire Constitution requires judges and sheriffs to retire at the age of 70. This is a huge contrast to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we have seen, on many occasions, people simply pass away before they retire, and it can have a huge impact on rulings. 

New Hampshire originally included this in the Constitution because they were concerned about the cognitive abilities, potentially, of judges and sheriffs. But that being said, when the Constitution was written, age expectancy was different. So now there is a proposal on the ballot, an amendment to our Constitution, that would raise the age of retirement to 75. This was actually sponsored by a member of the N.H. Supreme Court who was forced to retire at age 70 and is now serving in the House of Representatives. So that is going to be one of the questions on the ballot that you will see. It does require a super majority of voters, in order to change our Constitution. That's a kind of high threshold, but every now and then we do pass constitutional amendments. For example, in 2018 there was a new constitutional amendment that creates a right to privacy. If you do want to dig more into this, we do also have a link on our elections page, again, on https://www.citizenscount.org/ that includes a brief article on the pros and cons on that amendment.

Melanie Plenda:

Can you share a few of those pros and cons with this?

Anna Brown:

We do have some concern about what is going on with people as they are getting older. Is there perhaps some cognitive decline? That's a huge conversation that has happened with President Biden, with former President Trump, and it continues to this day. Another pro is that it actually ensures that you have sort of that fresh issue perspective coming onto the courts. So it's not so much as whether they're cognitively there, but also are they in tune with your average voter? Certainly, we know that demographics change based on what age group you're in, how you feel about certain issues. For example, we think about generational changes, things such as interracial marriage and gay marriage — there were sometimes very big gaps in terms of how younger people felt and how older people felt about the same issue. 

We also have that higher age that people are living, thriving, even working, and especially in New Hampshire we have one of the oldest states on average in the nation. And we're seeing folks who may be past traditional retirement age, say Social Security retirement age, who are still interested in working, are still vibrant, and indeed bring a lot of experience and knowledge to their jobs. The same thing is very much true for judges. The more experience you have on the bench, the more connections you have with lawyers and prosecutors and defenders, and so on. You might be able to have a more efficient court, a more knowledgeable court, as opposed to constantly bringing in new people and just giving up all of that knowledge and experience when there really isn't a reason to boot it out. I will say five years is not a huge change. We're not getting rid of the age limit entirely with this proposal. We're just saying, instead of 70 it’s 75. This also would not affect sheriffs, because there are some arguments, of course, that a law enforcement position is a little bit different. This part of the amendment would only impact the age limit for judges.

Melanie Plenda:

And, as awesome as Citizens Count is, there are also other ways to scope out the candidates. What do you recommend Anna?

Anna Brown:

Definitely, if you can find some local candidate events, parades, at town hall forums, public libraries, sometimes at your local school. There are going to be these events where the candidates are on hand. The audience is probably similar to what you might see at your town meeting. And they'll interact with you. You can get a really good sense of a person, what they'll be like as a legislator, if you have that conversation with them.

I talked about how we call a lot of these candidates and have conversations with them. The vast, vast majority are interested in engaging in that conversation. Because, realistically, these people are volunteers. They get paid $100 a year plus mileage. They're doing this because they are deeply passionate about it. Every now and then you are going to find someone who is contrary and doesn't like to talk to people. But in a House full of 400 representatives, there's always going to be that small margin. Overall, I have such positive experiences, and I hear that from other people too. However, if you're an introvert and you don't want to go out and talk to candidates, your local newspaper is often a wonderful resource in terms of finding these issue positions. They’ll do candidate profiles, have interviews. That's not something you're going to get from national news coverage, and that's one reason why local news sources are so important. You can also go directly to the candidate websites or other interest groups. Just be aware that how certain issue positions are phrased may be intended to lead you in a certain direction, or may be a little general. So if someone says, “I support veterans,” try to dig a little deeper and say, “What does that really mean?”

Melanie Plenda:

Anna Brown is the executive director of Citizens Count, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating voters about the political process. She is also the executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership, and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law. Thank you for joining us. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

How the Civic Health Index sheds light on community trust and how to build it

The University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy released its 2024 Civic Health Index this month. The report examines several aspects of public life, including how much people trust each other and government institutions, attend public meetings, vote, and help their neighbors. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Carsey School of Public Policy Interim Associate Director Michele Holt-Shannon and the report’s author, Quixada Moore-Vissing, founder of Public Engagement Partners discuss the findings.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Michele, can you tell us more about the background of the Civic Health Index? 

Michele Holt-Shannon:

A lot has happened — not just the pandemic, a lot of just increasing division in our country. We had the Jan. 6 incident at the Capitol building, the murder of George Floyd, the response to that, and certainly that experience of the pandemic that really varied for people across the country, depending on their job and where they lived. We had questions around connecting with neighbors, volunteering, helping each other, feeling like you matter and belong. So there's, there's some data to look at today and to discuss and help us think about what we can do in the future.

Melanie Plenda:

Quixada, how was the data gathered for this report and how long did it take? 

Quixada Moore-Vissing:

We really wanted to understand how the pandemic and these other events of 2020 actually impact civic health in New Hampshire. Did it impact civic health? That was one of our big questions. So we looked at both pre-pandemic data, pandemic-level data, and then post-pandemic-level data to just kind of see what the changes are. Are there impacts during this point in time?

We used two data sources for the report. One so is the U.S. Census, and it has a civic engagement and volunteering supplement and a voting supplement. We pulled from both of those census supplements, but we also ran our own survey through the Granite State Poll, and we had used the Granite State Poll in the past, so we were able to make some longitudinal comparisons there as well. 

Melanie Plenda:

What were some of the report’s key findings? 

Quixada Moore-Vissing:

One of the big things that we found that was a surprise is that New Hampshire residents are feeling they matter less to their communities than they did in 2019. In 2019, we were at 76% of New Hampshire residents felt like they matter to their communities, and that fell to 43%. That's a 30 percentage point decrease. 

Connected to that, we also learned that we're generally connecting a bit less with others than we were before the pandemic. New Hampshire residents who do favors for their neighbors, helping someone, loan a lawnmower, or move an air conditioner — that fell from 11% to 5%. In  terms of people working to do positive things for their community, that fell from 27% in 2019 to 21% in 2021. Granite Staters are also hearing from or spending less time with their family and friends, from 85% to 81% — that data point is all 2021 data. So it'll be interesting to see in the next census data pool, if some of that rebounds, or if it stays the same. 

Some of the other things we found are that New Hampshire residents are attending public meetings less, so that that fell from 19% in 2019 to 12% in 2021. We also found that New Hampshire residents have a slight majority engaging across race, ethnicity, or culture that's different from their own. So that was another finding. 

In terms of voting — which I know is everyone's top of mind right now with the election coming up — we found that in the 2020 election there was record voter turnout across the nation. New Hampshire mirrored that trend, both in 2020 and in the midterm elections. In 2022, we had surges in voter turnout. We were above the rest of the country in that, but we kind of sort of mirrored that national trend. But one of the concerning things we saw about voting is that urban residents actually were voting less than suburban or rural residents in that election. 76% of rural people voted, for instance, in the 2020 election, compared with 57% of urban residents. 

We never measured belonging before in New Hampshire. What we found, in general, is that about half of New Hampshire residents are feeling like they belong to their local communities, but about half are feeling that they don't. So 49% of New Hampshire residents share that they belong in their local community; 59% felt comfortable expressing their opinions in their local community. About 55% felt satisfied with their relationships with others in the local community, and 62% felt connected to their local community. So, it depends how you slice the cake, right?  We could see this as a positive that we've got slight majorities feeling like they belong, but you could also say that there's about 50% of people in a lot of these outcomes that aren't feeling like they belong. 

Then the last thing that I wanted to mention, which is a big one, is that our trust in government in New Hampshire has dropped significantly since 2001 — that's trust both in national and local government. The trust in the national government is a more severe plummet. In 2001, about 31% of New Hampshire residents felt trust in the national government. It's now down to 17%, but actually only 1% of New Hampshire residents trust the national government all of the time, and about 49% almost never, trust the national government. Trust from 2019 to 2024 in the national government stayed about the same. So it was low in 2019 and just kind of stayed low. 

Trust in local government also fell from 2001 so we saw it fall from 53% to 36%, and then it stayed about the same from 2019 to 2024. So, interestingly, we're not seeing huge drops in trust in government from pre- and post-pandemic, but we are just seeing a general decline in trusting in both national and local governments since 2001.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s explore some of those findings a bit more. Michele. When residents say they matter less and engage less, what does that mean and why should we all be concerned about that? 

Michele Holt-Shannon:

The mattering question is compelling, because people interpret it and answer the question differently. I'll note that some of the folks watching this may be familiar with the Youth Risk Behavior Survey that's done in schools. One of the questions on that survey a few years ago was whether or not young people feel like they matter to their community. The question wasn't there for a couple of years, and it's back now. I think it is an interesting one to think about, because I have a reaction that I hope people feel like they matter. When that number is low, it is concerning, and it says something about the state of community, of connectedness — of civic health, broadly. I think it can be a red flag when mattering numbers are low, when fewer people feel like they matter to a community. So it's a way of giving us a chance to say, we want that number to be higher. We want that number to be higher for young people, we want that number to be higher for everyone — that people would feel like they can engage, share their opinions and influence the community where they live.

Melanie Plenda:

Quixada, trust in local and national government is at an all-time low. Why is that, and what does that mean for the community? 

Quixada Moore-Vissing:

One of the frustrations about survey research is, we ask a question, such as how much do you trust the government? How much do you trust the national government? How much do you trust the local government? And people pick an option. I trust the government a lot or I trust the government not so much. What we don't know is the story behind that. What is behind the lack or loss of trust? 

But I can make some guesses. I think the one thing that's going on with trust nationally is that we've become such a polarized country, and that polarization at the national level is trickling down to the state level and is trickling down to local communities and public meetings. The fact is that whoever is elected, whatever party, there will be some people who are alienated by that leadership simply because of the party identity and how they conceptualize that now. I do think it's possible for a Democratic leader to try to really be inclusive of a lot of Republican ideas or a Republican leader to be inclusive of a lot of Democratic ideas, especially at the local level, and really, really listen to those points of view. 

The other thing that I think has been really difficult for trust in government is the amount of misinformation that we have right now, where it's very hard to know what is truth and what is something that has been fictionalized to try to sort of influence people towards a certain policy outcome. I think that's a big reason why we need lots of media literacy in our K-12 education to try to help prepare the next generations of Americans to be able to sort of make those judgments based on facts. 

I think there’s also a lot that government can do, particularly at the local level to try to build up trust. I would say some local governments are pretty good at these things, and some local governments aren’t. These are things like just being transparent about your processes. How do you make decisions? Why did you make a decision? Being inclusive about your processes. Did you really hear from everybody in the community? Did you go out of your way to hold a meeting at a time that would work for folks who were at work, or different kinds of populations in the community? Then also demonstrating responsiveness and following through when there's lots of people in the community asking about something or expressing concerns. If you gather the community and ask for their opinion, you actually follow through and tell them how their opinions were used to make a decision. 

Melanie Plenda:

Michele, now that this report is completed, what happens next? How can this information be used? What needs further study? 

Michele Holt-Shannon:

We hope people will certainly read this report and think about how it applies to their own work and community. One of the things that we're thinking about is voting. It is top of mind right now with the election coming up, and we are curious about some of those patterns. Are there linkages in terms of mattering and voting, and are there linkages across political identity and voting, and certainly digging into that urban-rural-suburban connection. We work with schools and towns and government commissions and nonprofits and help them think about how more people and more organizations are trying to engage the public or engage people in their community. How can they do that in ways that build trust, that are authentic?

I think we also are looking forward to understanding, as New Hampshire's diversity grows, what are the ways that we can foster belonging across differences in lots of different ways — racial, political, economic, and so on. Are we living in very isolated groupings, and are there ways to foster people coming together across different groups that help people feel connected to their community and interacting with people who are different from themselves, which is something that is helpful for us to do.

We all have biases. We all have experiences that you know can be limiting, and then we don't know what we don't know. Until we meet other people.  So talking across politics, I will say, is one thing that it actually can help us feel better and more hopeful about the direction of the country. If we get into a place where we're not talking with people who vote differently than us, then if I do that for too long, I'm starting to make up stories about the people who vote differently from me, and I need to interact. And for me, those people are in my family, and so I especially want to interact and save those relationships. So I think there's lots to think about personally in reading this — like, what do I want to do more of? And then also, as someone who works with communities, how do we help communities engage authentically, foster trust and enfranchise their community members?

Melanie Plenda:

This question is for both of you — what is the major takeaway for New Hampshire residents about this report, and what do you advise them to do about it?

Quixada Moore-Vissing:

We’ve presented some research findings to viewers of this show, and I hope that you can take action. The point of doing these reports is to actually inform some interventions around civic health that you build and can move positive outcomes forward and in the state. So that would be one thing. 

The other, I would say, is I think a lot of us are feeling pretty powerless when we look at national democracy and civic health right now. There's a lot going on nationally, and it can feel like you can’t even make a difference with the complexity of what's happening. The fact is, it's going to be hard to impact national policy sitting from our homes in New Hampshire, but what we can do is act locally and try to strengthen civic health at the local level.

For some of you, this may be work that you take on through an organization that you work with, that you volunteer with, but this can also be very individual behavior. Small acts, like showing someone in your community that they matter to you who might not know that. Some other things that can be done is that institutions, like local government, public schools, nonprofits, can try to brainstorm, “What are three ways this year that we can build community trust, and let's do that as part of our strategic plan.” I really encourage that at every level. I hope that we can take action around civic health. I am an idealist, but I do believe that if a lot of people are influencing their direct spheres of reference, that it can be a ripple effect, and that change can happen. So I hope to see that positive change in New Hampshire.

Michele Holt-Shannon:

I have to double down on local because it's where most of us have a stronger tie. We have relationships locally that start to be more distant the further away they are geographically. That's a place where I think you can think small but still have a big outcome, you can go out and meet more of your neighbors or go join a group in the community. From an individual level to all the things that you can do at your job, your organization, and a community group that you're a part of — I think little things pay off.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you for joining us, Carsey School of Public Policy Interim Associate Director Michele Holt-Shannon and report author and founder of Public Engagement Partners Quixada Moore-Vissing.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

How the ‘Counting the Vote’ special on PBS debunks concerns about the election process

On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda talks with Margaret Hoover, host of PBS’s “Firing Line” about the show’s recent one-hour special, “Counting the Vote.”  It contains fascinating sections about election procedures and all things that, perhaps in the past, people didn't think about much, but today have become embroiled in controversy.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda: 

When you were conceiving the special with your team, what went into it? What was it like putting this show together? 

Margaret Hoover:

I’m glad to help shine a light on what I think is ultimately one of the most important functions of democracy, which is how we administer a vote in a way that engenders confidence with the electorate. After 18 months of conceiving of this project and bringing it to air, I have concluded, and I hope viewers will conclude, that there is a very, very good case to be made that elections in the United States are safe, secure, transparent and trustworthy. They are not only those four things – they are the most safe, the most secure, the most transparent and the most trustworthy in the world by a lot, and probably in the course of human history. We have a lot to be confident about, but we also need to shine a light on how we do it, so that we can demystify and answer some of the conspiracy theories and doubts that circulate, so that people will have confidence in the integrity of our elections.

What went into it was simply traveling and talking to people and doing the research. We don't have one election for president in this country on Nov. 5, 2024. We have 50 state elections for electors, and those 50 states administer the elections in 10,000-plus jurisdictions across the country, and in a way that federalism really protects the security of our elections. There's no way to rig the presidential election in this country, which is a wonderful sort of innovation of the founding fathers that is embedded in the Constitution. Every state gets to choose how to administer its votes. What it also means is, when there are states that are incredibly close, one has to really understand how that state chooses to administer its elections. 

Melanie Plenda:

As you went through this process and conducted these interviews what surprised you?

Margaret Hoover:

One of the things that surprised me is that you hear as you evaluate — and we all hear some of the doubts and concerns that are circulated on the Internet amongst our friends and neighbors — one you hear frequently is, “Well, we should just all have paper ballots” because there's this concern or fear that some of the election machinery might be susceptible to being hacked or manipulated. People suggest that perhaps the algorithms can be changed, or we don't know what they are. Actually, as it turns out, about 98% of the ballots in the United States have a paper trail. In other words, you count on a machine, but there is an actual paper ballot correlated to each individual's vote. So we do have a way of checking. There is no way of hacking or manipulating the election machinery or the algorithms or the computers to change the votes because we have a process for hand-counting ballots in certain states just to ensure that they work. Also, many states implement automatic audits, where you audit the vote almost immediately following the vote itself, just to ensure the integrity of the vote. 

The other thing that was really wonderful to see, particularly in the battleground states we visited, but also in the states that are deep red — states like Utah, that administers 100% mail-in voting. The election boards love to have people come and watch. They have basically created facilities where journalists, media, civic groups — any kind of group — can come and visit and see how elections are administered. 

I really encourage anyone who has concern about how your local elections are administered to get in touch with your local election board and see if you can set up a visit or volunteer, because there is, first of all, a real dearth of people who are wanting to volunteer because there have been so many threats leveled at individuals who volunteer. These are volunteers in a service that is critically necessary for representative democracy, that depends on ensuring that we have a stable and confident vote amongst our people in order to secure our elected representatives. Go volunteer and take a look around, because those folks are doing really great work. They're fastidious in every single state about how they count the ballots, secure the ballots, process the ballots, and are doing really good work on behalf of all of us.

Melanie Plenda:

Which states do you think might face some challenges? 

Margaret Hoover:

The first time we saw real challenges to the counting in many, many states, which led to the challenging of accepting the slates of electors at the counting of the electoral ballots last Jan. 6, 2020. The states that were questioned last time are still of concern this time maybe perhaps with the exception of Michigan. But I think Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia are all states that are going to be very, very close, but they have done different things in each state to prepare. 

So Georgia, for example, passed an election law which actually led to more people voting in 2022 than had ever voted in the state of Georgia before. They've really done a number of things to increase the transparency, security, trustworthiness and integrity of the elections in Georgia. 

On the other hand, Pennsylvania we know will be very, very close. The legislature tried to consider several bills, but they just could never get anything passed in order to lock down any of these standards of election integrity or apply any of these new standards of election integrity.

You'll see in the film a very frustrated election commissioner from Philadelphia, who actually was the only Republican from Philadelphia Election Commission to stand up — well, not the only one, but one of the ones who stood up — and said, “In fact, I've counted and I've recounted and we've re-audited, and I can confirm that Joe Biden won Philadelphia and won Pennsylvania,” to much criticism, frankly, and direct threats by the Republican Party and Donald Trump. But still, Pennsylvania has not taken the steps it needs to pre-process ballots, and so it will take longer for them to process and get a result in Pennsylvania — in particular the Philadelphia area, because in Philadelphia, they cannot start opening ballots and counting ballots until 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Melanie Plenda:

We recently had state primaries for congressional districts and governor. New Hampshire officials have always talked about how secure our elections are — even before 2020, that was really a point of pride for our former secretary of state. What struck me when I listened to the most recent slate of candidates was the number of them who didn’t outright deny the election results, but said, “they had questions” or thought there were “irregularities.” What is the advantage for candidates to say this? You would think in some respects it would depress turnout because they are essentially saying the process might be rigged. What do you think the political calculus is there?

Margaret Hoover:

Well, there isn't a sensible one, honestly. Arizona is a great example actually, where people would say, “Maybe there were some uncertainties or problems in Arizona.” Except Republicans won all down the ballot in Arizona in 2020, but Donald Trump didn't win the state. What happened, as election officials and also former state representatives and electors in Arizona explained, is that many, many Republicans — as many as 12,000 — left the top of the ballot blank, didn't vote for Donald Trump and then voted for Republicans all down ballot. So it's hard if you're a Republican in Arizona to say there was election fraud because you got elected as a Republican, even though Donald Trump didn't. 

I say this as a Republican who has observed what has happened in the Republican Party and the realignment. There has been, I've observed, a shift in how we talk about elections. I think it's so important to shine a light on this issue because, for certain Republicans, it has become a litmus test to suggest there might be something untoward about elections, and if New Hampshire Republicans say the election was great in New Hampshire, it's just somewhere else that there might have been trouble they’re contributing to this sowing of doubt because we have audited elections in all four of the states that were challenged in for the Electoral College in 2020 on January 6. Those ballots have been counted and recounted. They have been audited. They have been viewed by outside groups. You can go look at all of the information and all of the theories, and that's why administration officials from the Trump administration, in the Department of Justice, in the Department of Homeland Security, in the Department of Defense have all said that 2020, was actually the most secure election in American history. 

This is about politics, not about how well we administer our elections, and I think as long as we can point that out to people and people can recognize or actually just ask themselves, if they're hearing some kind of uncertainty around the elections, is this a political point or is this actually about the transparency and the integrity of how my local elections are being administered? 

Because one of the other things that we see recently in the news is that many people believe that their state and their locality does a good job administering elections, but they worry about other states. I think that's another piece of this too, that transparency helps shine a light on how every state does this, and how we can improve the functioning of the election administration in each state. It's up to each state legislature and each secretary of state and governor to get that done in their state. But, I think, too often casting doubt on the integrity of our elections has become a political talking point on the right that actually undermines the public's confidence in our elections. 

Melanie Plenda:

What are you working on now for “Firing Line?” What’s coming up in the next few weeks? 

Margaret Hoover:

I think I can tease that we’re planning to have Gen. H.R. McMaster on the program in the coming weeks. I also plan to have some election administration officials on the program to talk about what has been happening in some of these key swing states that are likely to be states that we're talking about on election night and election week that take a little bit of time to vote. 

An election official from Arizona will be on along with an election official from Michigan, and a Republican election lawyer, will also be on. We're going to just spend some time making sure that the public is aware that we're probably not going to know the answer of who won the election on Nov. 5. It's going to take several days, maybe even a week or two, to ensure that all the ballots are counted, especially with the tragic and really cataclysmic storms that have hit Florida and North Carolina that will just inevitably slow down the process. We want to make sure we count every ballot and ensure that it is secure and transparent and trustworthy and fair.

Melanie Plenda:

Margaret Hoover, host of “Firing Line,” thank you so much for joining us. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Fostering civic engagement: New Hampshire's initiative to strengthen voter education

Pretty much everyone agrees — civic education is important. But why? And what exactly does that entail? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan and Lily Woo, the state’s Civic and Voter Education Coordinator talk about a new initiative to foster civic education in the state.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity. 

Melanie Plenda:

First, let’s talk about civics. Secretary Scanlan, how would you define what that is and why it’s important? 

David Scanlan:

Well, civics is a basic understanding of our government, and from my perspective, state government is just very, very important. Every citizen of New Hampshire has the opportunity to participate in their government, and they do that through their right to vote, and if they are a registered voter, then they also have the right to run for office. That process is integral, integral to our society and the way that it operates. So it is really, really important that that system function very, very well.

Melanie Plenda:

Tell us about the role of the civic and voter education coordinator and what you hope comes from it. 

David Scanlan:

In my experience in government, which has spanned over several decades in a number of different areas, there just seems to be a general decline in confidence that voters have when they go to the voting booths. Along with that comes a lot of misinformation and disinformation that is out there flowing around, and it is becoming more and more prevalent through the use of social media and the sophisticated and technical ways that we have to communicate today, as opposed to the way we communicated 20 years ago. That coincides with a decline in the knowledge that voters have about how their electoral system works.

While I have spent a lot of time over the last 20 years helping to educate poll workers and individuals that are engaged in the actual process of conducting elections, I find now that it is really important that we reach out to voters and educate in those processes as well. 

Most voters, when they go to their polling place, they check in, they receive a ballot, they mark the ballot, and they turn it into the moderator, and then they leave the polling place. What they may not be aware of when they go through that process is the many checks and balances that are built into our system that help guarantee and make sure that their votes are accurately counted and that the process is working properly. We have to take the time to help our voters understand that, and the way we do it is to be more transparent and educate the voting public — not only when they go through the polling place, but at every opportunity that we have when they engage in their civic government. 

So that's why I believe it's important that we have this position now of civics and voter education outreach coordinator, so that we can be proactive in reaching out to students and groups and everyday citizens about how our governmental system works, and why it is important that they understand that process and participate in it.

Melanie Plenda:

Lily, I'd love to know how you are finding the role, and tell us more about what you've been up to.

Lily Woo:

First of all, not having a blueprint has been a bit challenging. I think the atmosphere is very fraught right now with misinformation, disinformation, and that is challenging. But I think with all of these challenges, there comes excitement for the opportunity to be part of a team that works hard to be proactive and that combats the misinformation, the disinformation.

I think, as a former teacher, it's ironic to me that we teach our students to hand in work that is theirs. We teach our students to do the right thing when nobody's watching. So the excitement of this position is to be part of a team that combats the misinformation, the disinformation and the artificial intelligence that's out there. I think that's pretty common with challenges and opportunities. 

One of the things that I really enjoyed was being part of the election training and talking to the election officials out there and hearing from them what they're seeing in the public, and eventually putting together a curriculum that will address the issues that the election officials are bringing up.

Melanie Plenda:

What are they seeing in the public? What are the issues?

Lily Woo:

They are issues that can be as foundational as, what do you need to register to vote? I think there can be issues that are more complex, like, what are you allowed to wear in a polling station to, when can I change my party affiliation? There's a primary election, there's a general election, and the rules are different — or at least to a certain extent — not vastly different, but there are things that are different. So I think there are issues that certainly we can help to educate the public on that will help election officials be able to concentrate on having a polling station that is run efficiently and eliminate all of those layers of having to repeat the answer to the same questions.

Melanie Plenda:

Lily, you mentioned the curriculum. What are your goals for developing a curriculum about civics? 

Lily Woo:

Anytime you develop a curriculum, you always have to begin with the end in mind. In this case, you begin with an end in mind of two pillars. The one pillar being the foundational elements of civics, which is individual rights, the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. The other pillar is civic responsibility. 

So if you begin with that end in mind, the other piece you need is the why. If you can get to the foundational elements of “what does it mean to be a citizen with individual rights?” you can start to give students the tools to combat the misinformation, the disinformation. If you can give students a sound relation to what it means to be civically responsible. Well, then you give them a tool to be good citizens in society, and then ultimately that's going to hopefully build trust in foundational systems that have been the bedrock of communities and this country.

Melanie Plenda:

This question is for both of you. How will this help educators? Lily, let's start with you.

Lily Woo:

Being an educator myself, I think it's not just about handing the school a curriculum and saying, “have at it.” I think there are a lot of factors that go into being in front of a body of students, whether it's 15, 25, 35. So I think knowing classroom teachers have a resource here, knowing that I understand what it is like to be in a classroom, I hope is helpful to educators.

David Scanlan:

This is really a multi-stage program, and the curriculum part of it is the long-term planning. How do we get a program, a solid program, that school districts can use around the state to teach students in the classroom? But beyond that, there are other groups out there that are important to this process, and it’s important that we reach out to them as well.

So we have some initiatives going where we've been working with veterans’ groups to try and get out and communicate with veterans.They already know about civics because they have sacrificed for our country in different ways, and we want to pull from that experience that they've had and the respect that they have in their own communities and try and engage them to become participants in the election process in terms of helping at polls and other things.

We had a great “I Voted” sticker contest that was in the school system. That's something that we can continue as a program. That's kind of a short-term initiative, but it generates tremendous interest and gets students engaged at a very early level. There may be other things that we can do, like essay contests in the higher grades. There are some awards that we can issue that are sponsored by national organizations, like the National Association of Secretaries of State, to young adults — whether they're high school seniors or college students or even slightly beyond that — to recognize individuals for their efforts in the community that have engaged in a civic way. 

Melanie Plenda:

That leads to our next question for the both of you: How will this help students and/or the general public?

David Scanlan:

The idea is just to help students and the general public understand things about the election process that they might not know. And if they do know, we'll give them confidence that we have a great system in New Hampshire, and that because of that, you should have confidence in the results of the elections. And to let them know that the opportunity is certainly there for them to become active participants in that process, so they can see firsthand and experience firsthand how these systems work and understand the checks and balances that are at play.

If we can encourage adults and voters to do that, then I think the misinformation part is going to take care of itself. When people become aware and knowledgeable, it is less easy to fall victim to incorrect facts out there about the election process itself. 

Lily Woo:

One of the things that I know about this office, and I know the secretary is very keyed in on, is recognizing and acknowledging when students or when the public is engaged in the civic process. If we can continue building the foundation for students and creating civically literate graduates who enter into this world, hopefully that spirit of engagement will continue and will carry on for a lifetime — whether it is volunteering at the polls on Election Day or whether it is continuing to look out for neighbors, be part of the community, that everyone's moving in the same direction toward the public good. When everybody's rowing in the same direction, good things are going to happen.

Melanie Plenda:

Here’s another question for the both of you: As we approach the election, what would you like people to know about the process as it stands right now? 

David Scanlan:

Well, New Hampshire has a unique system in terms of its elections, and what makes it unique is the fact that we elect our local election officials at the local level, so people's neighbors, their peers, family and friends, are actually the ones that are running the election — the polling place that voters will go to in that community. Those individuals are elected because people have faith in their ability, they believe in their integrity and their honesty, and that goes a long way in giving them some confidence. 

We have a very human process too, and errors can be made. I mean, people can make an error in adding numbers together when they're reporting final results, but our system is built to withstand that because it is easy to request a recount in the state. We now perform audits of ballot counting devices and things like that. So while the system was not designed to be perfect, it was built to accurately reflect who won an election when the dust settles, and New Hampshire does a great job. 

I mentioned that there are checks and balances at play in the polling place, and some of those involve the political parties themselves. They are allowed to make appointments of participants in the polling place, and the best example of that are the inspectors of election, which are more commonly known as the ballot clerks. Those individuals are the ones that hand a ballot to the voter when they're checking in, while the other individual crosses the name of the voter off the checklist. That's usually a Republican and a Democrat sitting side by side, engaging in that process. So not only can they keep an eye on each other, but they can also see what is going on in the polling place itself — and it's those checks and balances that are really important to just making sure that the system works properly. 

At the end of the night, when the moderator announces the results, the ballots are all packaged up and placed in boxes with security tape. There's a seal that is placed over those boxes that has to be signed by the selectmen in the town, and those seals are not broken unless there is a request for a recount or a court orders a ballot box be opened up for some reason. So those are the things that we need voters to understand and become aware of, and that's part of the importance of the program that Lily is engaging in right now. 

It’s also important for voters to understand the three different branches of government and the role that each plays in the process of elections. That's something that people are becoming less and less knowledgeable about, and it's time that we reverse that trend and make sure that people understand that the judicial branch of government, the executive branch of government and the legislative branch of government all have really important roles to play in our democratic process.

Lily Woo:

Having gone with the election trainers from this office and meeting with the election officials in the different towns across the state, what I would want the public to know is, as the secretary said, these people are your friends and your neighbors, and they are the ones that are making the process as efficient and as comfortable as possible for everyone. I think the public needs to know that.

As somebody said to me in one of the training sessions, “New Hampshire is working hard to do it right.” I think that is something that is a credit to the office here that is training the officials. I think it's a credit to the election officials, and I think it's a credit to the patience of the public — that if something is not going right at the polls, well, it's time to find the moderator and to ask the moderator questions about what is going on. But I think, as the secretary said, there are checks and balances built into the process. I think certainly voters should go in confident that New Hampshire is getting it right.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, you two have a lot on your plate, especially in the coming weeks. Good luck with these endeavors. Thank you for joining us, Secretary of State David Scanlan and Lily Woo, the state’s civic and voter education coordinator

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org. “The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Supreme Court Ends Biden Harris Student Loan Forgiveness, Leaving Borrowers Disappointed

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

The Supreme Court effectively ended President Biden's one time student loan forgiveness plan, an initiative that would have canceled up to $20,000 in federal student loans for over 30 million ballot borrowers. Here to talk about all things student loans and what recent rulings mean for borrowers in New Hampshire is Vice President of Student Financial Services at Franklin Pierce University, Kenneth Ferreira, along with a recent graduate of Franklin Pierce and reporter at the Dartmouth Week Magnolia McComish.

Melanie Plenda:

So Ken, let's begin with you. Can you tell us about your current role as a financial aid professional at Franklin Pierce, and where Student Financial Services play out in university systems?

Kenneth Ferreira:

Yeah, so at Franklin Pierce, I'm the Chief Financial Aid administrator so I oversee all of the university's institutional as well as federal and state Student Financial Assistance programs. We also are a one stop shop and so all things student finance live under Student Financial Services at Franklin Pierce. We play a critical role 100% of our undergraduate population at Ringe, full time undergraduate day students receive some sort of financial assistance. And obviously 100% of them are billed as well. And so we serve all of the student population, whether there are a day student, an evening online, grad, or a residential grad, or DPT, PA.

Melanie Plenda:

And Magnolia. You graduated from Franklin Pierce in December of 2022. Can you tell us a little bit about your college experience and what led you to Franklin Pierce as an out of state student? 

Magnolia McComish:

So I studied communications and political science at Franklin Pierce. And what really drew me to Franklin Pierce into New Hampshire was the political climate there. I really wanted to be in a purple state during an election season where a lot of candidates come. And I just knew at Franklin Pierce, I would have so many opportunities I wouldn't get at another larger or more expensive school even. 

Melanie Plenda;

And so let's start with the most recent news on student loans. President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan was just denied by the Supreme Court? Can you explain what the plan would have entailed for borrowers?

Kenneth Ferreira:

Yeah, so what the Biden Harris administration had introduced last summer actually was a plan for a one time student loan forgiveness or discharge of student debt. That would be $10,000. For students who did not have a Federal Pell Grant while they were in college, or $20,000. For students who did have a Federal Pell Grant while in college, those plans were put in motion and applications were being processed by the United States Department of Education. Data that came out from the White House includes that there were 121,000 New Hampshire student loan federal student loan borrowers, and that 77,000 applications for the one time loan forgiveness discharge were received just prior to when the department had to halt the application process as a result of lawsuits that were brought forward challenging the program.

Melanie Plenda:

So Magnolia you graduated from Franklin Pierce, as we said, back in December 22. When we weren't sure what would happen with Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, what was your reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling and how much of your loans were eligible to be forgiven?

Magnolia McComish:

So of course, my reaction is disappointed. I was qualified for $10,000 in forgiveness, which would have only left me with a couple more 1000 to pay off, which for me, and my position is very manageable. So it would have been a huge help. And looking at what that would have meant, in my term, like being uncertain when I was graduating, I graduated a semester early so I wouldn't have to take out more loans and have more debt. Had I known I would have received forgiveness for essentially, almost all of my loans, maybe I would have done another semester, that would have been a more realistic plan and had a more complete college experience.

Melanie Plenda:

And how will the rejection of this plan impact students in New Hampshire? What percent of students in the Granite State rely on loans?

Kenneth Ferriera:

Yeah, according to an article that came out this past fall, I believe it was through New Hampshire Business or New Hampshire Business Magazine. 70% of students who graduate from colleges in New Hampshire rely on federal student loans. And based on data from the project on student debt, that overall average indebtedness is just under $40,000. It's $39,950. And so, when I think about the 121,000 eligible New Hampshire borrowers and the 77,000, who submitted an application, I can only imagine how disappointed they are. The borrowers that I've heard from that I counsel on next steps are overwhelmingly disappointed by the decision that came out from the Supreme Court. 

But having said that, they are somewhat heartened by the plans that the Biden Harris administration has to use the Higher Education Act of 1965, for a new method to potentially assist as many borrowers as possible with some loan forgiveness. And those details are still being worked out, ironed out and communicated to financial aid officers. The good news, I think, in some of this is that they're talking about an on ramp. And so the on ramp in October gives another year where if there are missed payments, delinquent payments, that the student is not going to fall into a defaulted status. And so I think, you know, the students that I've spoken with, the borrowers that I've spoken with, are heartened by what is being planned in response, albeit disappointed in the current outcome.

Melanie Plenda: 

Okay, so Magnolia, in what ways would the forgiveness plan have altered your course of action and timeline for paying back your loans?

Magnolia McComish:

Well, just like Ken’s saying, having that money in my own possession and not going towards loans would have allowed me to make a down payment on a house much sooner. I could have if I need a new car, when emergencies come up. I have those savings to get those things sooner, rather than waiting to reap, accumulate that money and make it back while I'm now taking on additional expenses, like having a job that costs money in a lot of cases. So I'm making money now with my degree, but I'm also paying for that. So to have $10,000 not to say extra, but that was unexpected would have been a huge gift and a huge, almost advancement in my grown up life, if you will.

Melanie Plenda:

In your 25 plus years as a financial aid professional, how big of a factor is financial aid and loans in a student's choice of where to attend college?

Kenneth Ferriera:

Yeah, I would say in the last maybe 12 to 15 years, it is often the number one driver. So if you survey students and ask them, How important was the financial aid that you received, it's upwards of 95-98%. That coupled with the program of study that the university or college is offering is right up there earlier in my career, financial aid and, and cost were not as predominant but as, as as wages and income nationally, particularly for middle class families have either remained stagnant or or not kept pace with with inflation, or the cost of living. That cost and financial aid factor has become one of the driving factors in decision making when it comes to enrollment.

Melanie Plenda:

With the rejection of Biden's forgiveness plan, along with high tuition rates and levels of indebtedness in the Granite State. What does this mean for higher education in New Hampshire? And do you think universities will see a decline in enrollment?

Kenneth Ferriera:

So I think that colleges and universities in the Northeast in general are experiencing some, some challenges strictly based on the climate that higher ed exists in right now. You know, earlier we talked about my 25 year career in financial aid, and I just want to make a quick comment about how 18 of those years have been at Franklin Pierce University. And as I mentioned earlier, 100% of our students received some sort of financial assistance. So 100% of our Ringe full time day students receive some sort of financial assistance and to hear Magnolia and her share her experience in terms of the decision to enroll at Franklin Pierce and how cost and affordability and value. All were part of her decision making process. 

I'm really proud to work for an institution that has access and affordability at the forefront of its enrollment process with students. Do I think that colleges and universities in New England and New Hampshire will continue to be challenged in this hyper competitive enrollment marketplace? Absolutely. But I'm also very proud to work for an institution that has made a firm commitment to access and affordability and has a generous financial aid program. So that students like Magnolia, choose us and graduate from us and can realize their dreams, both personally and professionally.

Melanie Plenda:

Final question for both of you, what advice would you give prospective students starting the college decision process when it comes to financial aid and loans? What are important factors for them to consider? Magnolia, we'll start with you and wrap up with Ken.

Magnolia McComish:

So I think it's really important to first talk to your parents and find out how much they are really contributing. And once you know how much you're responsible for. And if you're already working, or you already have some sort of income while you're in high school, start saving that money open, open a savings account, get a financial advisor, don't wait plan for this, like how you would plan for retirement, you don't wait until you're 50 and you're retiring in 10 years, you got to you have to start as soon as you can putting money away and expect to pay off these loans. It feels far away. But then it's the blink of an eye, you're a college graduate with a job and piles of debt that you don't know what to do with and you don't know how you're going to tackle on starting salaries that seem like they're just getting less and less and expensive world that just seems like it's going up and up. So it's so important to know what you're going to be responsible for and plan for it, be realistic, and then find scholarships. It really does help so much. Every couple $100,000 you can get from your community from anywhere really, it's going to help and it's going to help you in such a long term. You don't realize it when you're applying to college. 

Kenneth Ferriera:

Magnolia gave some really good advice. What I would say is when it comes to student loans, and when it comes to a college education, the college education is an investment in you and in your future. And the value of a college education remains the gold standard in our society. So college graduates continue to earn more over their lifetimes than those who didn't pursue something after high school didn't pursue some type of post secondary education and student loans are part of that equation. 

My mom graduated from college when I was in the seventh grade. So she went back as a non-traditional student. My wife is the first in her family and the only in her family to have a college education. Both of us coming from lower middle class families needed student loans. It is very likely that our children will need student loans but those student loans are investments. To Magnolia’s point and I'm going to use my words, borrow wisely. There remain professions that still allow for student loan forgiveness. 

So for instance, I mentioned my wife, she's a teacher. A significant portion of her student loans were discharged as part of being a special education teacher. And so work with a financial aid counselor at the college or university that you're looking at to have those conversations about student loans, to have those conversations about what your dreams are as far as professionally and whether or not some type of student loan forgiveness that existed long before this program, through President Biden and Vice President Harris was launched and remain intact. And at the end of the day, I would never want for a young person to believe their dreams are out of reach because they're afraid of making that investment in themselves. There is always a path. I've been doing this a long time. The path may not be the path that you envision, but work with someone in a financial aid office and they'll help you figure out the path that's right for you.

Melanie Plenda:

Kenneth Ferreira, Vice President of Student Financial Services at Franklin Pierce University and Magnolia McComish, Franklin Pierce, alumna and reporter at the Dartmouth week. Thank you both so much for joining us today.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Health and the electric grid: The impacts of recent heat waves in New Hampshire

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

The experiences of the week of June 23-29 have shown that heat waves are more than an inconvenience. They can cause many other problems, from exacerbating the health issues of those caught in their wake to causing electricity demand to soar, taxing an already burdened system. For many, the question becomes: Is this the new normal for summer in New Hampshire? If so, what can be done about it?

On this episode of “The State We’re in,” Melanie Plenda talks with Mary Stampone, the New Hampshire’s state climatologist and an associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire whose courses focus on weather, climate and natural hazards, and Matt Kakley, spokesperson for ISO New England, which operates the regional power grid and administers the wholesale electricity in the region.

Melanie Plenda:

Mary, tell us more about the future of our summers. Should New Hampshire expect warmer weather or earlier heat waves? What is going on with our climate?

Mary Stampone:

As average global temperature increases over time, this shift toward a warmer climate will bring with it more extreme heat. Heat waves have already doubled across the U.S., and models indicate that the Northeast region will likely see the greatest increases in heat exposure over the coming decades.

We're already seeing this trend play out in New Hampshire, where the number of days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit have already increased since the mid-20th century, and climate models project nearly twice as many 90+ degrees Fahrenheit days per year by the middle of this century compared to today.

Melanie Plenda:

What led to the June heat wave, and what impact did it have on the region?

Mary Stampone:

This heat wave formed within a weather system known as a heat dome, and in a heat dome, high pressure pushes warm air toward the surface, which suppresses cloud formation and kind of traps that heat and humidity near the surface for several days at a time. Then, as humidity increases, the air temperature feels even warmer and it makes it more difficult to cool off at night. So in addition to the dozens of daily high-temperature records that we set statewide, we also experienced 100+ degree Fahrenheit heat indices, and extreme nighttime temperatures in the 60s to even over 70s Fahrenheit. 

It can affect ecosystems and our water quality. When it comes to humans, we have a region that doesn't have a lot of air conditioning, so the ability for us to cool off is impacted. We're gonna see an increase in the amount of energy needed for indoor cooling over time. This is going to impact our economy in terms of how many hours people can work outside during the day as well as the health impacts for those people whose indoor spaces just don't cool off at night.

Melanie Plenda:

Matt, how is the power grid affected?

Matt Kakley:

Across New England, and really everywhere, weather is the single biggest driver of electricity use. In the summer, that means air conditioning. The hotter it is, the more humid it is, the more people are turning to air conditioning, and the longer and more hours that they're running those air conditioners drives up electricity demand across the regional system, and that means that ISO New England needs to call upon more resources to provide that electricity. That is what we're seeing right now and is largely what we have projected coming into the season. 

More broadly the last several years, we've seen a relatively flat demand due to largely energy efficiency and behind-the-meter solar that has been installed across the region. But as we look out towards the future, and we continue to electrify our heating and transportation systems, we are expecting demand to go up. We are expecting, particularly during periods of hot weather, demand to go up across the system.

Melanie Plenda:

What happens after a heat wave ends? This time we had thunderstorms and even a tornado warning. Is that typical?

Mary Stampone:

Often, persistent high pressure and heat like what we had will move out of the region ahead of cooler air that advances in behind a cold front. So in this pattern, that approaching frontal boundary will lift the very warm humid, unstable air ahead, forming a line of heavy rain and thunderstorms. Usually, under the extreme weather conditions that we had before. These thunderstorms can become severe, producing heavy downpours, strong wind gusts, possibly tornadoes — although tornadoes are still fairly rare here in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

How is this extreme weather affecting the power grid by summer electricity demands? What do preparations or precautions to keep it up and running look like during the summer as well as the rest of the year?

Matt Kakley:

It’s kind of a matter of short-term and long-term. On a day-to-day basis, we're evaluating what the next day's forecast is going to be. That allows us to schedule the necessary generation for that next day. What we've seen is that more and more, weather is playing a vital role in determining how reliable that system is going to be. It's always been true that weather is the biggest driver of electricity demand, but now as we get more and more weather-dependent resources — solar power, wind power — it's also affecting the generation side. At ISO New England, we've spent a great deal of time trying to get more and better weather data and weather forecasts so that we can add them to our software as we determine what we think is going to be the power demand for the next couple of days. We've added an on-site meteorologist to help us with that to determine exactly how the weather is going to impact the power system. 

We're also looking out towards a future where maybe historical weather is not as relevant in projecting future demand, so we’re working to incorporate more climate modeling into our forecasting to figure out what are the next five, 10, 50 years going to look like and what we need to do as a rule region to prepare for that.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk more about the future. What does the future look like for the power grid considering the changing climate?

Matt Kakley:

In the short term, we believe the power system is going to be reliable, but there's a lot of uncertainty as you get further out. That is for a number of reasons.

One is the general uncertainty of what the climate is going to be like in the mid-21st century. So we've worked with the Electric Power Research Institute, known as EPRI, to work on long-term forecasting, both in terms of what we would expect electricity demand from consumers to be but also what we would expect that weather to do to a power system that has more solar or wind power on it. 

That's really what we're trying to do — project out further in the future than we ever really had to. Typically, electric power planning was done over the course of the next decade. Now we're really looking out into the middle of the century to see how would we expect the power system that has a lot of wind power, that has a lot of solar power on it to behave, and what would we expect consumers to need from that powers system, as they look to charge electric vehicles, as they look to heat and cool with heat pumps and things like that. 

What we're seeing is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of variables going on. We've looked to develop better and more sophisticated tools to grapple with all those different variables and see how they play out with each other. What we're ultimately going to see is a power system that is even more sensitive to weather, both at the extremes but then also just on a day-to-day basis.

Melanie Plenda:

What can we expect for the rest of the summer?

Mary Stampone:

Above-normal temperatures, along with potentially increased humidity are strongly favored for the rest of July across all of New England. Above-average temperatures are expected to persist region-wide well into September, so this will likely be an overall warmer-than-average summer.

Melanie Plenda:

Mary Stampone, the New Hampshire state climatologist and an associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire, and Matt Kakley, spokesperson for ISO New England — thank you both so much for joining us.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

NH community leaders share perspectives and hopes around Juneteenth

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda talks with JerriAnne Boggis, executive director of the , Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire; Dwight Davis, owner of Senior Helpers of Southern NH and past president of Black Heritage Trail NH and a former college and NBA basketball star; and James McKim, NAACP Manchester branch president and managing partner at Organizational Ignition LLC, to learn what Juneteenth, the newly recognized federal holiday and day of observance in New Hampshire, is all about.

Melanie Plenda:

What is the history behind June 19th?

JerriAnne Boggis:

So Juneteenth is a predominantly Black celebration. It started in Texas as a result of Gen. George Granger, who led Union soldiers into Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. This was two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but it would take this army that general Granger brought into Galveston to free the enslaved people in Texas. 

It's not that the enslaved people there didn't know that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed on Jan. 1, 1863. It's just that the enslavers did not obey that new Emancipation Proclamation. So it would take this army to force the enslavers to free the enslaved people there. 

To put this in perspective, the Emancipation Proclamation that President Lincoln signed did not free all the slaves. It was only the slaves that were in the states that wanted to secede that were freed. So that meant that states like Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri still had enslaved people as well. Slavery didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation. June 19 then represents this emancipation, for when freedom really ended for the enslaved African Americans in our country.

Melanie Plenda:

Dwight, having been born in Texas — the last state to have freed enslaved people — and your career in the NBA taking you to many places, how would you compare your experiences in other states versus living in New Hampshire, and how was the observance of Juneteenth different? 

Dwight Davis:

To answer your question about Juneteenth being a holiday in Texas. It was a proclamation back in 1936. When I did some studying, I was quite surprised because, during 1936, Texas was still very much an oppressor state for people of color. But it did not become a state holiday until 1980. 

However, Black folk in Texas did not wait for that to start celebrating Juneteenth. I can remember from my birth in 1949, as a young kid in the early and mid-‘50s. It was a huge, huge holiday and as a young person I thought it was celebrated in all states. 

But it was not celebrated in all places likewise. One of the states I moved to and lived in, playing with the Cleveland Cavaliers, was Ohio and it was celebrated to a small extent. I was quite surprised as a 21- year-old-man to see that. 

Melanie Plenda:

James, reflecting on the protracted struggle for an official state holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. in New Hampshire, has the NAACP advocated to make Juneteenth a state holiday? Do you think such a measure would have support?

James McKim:

We have advocated for it. I think there is support for it. I think that support is challenged, though, especially because of the times in which we live. We have a backlash against learning the true history of this nation and covering up the fact that we had slavery as an institution here in the United States. I think, unfortunately, a number of folks in our legislature are afraid of that history. So I think there is support for it, but I think it would be a long haul to actually have it past as an official holiday here in the state. 

Melanie Plenda;

JerriAnne, this year’s Juneteenth celebration, presented by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, explores the theme of “Dreaming Black Art: Gateways to a New Awareness.” Tell us about the theme and how you feel it will advance understanding.

JerriAnne Boggis:

When we started looking at the themes of our prior Juneteenth celebrations, one of the things we realized that we've omitted in all of our work is looking at Black masculinity. We thought that this was a good time, using art and dialogue, to really explore that theme of what it means to be Black male in America. It just brought us to a really important place of looking at really breaking down stereotypes. 

Our first event was with a young artist named Nadroj Nina Holmes, who took an image of Gordon, known to the majority of Americans as “Whipped Peter.” He is a man who was formerly enslaved and the image shows all the scars on his back. The artist erased the scars and put other things on his back, just as a starting place for a dialogue so that people can really immerse themselves in understanding what this history is and what Black male masculinity is all about. 

Earlier, we had a discussion with eight Black African men of color on stage in Manchester. I’ll tell you, it was the most emotional, engaging, transformative conversation I've been a part of. We never allow our Black men to be vulnerable, to be emotional. They were authentically themselves and opened a door for us to see into what it really means to be Black and to be male in America. So I'm really excited about this theme. I think we have a lot of stuff to unpack and with a bigger understanding, our men can be who they are themselves, in our communities.

Melanie Plenda:

Would you say the ability to build intergroup connections and relationships is even more important, given the demographics in the future?

Dwight Davis:

We realize as people of color that if we're going to take our rightful place in this society, in this community, then we must have more business owners, we have to have more job creators in order to do that effectively and efficiently.

Those of us who have broken through to some degree must go back and share. Just like the term “sankofa” [An African phrase that loosely translates to “to return and get it”], it is not a bad thing for us to go back and share what we've learned and share our connections with others. It’s not bad to come together and gather the full force that a group can bring, as opposed to individual people of color here and there. 

Melanie Plenda:

What are some of the ways people can get involved in Manchester, or even in small towns around New Hampshire?

James McKim:

Following what is going on in the state legislature, being in touch with your representatives, and letting them know that we want a state that shows equal treatment and equitable treatment to every single person regardless of their race. Getting involved in the school board, going to school board meetings and letting your thoughts, feelings, desires and beliefs be known.

We have a number of minority-owned businesses here in the state. On our website, we have a list of those minority-owned businesses and we are encouraging people to go to that list and patronize those businesses to help them to grow and to take advantage of the various products and services which enrich all of our lives by taking advantage of them. 

Melanie Plenda:

Would you say the history of slavery lurks in the background? 

James McKim:

It absolutely lurks in the background. We were just talking about the perception of African Americans that JerriAnne brought up from the event last week, and that Black men have not been allowed to be vulnerable. They've not been allowed to be vulnerable because of this perception that Black men are dangerous, not to be trusted, not to be heard. That's based on the notion that Black people are not human. It's what we really have been taught, it's been in the air that we breathe, that there's this “danger.” 

So there's a healing that needs to go on. Not just for Black people, but for everyone. Because this notion that Black people, Black males in particular, are dangerous, causes fear in white people. It causes this notion we can't be safe, if there's a person of color there. Even if we don't act based on that, it’s something that is going on in our heads. This goes on in the heads of Black people too, by the way. So we all need this healing. It's one of the reasons why we're working with Nicole Sublette and with therapists of color to put on healing circles. These are opportunities to have these deep conversations about what's broken in the relationships both in the past and today. We all need this healing. 

Dwight Davis:

I agree with everything James said. But I'd like to add that the description of the Black male and the Black race in general, also includes being irresponsible and unintelligent. Those are things that are being propagated and promoted. Especially in the last eight years or so. Some of it may be a backlash to President Barack Obama and the light that he brought to this country and some of it is just a residual from the Civil War.

I can tell you that I’m not shocked at what has happened, but I am deeply surprised that the speed at which so many things that have been accomplished and so many milestones that have been passed were reversed. It is disheartening, but we know as descendants of slaves, even in the darkest hours, we can have victory, and it won't be just for people of color. It will be for this entire nation. Black people love this country. We just want this country to love us back.

Melanie Plenda:

JerriAnne Boggis, executive director, Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire; Dwight Davis, owner, Senior Helpers of Southern  NH and past president of Black Heritage Trail NH; and James McKim, NAACP Manchester branch president and managing partner at Organizational Ignition LLC, thank you so much for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visitcollaborativenh.org.

Addressing the heightened urgency of New Hampshire’s homelessness crisis

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

The median cost for a two-bedroom apartment in New Hampshire is about $1,584. To afford it, someone would have to earn about $31 an hour. With the minimum wage at  $7.25 an hour, someone working 168 hours a week — every hour of every day — could not afford the rent. To kick off an occasional series on homelessness, Melanie Plenda talks with Jennifer Chisholm, executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness, about the problems and solutions related to homelessness in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s talk about some of the terms that we use when we talk about homelessness, like “housed,” “unhoused,” “sheltered” and “unsheltered.” What are some of those common terms, and why do they matter? Is homelessness a bad word?

Jennifer Chisholm:

There are some people who are shifting the language to talk about  “houselessness”’ instead of “homelessness” in that somebody can make a home for themselves, anywhere. We still choose to use the term homelessness, as it is common vocabulary. The federal government actually doesn't have one set definition of homelessness; it depends on the agency that you're talking about. 

When we are talking about our numbers, we're generally looking at (U.S. Department of) Housing and Urban Development definitions. They talk about “sheltered” versus “unsheltered.” Somebody who's unsheltered is staying in someplace like a car, a tent, an encampment on the streets, in the parking garage — places like that. Somebody who is sheltered may have a roof over their head, such as an emergency shelter or a housing program for people who are experiencing homelessness to help stabilize them. 

Another definition that's really important to know is “chronic homelessness.” That is when somebody has either been homeless for 12 months straight or has experienced at least 12 months of homelessness in four chunks or more over the last three years. For somebody to meet that definition, they also have to have a disabling condition of some sort. So when you're talking about people who are chronically homeless, then you're talking about some extremely vulnerable people.

Melanie Plenda:

What does homelessness look like across the state of New Hampshire? Where does it exist?

Jennifer Chisholm:

Everywhere — from all the way from Nashua up to Berlin, and everywhere from east to west as well. So both rural and urban homelessness do exist in the state, and it can really vary. I was referring to the HUD definitions earlier, there are people who are unhoused or maybe accessing an emergency shelter or a supportive housing program. That does not look at another section of people experiencing homelessness, who are what’s called either couch hopping or doubled-up. Those are people who are maybe crashing on my couch because they don’t have a lease or staying with family members because they can’t afford their own place. We don’t have great numbers about that population — it’s kind of a hidden population — but it’s something I always like to talk about to make sure we’re considering that as well because it’s not captured in the numbers that we generally discuss about homelessness.

Melanie Plenda:

Does homelessness look different in an urban versus a rural environment?

Jennifer Chisholm:

I would say that it comes down to lack of affordable housing and poverty in both spaces. However, people who are living in urban environments typically may have better access to services. When you think about rural New Hampshire, services are fewer and farther between and transportation may be a larger barrier. There are cities in New Hampshire that do have public transportation systems but that certainly don't exist in most of rural New Hampshire. Then you think of employment opportunities, the housing stock — we do want to make sure we’re looking at both rural and urban homelessness and assessing what the needs are for each population.

Melanie Plenda:

What do you think are the impacts of that lack of visibility in some of those more rural environments on services for folks?

Jennifer Chisholm:

When it comes to service provision and the ability to build the relationships in order to provide services to people, having worked as an outreach worker in the encampments in Manchester, I know that the first time we make contact with somebody who may need some assistance, that person isn't always going to necessarily have the trust needed in order to accept help or ask for something that they may need. I’ve seen it take six months, nine months before a person becomes comfortable to ask for support. When it’s hard to find people, such as in a rural environment or even in an urban environment, where people are being moved from the encampments, it just makes that process so much more difficult. The time that it takes to get somebody really connected with resources is so much longer.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk about the reasons people are homeless. What has your experience been?

Jennifer Chisholm:

The answer to that question is so amazingly complex, but I think that it boils down right now to the housing crisis in New Hampshire. We have a very significant lack of housing that's available for people. A healthy vacancy rate — meaning the percentage of apartments or rental units that are available for rent in a given time — in a healthy rental economy is between 5 and 8%. Right now, in New Hampshire, it's running at, depending on the county, around 0.6%, or about 1/10 of where it should be. 

That means that people with excellent rental histories who are looking to rent a new apartment are having trouble finding a place. Never mind somebody who may have had some housing instability –  who doesn't have a stable landlord reference history, may have an eviction on their record, their credit score may not be great — they have these other barriers that are preventing them from being that top candidate and are having extreme difficulties finding apartments. While there are many, many, many other reasons that people may become homeless, the housing economy right now is the prime driver.

Melanie Plenda:

Understanding that the reasons are very complex, but what are some of the misconceptions out there about why people are homeless? I’ve heard even well-meaning people say, “they must want to be homeless” or “they’re choosing to be homeless” and things like that, on the face of it, seem probably not true.

Jennifer Chisholm:

The New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness actually runs a program called Granite Leaders where we work with people who have experienced homelessness in their lives. So these are people who are interested in learning leadership and advocacy skills in order to help their voices become part of the solution. We just had graduated our 2024 class, and one of the conversations that we had over the course of the five-day program was exactly that — what were the things that you heard from people when you were experiencing homelessness that did not represent your experience? 

They were saying things like, “People thought that we were lazy”’; “People say we must be on drugs”; “People told us we must be crazy”; or, “If you only just got a job, then it should be fine.” 

It’s just not that simple. I’ll also say that there's data that shows, nationally, that there are more people who end up using substances who did not use substances prior to experiencing homelessness. Rather, they became homeless and then ended up using substances as a coping mechanism for the trauma that they experienced while being homeless.I  think that is a really big stigma that we really need to bust. We hear sometimes,, “Oh, they're just all addicts” — that statement just hurts my heart. I think that public education is going to be a really big part of the solution for this to help people understand the truth of the matter, rather than the complexities of it rather than the stereotypes that we might have in our head.

Melanie Plenda:

How does the state tackle homelessness? What are some of the resources out there?

Jennifer Chisholm:

The state has a Bureau of Homeless Services, and they oversee distribution of funding for street outreach programs, emergency shelter programs, supportive housing, rapid re-housing programs. They’re doing a lot. I will say that, having worked in this field for about 20 years, the conversation and attention that this issue is getting and the level of support services has grown exponentially.

Also, the Coalition to End Homelessness in combination with Community Development Finance Authority, are partnering on a resource library for homeless service providers and others to start sharing best practices for working with people experiencing homelessness. This means we can have really good information and data to share about what works. There are limited resources for this, so we want to make sure that what we're doing is effective. 

Melanie Plenda:

Are there any resources that the state provides directly?

Jennifer Chisholm:

Some of the things that the state provides that are extremely important may not fall under that Bureau of Homelessness Services — things such as the Medicaid expansion have been extremely helpful for people getting health care and even case management services from their Medicaid providers. There are also things like food stamps, so people can be food-stable and fuel themselves, and have the energy to connect with all of those resources. 

The Bureau of Homelessness Services also oversees what's called the Balance of State Continuum of Care, which is required by HUD, to come together as the homeless services providers and key stakeholders to collaborate and work in your region to make sure that everybody's working together. There are three in New Hampshire – one in Manchester, one in Nashua, and there's what's called the Balance of State, which is every other municipality in the state. 

Melanie Plenda:

How are charities and other nonprofits a part of the puzzle?

Jennifer Chisholm:

Generally, the funding that the state obtains then gets distributed down through to the nonprofits that then provide the direct services. They are a huge part of not only the direct services, but a part of the solution because they are the people who are in the weeds, seeing what's working, what's not, and what are the true needs. They're able to communicate to those who are figuring out the best solutions to this very complex problem. 

Melanie Plenda:

What can people do to help? What's the best way to move the needle on this?

Jennifer Chisholm:

Programs like this are immensely helpful for people to be able to just hear some of the information that might push against things that they may have heard in the wind and might not be fully true. Ending that stigma and bias against people experiencing homelessness is going to go a long way because we’re hoping to garner more support around some of the changes that are happening in the state.

There are a lot of really great organizations that are sharing information, sharing solutions, so getting connected on social media and hitting that share button when you see a post that you like —  pushing out and sharing any information that you think could be helpful. 

Then there’s tracking what's going on either within the municipality where you live or in the state in general.There were a lot of really interesting bills that came through this year and this legislative session around housing. I will give a shout out to New Futures, an advocacy organization that has really wonderful directions on their website about how you can check into a hearing to say, “yes” or “no” to a bill. When COVID hit, the legislature in New Hampshire was wonderful and figured out a way for people to participate in a way that wouldn't put their health at risk for the pandemic, and they've maintained that. It's super easy and super fast, so I recommend that everybody become familiar with that as well. 

Melanie Plenda:

Jennifer Chisholm, executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness, thank you so much for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

N.H.’s 2024 legislative session: looking back and ahead

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda talks with Anna Brown, director of research and analysis for Citizens Count and host of the podcast, “$100 Plus Mileage” podcast about what State House lawmakers accomplished this year and what’s on the table for next year.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk about the path of a bill and how it becomes a law. 

Anna Brown:

Generally speaking, New Hampshire legislators vote on bills from January to June each year. A bill starts in the House or Senate, gets a public hearing, then a committee votes on a recommendation for the full House or Senate. At that point, the full House or Senate votes. If it passes, it flips to the other chamber and the whole process repeats. 

However, when the House and Senate can't agree on the final version of a bill, it will go to a conference committee, which is essentially a team of legislators from both the House and the Senate who try to hammer out a final compromise. That's where we're at right now and is the very last part of the legislative session. Notably, some of the most complex issues end up there.

Melanie Plenda:

What were some of the new proposals to come before lawmakers this year?

Anna Brown:

We saw an explosion of legislation related to gender — limiting sports in schools based on birth certificate sex at birth; relative to parents' notification around certain curriculum; what material can and can't be in school libraries; and whether parents can have access to their children's library records, which was a complex issue. 

Also an interesting new idea related to immigration. This is a top issue that voters identify when they're talking about national elections, but there is some impact in New Hampshire related to the northern border. There was a bill that was proposed in the Senate, SB 504, that would expand anti-trespassing laws so that police would be able to arrest someone on open land even if it was posted for hunting and hiking and so on. But the House and Senate are still negotiating on this issue. 

Another new topic was artificial intelligence. Several bills have gone through the process and are on their way to Governor Sununu that are looking to criminalize harmful deep fakes — adding fake or AI-generated images of child sexual abuse to current laws regulating  that and regulating AI use by the state. This was really a bipartisan issue that moved forward, and I expect it'll get support from Sununu.

Melanie Plenda:

What did we see in terms of old favorites, and how many of them made their way through the process?

Anna Brown:

Housing is still a huge issue for legislators. This year, the debate shifted more from funding to zoning laws. For example, the House passed HB 1291, which would allow two accessory dwelling units, called ADUs, on basically any single-family property. The House also passed a bill to limit parking requirements for new developments. The Senate mostly rejected those changes, so we aren't really going to be seeing any zoning changes coming down from the state level. 

Also an old favorite is school funding. This debate has continued for multiple decades in New Hampshire, and unfortunately there's not a sign of any resolution coming soon. The House passed bipartisan school-funding bills that would increase the state per-pupil funding a little bit. It would also increase special education funding, which is becoming a big challenge for towns and cities. The Senate pumped the brakes, and we're not sure what's gonna happen with the budget next year. These are big funding bills. There's still the lawsuits that are ongoing around school funding, so they’re not going to move those forward. 

Lastly, the House and Senate haven't agreed on an expansion to the Education Freedom Account program. As a reminder, that is a program that allows students to take the per-pupil share of state school funding and spend it on private and homeschool expenses. So we had a Republican majority in the House and Senate — granted, it was a small majority in the House. Nonetheless, the House voted to expand eligibility much more than the Senate did. The Senate, once again, is really looking to pump the brakes on more spending and is looking at that budget for next year. So we'll see if they can reach a final compromise.

Melanie Plenda:

What would you point to as some of the major accomplishments of the legislature this year?

Anna Brown:

I think it's notable to highlight when you really see some bipartisan movement among legislators. We saw that on several issues in the House of Representatives.

There was a bill that was introduced that would report some mental health records to the federal gun background check system. It was notable because it had Republican and Democratic sponsors and moved forward in a bipartisan way. 

The housing and zoning issue we just talked about was also a bipartisan agreement. You had conservatives coming in and saying, “This is an idea of individual liberty on your property, you should have more freedom to build.” You had Democrats coming in and saying, “This is a crisis and we need the state to take action”

In the House, there was also support from both Republicans and Democrats to limit new landfill development in New Hampshire in different ways. Now, the Senate shut down all of those, but I still want to note them. We hear so much about the partisan disagreements that I think it's important to highlight when people come across the aisle and there really is agreement in those areas. 

Melanie Plenda:

What doesn't look like it will get a vote this year, but we may see next year?

Anna Brown:

I mentioned zoning issues, landfill limitations, school funding — they all got shot down in the Senate, but I fully expect that they're going to be coming back next year. The other issue we haven't talked about yet is related to fentanyl penalties and how the state continues to address the opioid crisis. 

There were bills in the Senate that would increase the penalties for dealing fentanyl, crossing state lines with fentanyl and deaths resulting from overdoses. The House largely rejected this because this stricter law enforcement “drug war” approach has been shown not to be effective. The House focused on harm reduction. 

They passed bills, for example, that would legalize certain drug testing equipment so that a user could see if there is fentanyl in this drug that they are about to consume. Ideally, this would lower the risk of a deadly overdose. The Senate rejected that. So it really seems like the House and Senate were interested in the opioid crisis but couldn't reach agreement on the best approach forward. I think we all know that is still an issue that is really serious in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

So there were also several gun-related bills that came up this term, how did those fare?

Anna Brown:

There were many, many gun-related bills. Proposals for a red flag law, proposals for a waiting period, a proposal for expanded background checks — all of those failed, which is not surprising given the strong Republican majority in the Senate, where many of them were introduced.

There was a bipartisan proposal in the House that would report to the firearm background check system if a person is found not guilty by reason of insanity, not competent to stand trial, or involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. So basically, for one reason or another, they've gone before the court and they're losing some of their liberty — there is a criminal aspect involved. Right now, it's basically a loophole that this is not being reported to the federal background check system, since those people also should not be having firearms under federal law. 

There were concerns about privacy and how it’s done, but this was with bipartisan sponsors and passed with some bipartisan support in the House. So I was really surprised when it hit roadblocks in the Senate. That being said, I would think that there’s a good chance that this will come back next year because it was in response to a very specific incident where a security guard at New Hampshire Hospital was shot and killed by a person who didn’t have some of this information reported to the system and definitely should not have been in possession of firearms.

Melanie Plenda:

Switching gears a little bit. What about some of the quirkier bills like kangaroo adoption and brass knuckles? Can you tell us about those proposals and how did they fare?

Anna Brown:

You missed a few! There was also one about kangaroo farming. There was a bill about seceding from the union if the national debt reaches $40 trillion — that was actually a constitutional amendment. A bill that would allow self defense via autonomous machines — for example, can you get your self-driving car to hit someone who's trying to rob someone else? Then SB 190, for letting underage college students taste wine if they're in a culinary class that's for wine tasting.

None of these bills move forward, to answer your question, but there's always unique ideas in the New Hampshire legislature. Just because it seems a little head scratchy at first, you never know. Some of these are really interesting and unique ideas. So I'm glad you brought that up. There's roughly 1,000 bills a year. Today, we're talking about maybe a dozen, maybe two dozen at most — that’s a tiny percentage of what the legislature talks about.

Melanie Plenda:

Finally, what should people watch for as the session winds down?

Anna Brown:

Any statement from Sununu on these issues or bills — because a negative word from him could take any compromise that we see coming out of the legislature. Legislators might end up just saying it's not worth it, throw it out the window, vote it down, what have you. 

I am also gonna be looking for action from the legislature or Sununu on bills related to voter ID. That's not something we touched on, but they are debating some significant changes that, for example, might require someone to prove citizenship, which you know, goes beyond just showing your driver's license. Some bills would set up almost a live hotline at the polls on Election Day to try to verify people if they show up without ID because we do want to still have same-day voter registration in order to be exempt from some other federal laws. So that's a very complex issue, and it’s not one I’ve heard Sununu weigh in on.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you so much for joining us, Anna Brown, the director of research and analysis for Citizens Count and host of the podcast, “$100 Plus Mileage.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

From landfills to sustainability: How New Hampshire’s food waste ban can reduce methane

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that state residents put more than 180,000 tons of food waste into landfills each year, or about 24% of all waste. As it decays, this waste produces methane gas — a significant contributor to global warming and climate change. Following other states trying to mitigate this problem, New Hampshire passed its own version of a food waste ban last summer. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Michael McCord, a freelance reporter for Granite State News Collaborative who recently has written about the topic,  Paige Wilson, waste reduction and diversion planner for the N.H. Department of Environmental Services, and Reagan Bissonnette, executive director of Northeast Resource Recovery Association, discuss how it will work and how it might benefit the average resident.

Melanie Plenda:

Can you explain more about what food waste is? Why is it a problem? How big of an issue is it here in New Hampshire?

Michael McCord:

The problem of food waste is environmental, ecological and economic. All these factors play into it. When we think about food waste, it's literally every scrap of the food that’s unplated, or uneaten, food. It's also food that is sold but not used and it’s also food that is never sold. It either goes to a pantry or to organizations like that, or it gets dumped into landfills.

That is a problem, because as I discovered in my research for the story, in the landfill, this stuff is unaerated — the air doesn't allow the food waste to break down quickly. It does break down slowly, but as it breaks down it’s creating methane gas, and methane gas is the greatest detriment to fighting climate change, in terms of enhancing climate change. When I interviewed Paige, she called this ”low-hanging fruit.” Getting food waste out of landfills will make a huge difference.

Melanie Plenda:

Why is it important to get rid of food waste, this low-hanging fruit, when it comes to stopping global warming?

Paige Wilson:

The importance of reducing and diverting food waste is that we want to save resources by reducing the amount of time and energy and land that's dedicated to growing our food and getting it from the farm to the grocery store to our plate, and everywhere in between. Then also saving landfill space, because landfills do have limited space, and we want to make sure that we have that disposal capacity for as long as we need it for items that can't be recycled or diverted or composted.

Melanie Plenda:

What solutions are being explored in New Hampshire?

Paige Wilson:

We’re really seeing a lot of interest from people and businesses along the food chain. Farms have actually been collecting food scraps from their CSA [community-supported agriculture] members. So starting with people who are already coming to the farm to get their produce — they’ve shown an interest in supporting local food systems. Tapping into that network to start collecting food scraps and seeing what kind of capacity they might have at their farm to then see, just in their community, who might be interested in diverting their food scraps. Some farms have had so much interest and success that they’ve now been applying for permits and expand their capacity and compost even more.

So at a farm level, we're seeing a lot of activity there as well as schools, camps and universities that are working with haulers all across the state to pick up their food waste from their dining halls. A lot of businesses tend to focus on their pre-consumer food waste —  things that are coming from the kitchen — just as a starting point to see what’s feasible for their capacity, their existing staff.

Melanie Plenda:

How much will developing an infrastructure to keep food waste out of landfills cost? What's involved in that infrastructure?

Paige Wilson:

There are so many factors in trying to calculate cost and what kind of infrastructure is needed throughout the state, but it will probably take millions of dollars for a statewide increase in capacity of infrastructure to manage food donations — helping farms to increase their capacity to accept food waste, both for their own composting operations, but also for feeding their animals. There's also the topic of anaerobic digestion, although we don't have any anaerobic digesters in New Hampshire, we have seen an increase in inquiries from businesses that want to build an anaerobic digester in New Hampshire. 

I think that a lot of this infrastructure will initially develop in more of the central and southern parts of New Hampshire, just because of the amount of people, and that's where a lot of the food waste is being generated. Businesses might see that as an opportunity for an easy supply and demand, where they can comfortably set up shop down there and start tapping into larger areas like hospitals and universities and the larger generators that are in the southern half of the state.

Melanie Plenda:

What is an anaerobic digester?

Reagan Bissonnette:

Composting at a basic level is talking about using oxygen and adding additional materials to turn organic material into a soil nutrient. Anaerobic digestion is where you are essentially breaking down that food waste and other organic material in the absence of oxygen. Often the purpose is to generate a biogas that can then be used to create electricity. So in many cases, we would see them located on a dairy farm, for example, where the food scraps are actually helping improve the gas generation that they then use to create renewable energy.

Melanie Plenda:

What happens next February when the food waste ban goes into effect here in New Hampshire? Will residents notice anything different?

Paige Wilson:

When February rolls around, the ban will focus on the large generators — anybody who's generating a ton or more food waste a week. Those folks will have to divert their food waste from disposal as long as there's a facility within 20 miles that can take that excess food. So that includes food pantries, farms, composting facilities, encouraging more food donation and feeding food scraps to animals. It really is to help build the supply and demand in the market for food waste in New Hampshire. 

The physical development of the infrastructure will probably take some time. Residents won’t notice all these composting facilities popping up around the state on Feb. 2. It's going to take a bit of time for that capacity to build. But we're trying to support that development through grants from the state and also exploring federal grant programs that might be able to help with infrastructure development, on top of outreach and education, and trying to build the physical capacity of managing this food waste.

Melanie Plenda:

Where's the best place to go as a first step to get resources to understand how you might start a program like this or start being involved?

Paige Wilson:

From the permitting aspect, I would say that DES is the go-to agency for questions about regulations and the details of setting up facilities  — setting up facilities, setbacks and requirements to protect the environment. I would say that Reagan and the NRRA are really a great resource for folks to contact. They have just been serving in the public outreach space for so long, and they've been doing a really great job at it.

We do try to lean on like regional planning commissions and other types of nonprofits, like the New Hampshire Farm to School Network. There are really all kinds of organizations that are kind of dabbling in this space as well as municipal committees and businesses as well. There's a whole network of us.

Melanie Plenda:

Reagan, if folks reached out to you what might they expect in terms if they’re looking for a first step on how to get started and where to start?

Reagan Bissonnette:

What we have is based on those two days of workshops that we put together for municipalities on food waste diversion last month. On our website, we have all of the information that we shared from those workshops. It really takes you from the beginning of why food waste matters through how to get started with your community to actually rolling out a food waste diversion program. I’m happy for people to reach out to me, and I can direct them to the resources we have. 

Melanie Plenda:

What do you do with your food waste?

Michael McCord:

I confess, I was not as diligent as I should have been in the past. But now I've seen the way. I ordered a 1.3-gallon canister and started putting food waste in it. It shows that when you take the food waste out along with your recycling, it's amazing how little actual waste ends up in the landfill from your home. Like I said, I have seen the light and I'm moving forward.

Reagan Bissonnette:

One thing I want to emphasize is the importance of reducing the food waste we create in the first place. So at home, the first thing is we really only buy fresh from the grocery store or the farmers market what we expect to use in any given week. Then honestly, we eat leftovers. It’s not exciting, but it's a really important way to reduce the food waste that we generate. 

So from what we do still have we compost. I have two compost bins in my backyard, but it just so happens that they filled up right before winter last year and I didn't get around to entering them and using that material. 

So I tested out a new system this winter, which is that we have a private company that has a drop-off location at a local grocery store parking lot, so we actually keep a five-gallon bucket with a lid outside our back door, and we put food scraps into there. Then about once a week, we haul that over when we go to the grocery store to this parking lot, and we're able to dump our food scraps into a bin, and then they're taken away and composted. That's actually been very convenient as well.

Paige Wilson:

I live in an apartment building so I don't have a composting pile. I have an insulated compost tumbler, called a Jora. It's insulated with foam and can keep pretty warm temperatures in the winter, which is definitely helpful, because in the winter I find that sometimes I have even more food waste. But it has two chambers, so once one side gets full, I can start filling up the second side while the first one kind of sits and matures. 

On top of that, I have a food cycler, and that is essentially a countertop food dehydrator. It breaks down my food in huge volumes, like almost by 80% to 90%. To have that as a nitrogen-rich additive to the Jora tumbler really helps to keep that compost hot because it’s dehydrated food waste, it's not finished compost. So it still has to go through the composting process to go through the nitrification and all of the chemistry to become a finished product. That has been a huge addition and something interesting that I've been able to acquire.

Melanie Plenda:

Michael McCord, freelance reporter for Granite State News Collaborative,  Paige Wilson, waste reduction and diversion planner for the N.H. Department of Environmental Services, and Reagan Bissonnette, executive director of the Northeast Resource Recovery Association, —  thank you all so much for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

Navigating climate challenges: N.H. works to protect scenic Route 1A from flooding

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited lightly for length and clarity. 

Flooding has been a problem along scenic Route 1A for years. Regularly used by visitors from across the state and country, the popular Seacoast thoroughfare is subject to more volatile weather and rising tides due to climate change. Plans are underway to shore up its seawalls and ensure Route 1A’s resiliency. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda discusses these plans with Department of Transportation Commissioner Bill Cass, Assistant Director of Development Tobey Reynolds, and the agency’s Bureau of Environment administrator, Kevin Nyhan.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk about the state of Route 1A. Can you tell us about its problems in recent years?

Bill Cass:

 A lot of Route 1A is protected by a series of stone, shell piles, mortar rubble and masonry walls, between Route 1A and the ocean side. Most of those defenses were built following the blizzard of ’78, so they've been in place for a long time, storm after storm, and over the years they have continued to be impacted. More frequently, we're seeing increasing frequency and intensity of storms. 

So the integrity of the walls, the performance of those walls,  is becoming more and more jeopardized, they're ever more vulnerable to continued deterioration. That is really the concern that we're trying to address. So along with that vulnerability and continued erosion comes more frequent road closures, extended cleanup and things like that as they continue to degrade and not do the job they were originally designed for.

Melanie Plenda:

What role does climate change play in all of this?

Kevin Nyhan:

There's no question that we're experiencing changing environmental conditions on the Seacoast especially. Whether that's high tides or more intense precipitation or even higher frequency of flooding, those things are real, and we're experiencing them. Here at the Bureau of Environment, for every project that we do we undertake a comprehensive and multidisciplinary environmental review of those projects, identifying environmental concerns, evaluating our impacts and looking at alternatives to those impacts. 

I think it’s been in the last several years that sea level rise and the changing environmental conditions have come to the forefront, or certainly things that we evaluate when we're doing those analyses. And understanding how the facilities that we are constructing are compatible with those future conditions is certainly something else that's in the forefront of what we're evaluating. 

To do that, we have a number of tools that we use, whether it's design manuals that reference the most recent rainfall data, and sea level rise scenarios. I think it's fair to say that some of the other tools that we have are working with our partner agencies, the Department of Environmental Services, and the rules that we follow there for environmental issues compel our forward thinking.

Melanie Plenda:

New Hampshire received a $20 million federal grant to make changes to Route 1A. What will those changes entail, and how will this help?

Toby Reynolds:

We're very, very grateful for that award. It's going to help us immensely with this project and moving it forward.

The department's responsible for a number of seawalls along Route 1A, stretching from North Hampton up to Odiorne State Park in Rye. As part of our grant application for the $20 million, we identified nine stone revetment sections that are in need of repair. For the grant, we isolated three of those revetments. We selected those based on past damage  and the frequency of the damage and the number of times that we've had to close 1A as a result, and those three had the highest recurrence times.  All three of those revetments have a total length of about 3,000 feet, so it's pretty significant in the amount of work that we're going to be able to get done with the $20 million.

The reconstruction will entail reconstructing the revetments mostly to the same footprint as they're in today. But, like the commissioner said, the designs that were done in the ‘70s and the amount of damage that the walls have received over time — the maintenance of those walls were just not holding up to the intensity of the storms that we're seeing today. 

The new designs will take into account the intensity of the storms with sea level rise, and the stone size, especially on the ocean side will be sized to withstand that wave action or the intensity of the winds that we're seeing today. What this will do for us is it will greatly reduce the cleanup associated with the seawall, the stone revetments, after the storm. During the storm, we still will expect to see splash over the walls, we will still expect to see the east side or the marsh side continue to rise in flood portions during storms. But once the storm is over, once the high tide recedes, we would expect the flooding to dissipate more rapidly. We would expect very minimal cleanup from these reconstructed stone revetment walls, and therefore the closures would be much less and our cleanup effort would be much less as well.

Melanie Plenda:

What will the construction and timeline look like for this project? 

Toby Reynolds:

We would like to do it as soon as possible, but there are a number of steps that we have to go through to get projects like this underway. Our current schedule puts the start of construction around early spring of 2027. The reason for this is mostly related to the process of contracting with experts that do this design work. Also, completing the design, permitting and also making sure we have the time to do public outreach.

Once construction starts, we anticipate the heaviest of the construction is going to be in the off-peak times — try to work outside of June, July and August. But there is a lot of work here to do. It's going to take time to do it, so we're also looking for opportunities when we can complete work during those summer months, but also reducing the impact to the motorists because we know that that time of year is when most people like to drive up and down and enjoy the coast. 

Melanie Plenda:

What impact will this project have on state and tourism in the region? 

Bill Cass:

It should have a very positive impact. Right now, when we have these big storms and damage to the walls it impacts traffic on Route 1A. Route 1A is a primary north-south area servicing the beaches and coastal communities. It's important to the tourist activity, it's important to the local businesses, and it's important to emergency response through there. So when we have these more frequent storms that take longer to recover from it definitely affects all of those elements. 

These projects will make these revetments more stable, more resilient, so that when there is this splashover, when there are storms, they won't have damaged the road and we won't have the extended recovery times that impacts tourism, traffic access to the communities and emergency responses.

Melanie Plenda:

How flexible is this plan? Will it address future environmental issues?

Kevin Nyhan:

I would say it does. Working with our partners, we all recognize that the things we do today need to survive and be effective into the future. So when we look at the projects that we're building, we’re looking at what the impacts are on the ground today and how we can mitigate those and how we can minimize them. But certainly now, and on the Seacoast especially, we’re having to make the point that even though we have a little bit more impact today it's for the benefit of the future. 

Melanie Plenda:

Are there other areas of concern on the Seacoast, and is the state looking at any similar projects on the Seacoast or other areas of the state?

Kevin Nyhan:

Regardless of where our project is, we're doing the same type of environmental review. We're looking at wetlands and water quality, endangered species and things of that nature. Certainly on the Seacoast, we've had sea level rise and tidal influence. We’re not going to experience that on the western side of the state, but precipitation, management of water quality, minimizing impacts on endangered species and being sensitive to our cultural sites are things that we do for all projects. The analysis is pretty similar, regardless of where we are.

Melanie Plenda:

Good luck. Department of Transportation Commissioner Bill Cass, Assistant Director of Development Tobey Reynolds and Bureau of Environment Administrator Kevin Nyhan — thank you all so much for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

COVID-19, RSV, and the Flu: What You Need to Know About the Triple Threat of Respiratory Viruses This Winter

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity. 

Where do things stand with COVID-19? What other viruses do we have to worry about? On this episode of The State We’re In, Melanie Plenda talks with infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Calderwood, the Chief Quality Officer at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center about what we need to know about COVID-19, flu, and RSV or Respiratory Syncytial Virus.

Melanie Plenda:

So, where do things stand with COVID-19? Are we seeing the usual false spike or something different going on?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

We have begun to see an increase in COVID 19 cases in August and going into early September. We were seeing that as we looked at numbers of hospitalizations around the country, as well as the test positivity rate. And that's the percentage of people who perform a test and it comes back saying that they have COVID 19 infection. Over the past two weeks, we actually have begun to see those hospitalization numbers go down, the test positivity rate go down and so those are encouraging trends. If we look at comparison to prior years, what you can see is that we were no higher this year than we were a year ago in September. So some of this was an expected upswing, but clearly different from the lows we had seen in June and July of this summer.

Melanie Plenda:

And is there a particular variant of concern his year?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So there are a large number of variants and people will read about these in the news, they all fall within the omicron lineage of SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID 19 as the illness. And what's important to recognize is that well, you can go and see that there may be 20 different variants that are circulating at this time, well over 90% are actually covered and protected by the current vaccines.

Melanie Plenda:

You mentioned hospitalizations. How do things look here in New Hampshire? And how does that compare to the rest of the country?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So currently, as of today, there are 30 patients in New Hampshire who are undergoing active treatment for COVID 19. This is well below where we were at our peaks in prior years. And we are seeing that that has stabilized. The other thing to recognize is that most of the people that are coming in, thankfully don't have severe illness requiring ICU level of care. So most of the COVID that we are seeing this year is out in the community, not requiring hospitalization. And for those who are hospitalized, much less severe illness than we've seen in the past.

Melanie Plenda:

So let's talk about vaccines. What can you tell us about the ones for all three viruses and how effective they are?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So we now have a new COVID 19 vaccine. It's formulated for the 2023/2024 respiratory virus season. And this really is becoming an annual vaccine. The idea is that we look at what is circulating in the community, we formulate a targeted vaccine that covers the majority of the viruses that are out there. You get that in the fall. And it has about six months of protection before it wanes, and the protection for severe illness and hospitalization probably lasts a little bit beyond that. But the protection against just getting sick in these winter months, is really about six months in duration. And so right now, the three vaccines that have been approved, we had two mRNA vaccines, the Pfizer and the Moderna, we just had a third of the NovaVax vaccine that was approved. And these are available and really recommended for everyone, those six months and older. So there is data for children and for adults. And it is for the most part, a single vaccination, whether you have been vaccinated before or not, we're no longer talking about this idea of a primary series new booster, but like the flu shot, you come in, get your shot, and that protects you for the respiratory virus season. It has effectiveness that is higher than we see for the flu vaccine in most years. 

So it is a very effective vaccine. It is showing a significant boost in immunity as I mentioned earlier against over 90% of the circulating variants. And we even have data that was presented to the FDA and the CDC, that is showing protection, above 10 fold higher protection for some of the variants that had raised concern that they might be resistant to novel vaccines. And so that's very encouraging. And so we recommend that folks, as soon as possible, come out and get the COVID vaccine, it will protect them through these peak months. Again, that is going to be December, January and February. You can get the flu vaccine at the same time, you can actually get a COVID vaccine in one arm and the flu vaccine in the other arm. The flu vaccine is targeted at the most common circulating forms of flu that we know from international data. They are adopted and changed annually to make sure that we are targeting what is in the community. And again, similarly an annual vaccine recommended for all gives you kind of six months of protection. About six to nine months is the thought for the flu vaccine. And that's important because there is some flu B that goes later into the spring. And we want to make sure that we're covering that as well.

Melanie Plenda:

What sorts of precautions should be taken? When is it a good idea to stay home or wear a mask for the protection of others?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So we've learned a lot about this over the past four years. And there really is an importance of staying home when you're sick, wearing a mask when you need to be around others that have a respiratory illness, and masks do provide a good level of protection. Now, the other thing is, we recommend testing. And there is availability to test for things like COVID and that's important. A lot of people are doing that, that home based testing. But really the most important thing is if you don't feel well, stay home, don't put others at risk. Make sure you're taking care of yourself, get rest, stay hydrated. And when you're feeling better, you can return to school, return to work, wear a mask if you need to, if you still continue to have things like a runny nose, and that's important to protect others who may be around you.

Melanie Plenda:

And you just mentioned that those are the same rules for kids. So when should parents keep them home from school?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So the same sorts of things. And so this idea that when children are sick, they need time to recuperate, and they are not going to be at their best In the school environment, if they are suffering from a viral illness, and in fact, they will be slower to recover from the viral illness. And so allowing children the ability to stay home and recover, before going back to school is best to reduce the transmission. But it's also best for their recovery, and the schoolwork that they need to do when they get back into the school.

Melanie Plenda:

And this week of school in Lawrence, Massachusetts went remote due to the number of COVID 19 cases there. Could that happen in New Hampshire this year, do you think?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So we've learned a lot through the pandemic. And this is really one thing that I think it's important for us to understand that there were some adverse impacts of decisions that we made early on. And thankfully, in New Hampshire, we had many schools that got children back into class in person, much quicker than you saw elsewhere in the country. That speaks to the fact that we didn't see some of the impacts that places like New York City saw, and they had to make different decisions. But we've learned that there were things that suffered, mental health suffered during this time, we saw a decrease in language and math scores. And we saw that social interactions changed. And so there is a lot of push and advocacy from our pediatricians, from our teachers to really not go back to a period where we shut down schools and send people to remote learning, we might see a period where people go back to wearing masks, and that might be a way to mitigate some of the risks. But again, I do not advocate shutting down schools entirely, going back to a hybrid environment or a remote environment. And it's just because we've learned about some of the adverse impacts. And the other thing is inequity. One, not everyone had the same access to technology. And so we saw those impacts differently in different groups based on ‘Did they have a computer? Did they have internet?’. And that's not true across the entirety of northern New England, we need to make sure we're meeting the needs of everyone, all the students in our communities,

Melanie Plenda:

There was some reporting recently in the national news that it looks like there was a shortage of amoxicillin headed into this sickness season. And so is that something that we're seeing here that you've seen? And do you have any sense of why that might be happening if you are?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So we actually, this predates the pandemic. We've had shortages of a number of medicines or antibiotics included for many years, this is actually something that we track very closely, we make sure that we are keeping an adequate supply on hand. You will see that certain local pharmacies get caught unaware when the shortages occur. A lot of this is related to things that may be generic that have a single manufacturer, and it may be that the plant has some issues with production. And so if they go offline, we no longer have access to that antibiotic. Today, we're talking about respiratory viruses and those that are not treated by antibiotics. And so that's important to mention, we do not recommend that people come to look for amoxicillin or azithromycin or some of the other common antibiotics when they have a viral illness. But if you had something like a bacterial pneumonia, and needed an antibiotic, we do continue to have plenty of antibiotics, if there was a shortage, we have alternatives that we can use.

Melanie Plenda:

Do you anticipate these shortages, such as they are, will continue? Or is there an end in sight to that?

Dr. Michael Calderwood:

So one big impact of the pandemic that we continue to grapple with is around our supply chain. And when we think about interruptions in the supply chain, these are at a global level. And so understanding how we are building the infrastructure, some of the local production of some of these critical needs in the healthcare sector, that's going to be a long term strategy that the supply chain has impacted all areas in medicine and health care. And this is something we continue to struggle with on a daily basis.

Melanie Plenda:

Infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Calderwood, the Chief Quality Officer at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, thank you so much for joining us today.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.

Tackling the rising rates of mental health issues among young people

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

National studies show adolescents are experiencing loneliness, isolation and feelings of sadness at greater levels than past generations. While already on the rise before COVID-19 hit, the pandemic has increased the rising speed. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Rosemary Ford talks with Dr. Nate Jones, school psychology consultant at Southeastern Regional Educational Service Center, John T. Broderick, former chief justice of the N.H. Supreme Court and senior director of external affairs for Dartmouth Health, and Gabrielle McNulty, school-based behavioral health counselor for Amoskeag Community Health, about what could be driving the crisis and what can be done to help. 

Rosemary Ford:

What's going on with the youth? Are parents applying too much pressure? Are they too overextended?

Dr. Nate Jones:

We're definitely seeing a lot of schoolkids are very much struggling. Yes, it peaked during COVID, but COVID did not cause this. I think it's always important to remember that kids have struggled for generations. This isn't a brand new thing that has never happened before. It's more a matter of degree. Kids are definitely having a hard time, and schools are certainly struggling to figure out how to support them.

They struggle in how to make sure kids still learn to read, write and do math, and yet also can grow into adults who are able to organically go to college, join the military — do the things that we want them to do upon graduation. We're seeing a lot of struggle with this in school, a lot of angst about it. But I think we're also seeing a lot of educators really leaning in and really wanting to support students. 

I think maybe a point that I would just start with is that a lot of students don't get the downtime needed. They're either in school, in sports and clubs, they're engaged in activity, or they're on social media, or they're gaming with people online, which is interactive these days, and they don't have time to stop. Then they're staying up too late and have to get up ready for school, so you definitely get very much a hamster wheel feel from a lot of students that we're talking to. They're not quite sure how to get off of it and which parts of it they should try to step back from.

Rosemary Ford:

Who do you think is responsible for fixing this culture that seems to be affecting the mental health of our youth. is it parents? Is it schools? Is it colleges? What else can we do?

Dr. Nate Jones:

Whenever we're working with kids, it's always that there's never one thing going on for them. Consequently, it can’t be only one person, one group, one field that can provide the fix. It takes a village, it has and always will. The fix is every day — it's doing the good work, the parenting, the teaching, and whatever — but doing it well every day. 

John T. Broderick:

Parents love their children but we are very concerned, I think, as a society, about our children's safety. We're building a lot of fences around childhood. Childhood used to have a lot of days that weren't filled with activities, but you had to create them. That just kind of faded away. I would like parents to let children evolve, support and encourage them, obviously, but don't micromanage every move. Don't go to every sporting event they participate in, every practice they ever attend. 

These kids are not as emotionally secure. Half of all young people today, according to surveys, describe themselves as lonely. Half of them say they do not have a trusted adult in their life. Take those two stats and weigh them against the opportunity to have a successful and emotionally structured childhood. Those are the discussions we need to have as communities. A lot of what I'm saying is that we can fix it, if we choose to.

Gabby McNulty:

It takes a village. Everybody needs to be on the same page, everyone's expectations need to align.

When I'm sitting in school meetings, and you have every member of the team together, sometimes there's that disconnect, and there's not that buy-in. What people don't always understand is that when your child is participating in therapy, a lot of the time the parent needs to be in the room as well. You're the parent, the one that's reinforcing those positive behaviors, or not reinforcing the negative ones. So there needs to be that buy-in. If there's no trust, either on the parental end or even on the child's end, there's not really much that can be done. That trust is a really important piece. I do think it can be fixed. 

Rosemary Ford:

What impact do you think that world events are having on kids in their mental health?

Dr. Nate Jones:

Our kids are struggling with things in ways that we didn't have to. I remember in sixth grade, watching the Challenger explosion at school, — that was one of the first times I’d really seen a national news event occurring live. Otherwise, it was just the guys on TV at 6 o'clock at night. It’s different now — now we have instant news, and that brings it to us in a whole new way. So I think that part of it to me is that our kids are facing an onslaught of news about the world that we never had to. 

Gabby McNulty:

I am definitely seeing more of an indirect result. I'm seeing a very high increase in depression-related symptoms — a lot of people are unaware of that. With younger kiddos, especially a lot of times in boys, aggression is a sign of depression. I'm definitely seeing a lot more anxiety. This year alone, I've been seeing a high rate of suicidal statements. A lot of the times the kids, there’s no intent to it, but kids have such big feelings, and they aren't able to express them. Either they've heard somebody else say it, or it just kind of comes out. But when you're kind of evaluating them for safety they're like, “I didn’t mean it, I'm just really mad.” So it's trying to teach some other ways to be able to express those same feelings. So definitely we’re seeing a higher rate of set depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and suicidal statements, which is scary in any population, but especially when it’s starting as young as kindergarten or first grade, it makes it a little fearful of what’s to come.

Rosemary Ford:

What do you think are some of the ways that we can address these issues and work toward fixing them?

John T. Broderick:

I think a lot of it is in our control. Kids have a lot of triggers - obviously adverse childhood experiences, trauma, genetics. But the thing I've seen most often comes from a world that's running at 100 miles an hour, that's becoming more distant one from the other. Kids are less comfortable in the eyeball-to-eyeball zone, where social-emotional growth happens. I would say to parents, “Let's take our foot off the gas. Let’s put the technology away for a few designated hours a night. Let’s have some family time. Let's not make our children overscheduled by being in 15 sports with five travel games a week. I think that we need to exhale, see the child in front of us — not the child we hope is in front of us. Not every kid develops at the same rate and not every kid’s’ gonna make the National Honor Society, and that’s OK.

Rosemary Ford:

What strategies do you recommend to parents and caregivers? What tools do you think are available to fix some of the things that we're seeing?

Gabby McNulty:

One of the most important things is starting that conversation about mental health and emotions and feelings when kiddos are really young. Starting with those basic emotions — happy, sad, mad, etc. The other thing is reducing that stigma when it comes to emotions and expressing your feelings in general. I think in some cases we are labeling emotions like anger, depression or nervousness as a negative emotion. We're human beings, all emotions are valid. We need to kind of teach our kiddos to feel their feelings. 

Rosemary Ford:

Dr. Nate Jones, school psychology consultant at Southeastern Regional Educational Service Center, John T. Broderick, former chief justice of the N.H. Supreme Court and senior director of external affairs for Dartmouth Health, and Gabrielle McNulty, school-based behavioral health counselor for Amoskeag Community Health — thank you so much for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org. 

Multiple Solar Eclipses Coming Up: What is a Solar Eclipse, How to Safely Observe and Where

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

Even with the advancement of science, space has always been a fascination for many humans and this fall and spring residents of New Hampshire will get an opportunity to experience two solar eclipses. On this episode of The State We’re In, Associate Professors from University of New Hampshire , Amy Keesee and John S. Gianforte, also the director of the UNH Observatory, and Lori Harnois, Director of Division of Travel and Tourism Development discuss two important events coming up: a partial solar eclipse in October and a total solar eclipse in April. 

Melanie Plenda:

So John, let's start with you. Can you tell us a bit about what a solar eclipse is, and what happens?

John S. Gianforte:

Well a solar eclipse takes place, when the Moon comes between the Earth and the Sun, the Moon orbits the Earth about once a month, and the Earth goes around the Sun once a year. And every so often, we have an alignment that puts the Moon, the Sun and the Earth in the same plane, and the Moon casts a shadow on the Earth, if you happen to be within that shadow, actually cast to shadow so enter shadow and an outer shadow. If you happen to be in either one of them, you'll see a solar eclipse, and that's when the Moon blocks out at least a part of the Sun and blocks it from our view. And it's a really splendid site to watch if you do it safely.

Melanie Plenda:

And Amy, what makes these two eclipses one in October and one in April different?

Amy Keesee:

So the path of any Eclipse is different depending on where the shadow hits Earth. And so the path of the two eclipses is going to be different. And that's part of why we're going to observe something different. For each of the two in October, the path goes more across the western part of the United States. So in New Hampshire, we're only going to be able to observe a partial eclipse. Also, if you happen to be in the path of the October Eclipse, where there's the most coverage, it's not going to be a complete coverage of the Sun, it is going to be what's called an annular eclipse. And that means you'll still see a ring of sunlight around the Moon itself. Now in April, that's going to be a total solar eclipse. And that means that if you're in the path of totality, the Moon is going to completely block out all of the light from the Sun for a portion of it. Now you have to be in the path of totality. So that's where John was talking about the two different shadows, you have to be in the central portion of the shadow to be in the path of totality. And that's going across the northern part of New Hampshire. But all of New Hampshire is going to see a partial solar eclipse, so part of the Sun will be blocked, and you'll see sort of a crescent shape that covers it up. But we're going to see a lot more coverage in April for the partial part than you will in October for the partial part.

Melanie Plenda:

And John, what's the best way as you were mentioning to safely view these eclipses?

John S. Gianforte:

Well the two best ways to view a solar eclipse and to view the Sun at anytime doesn't have to be during an eclipse is using a projection method. A pinhole projector is probably the safest way, the easiest way. And if you are interested in doing that, all you do is take a piece of cardboard and cut a square hole in it. Cover that square hole with tin foil, pick a pinhole in that aluminum foil and then get a great big piece of poster board and on the day of the eclipse or any sunny day. Point the piece of cardboard with the pinhole and the aluminum foil up at the Sun and put the poster board behind the piece of cardboard with the pinhole in the aluminum foil and move it back and forth. And you'll see a round image of the Sun. The day of the eclipse is on October 14th which is a Saturday. A little after noon, you will see a little piece, a little nibble taken out of the Sun and won't be a complete circle. Another method that works very effectively and is very safe is to use solar eclipse glasses. And this is a great way to view the Sun anytime and especially during any partial phases of the eclipse, all through the October Eclipse. And for most of April 8 2024 Eclipse, we will be having to wear these eclipse glasses using the projection method to safely view the Sun. The only time you can observe the eclipse is if you are in the path of totality, or the Moon completely blocks the Sun. And it's only going to be for a few minutes, depending on where in the state you are, the closer to the eclipse path you are, the longer it will be totally obscured by the Moon. But that's the only time during a solar eclipse, when you can directly look at the Sun without the glasses. That's because the Moon is completely covering the disk of the Sun. And it's safe to look. But as soon as a little, little, little sprinkle of sunlight filters through the valleys and mountains on the Moon, after the eclipse is over, those glasses have to come right back on.

Melanie Plenda:

And just in case that folks at home are not yet convinced to use one of these two methods. John, what happens if you don't use these methods? Why is this necessary?

John S. Gianforte:

Well, that's a really, really good question to cover. And if you don't, the problem is it's not any more dangerous to look at the Sun during an eclipse, except you know, the eclipse is going on. So it makes you want to look. And if your eyes are unprotected, and you look at the Sun, anytime you can cause irreparable damage to the retina, the light sensitive part of your eye way at the back of your eye. It doesn't sense any pain or no pain receptors in the retina. And so you'll be burning a hole in your retina, literally, if you're looking at the Sun, without even knowing you're causing any damage. And the longer you look, the greater the damage will be. And it could very well leave you lined with really permanently visually impaired. So it's really of the utmost importance to project the image of the Sun during the partial phases. Or were the solar glasses during the partial phases.

Melanie Plenda:

So this question is for the three of you. What do you think drives our interest in eclipses? And why do you think so many people from so many walks of life find them fascinating. Let's start with Amy, then to John and Lori.

Amy Keesee:

So I think solar eclipses are a way to experience something awesome, something in science that has no barriers you're just walking around, you just need some very simple equipment to be able to observe them. And we're always fascinated by things going on in the sky, just because we experience the sky all the time. And so having something different and spectacular is very interesting to everybody. 

Melanie Plenda:

And John, what do you think?

John S. Gianforte:

Well, it's one of the few events that I can clearly say that is truly awesome. Once you see a total solar eclipse, you'll be looking online for when the next one in your area will be and they are just an awe inspiring act of nature that you can actually witness and observe without any optical aid at least the total the total part of the of the eclipse, like I mentioned, during the partial phases, you have to use the glasses or you have to project the image of the Sun. But it is absolutely an awe inspiring event for the amount of time that the Sun is completely covered by the Moon. It's just something that is completely out of our experience. And just beautiful. You will see the most beautiful shades of pink with some of these explosions of superheated plasma that you can see poking out from the black New Moon. And it's just you'll be able to see the atmosphere of the Sun called the corona. It's kind of a kind of a white light. That's coming out in many different directions from the Sun, not bright enough to hurt your eyes, but truly a spectacular sight in the daytime sky. 

Melanie Plenda:

Lori?

Lori Harnois:

Yeah, I agree with Amy and John, I think it's just a natural phenomenon that only 13 states in the United States will experience totality. And New Hampshire is one of those lucky states. And I think people want to come and see that. And from what I understand, it's when totality is happening, that you can hear noises that you typically would hear at night from the animals. So I'm really excited to, to experience it this coming spring, where

Melanie Plenda:

And John and Amy, what are you and your students planning to do around the eclipses? Let's start with John and then to Amy.

John S. Gianforte:

Well, with such a large student population and staff and faculty, we'll be having some sites on campus to view the clips from, we'll probably have telescopes equipped with solar filters, as well as some solar eclipse glasses that we've actually had one of our students designed the artwork for, and will be passing some of those out on campus. So that will be something that we're going to be doing right here in Durham, probably on the main campus where we can reach a lot of people during the eclipse, which is late in the afternoon on the 24th of April, which is a Monday. 

Melanie Plenda:

And Amy.

Amy Keesee:

Yeah, so we're also working to prepare educators across the state to work with their students in sort of the K through 12, but also informal educators, we've built a website, it's extension.unh.edu/eclipse, where we're going to have lots of resources and videos about how to prepare for the Eclipse. And we have funding from the NASA Space Grant, where we've bought some more eclipses, the ones that John was referring to get a student design, and we're going to be offering those to educators across the state so that they can plan events in their communities to observe the eclipse. We're also going to plan an open house on the UNH campus within the Physics and Astronomy Department and the Space Science Center. So probably about a week before the Eclipse people can come in, learn about the Eclipse and learn about all the awesome Sun and space related research that we do.

Melanie Plenda:

Wow, what an exciting experience that you're talking about. University of New Hampshire professors John S. Gianforte, Amy Keesee, and Lori Harnois, thank you all so much for joining us. 

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Respectful Conversations on Sensitive Topics: How Can We Work Together to Disagree Without Resorting to Aggression

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

On this episode of The State We’re In, Melanie Plenda talks with University of New Hampshire grad students, Shantel Palacio, and Nathan Harris, founders of Beyond the Border, a critical dialogue series, and James Rinker, Digital Community Engagement Journalist for The Keene Sentinel, and part of the current cohort of the solutions journalism networks Complicating the Narrative Fellowship, to find out what it takes to have a respectful conversation on a sensitive topic without resorting to shouting and personal attacks.

Melanie Plenda:

So let's start with a question for the three of you. Can you tell viewers a little bit about your projects and what you hope to accomplish with them? Let's start with Shantel. And then to Nathan and James.

Shantel Palacio:

Thank you. So our project is called Beyond the Border, a critical dialogue series, and the goal is essentially to have a New Hampshire based expert engage with their counterparts from beyond the border in a conversation about sometimes controversial topics.

Melanie Plenda:

And Nathan, what would you like to add to that?

Nathan Harris:

I think that says it all. Getting them to engage is the fun part, and then watching it all unfold as it happens.

Melanie Plenda:

James Rinker.

And James, how about you?

James Rinker:

So for the next year, I'll be reporting on the lack of resources for gender affirming health care in the state of New Hampshire, which is a state that is already struggling overall, in access to rural health care. The goal is identify possible solutions, and bring more resources to the state while also highlighting the resources that are actually here. At the core of the work that I do with the Sentinel is to help establish trust and transparency in the local news organizations such as the Sentinel, and this fellowship, I'm doing that in terms of debunking misinformation around this recently very polarized and politicized topic, and encouraging others to listen to each other more rather than closing off and that sense of judgment and indignation.

Melanie Plenda:

Absolutely. And so this is also for the three of you, why has it gotten so hard to talk to each other? Does it seem like a skill we need to learn or relearn, especially after the pandemic?

Shantel Palacio:

Yeah, definitely, I think before the pandemic. Some of these topics were difficult to talk about. But during the pandemic, I think we lost our ability or connection to each other. And then there was the racial reckoning that happened. And then it created, I think, more anxiety, particularly, in my experience, racial anxiety, where we want to connect with each other, but we're afraid to say something wrong, or we're afraid of dealing with, you know, kind of microaggressions. 

Melanie Plenda:

And Nathan, anything you want to add to that?

Nathan Harris:

Yeah, I think social media has helped with that a little bit. People can isolate and just send barbs out, not communicate. When you watch teenagers or adults basically have a whole hour conversation, just using their phone, and not ever engaging. We're just not doing what we used to do. So now when you throw a difficult topic matter into the mix, it makes it a little even harder.

Melanie Plenda:

And James, what do you think?

James Rinker:

Yeah, in terms of my work I view it as not the fact that we have gotten harder to talk to each other rather, we've been talking more at each other. Humans really need to be heard before they will listen. And so we don't do nearly enough since the pandemic of listening to each other, especially with these really difficult conversations. And as a result, there's a lot of conflict. That's I mean from that, and not a lot of understanding, well, where are we coming from in these views? Where are we coming from these conversations to begin with the root of why do we resort to these very different sides and immediately close each other off?

Melanie Plenda:

So how do you get past that? And this will be a question for all three of you. How do you get past that in these conversations where it sounds like the goal is not to get everyone to agree, but how do you get people to at least hear each other enough to understand where the other is coming from?

James Rinker:

Yeah, definitely. And so, for me, it's really getting under the surface of their way of thinking. It would be kind of bad if we all agreed on the same thing, all the time. And as humans were meant to have that conflict and different opinions and different interests. When it comes to these conversations, I'm learning more, where these viewpoints are coming from and asking questions like, How has this conflict affected your life? What is oversimplified about this thing that you feel really strongly about? And most importantly, what are the questions they feel that nobody is asking? When it comes to your views when it comes to this topic that you feel really strongly about? And working to also get to the root of, is it because they've been misinformed? Is it because they actually are spreading misinformation and disinformation about this topic? So in my realm, in health care, in gender affirming health care? Is this actual factual information? Or is this actually ‘Oh, this is an experience, this is something that they have lived through that they have heard about’, and learning more from that.

Melanie Plenda:

Interesting and Shantel and Nathan, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Shantel Palacio:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that we just need to have spaces to be able to engage and ask questions, and even make mistakes. The university setting is an academic institution, it's the perfect place to be able to ask questions. So I think folks really need that place to kind of explore and engage in conversations that they've never had before.

Melanie Plenda:

For the three of you. Both projects are focused on sensitive conversations. So what does it mean to you to complicate the narrative or have a critical dialogue? Let's start with James and then to Nathan and Shantel.

James Rinker:

So in terms of my fellowship, specifically, it's rooted in conflict mediation techniques, though complicating the narrative idea came from a scholar, Amanda Ripley, she wrote an essay, and then I now have her book. And it really just talks about this looping framework. So hearing what people are saying to us during the active listening work. And from there kind of looping that back to them of if I'm hearing you correctly, you're this is what you're thinking, this is what you're saying. And really making sure that those active listening skills and putting those into practice and making sure that people know that they're being heard in these conversations, and when it comes to complicating the narrative as well, it's that mediation, making sure that when we're complicating the narrative, we're meaning that we're learning about these different ideas and how they can coexist in this space, and these different viewpoints, and not making this an unsafe space. And making sure that people understand that there's a lot of nuance in any kind of topic that has some people view it as one side versus the other. In my work is just how are all the layers interacting with one another in this topic of conversation?

Melanie Plenda:

Nathan, what is that critical dialogue? What does that mean to you?

Nathan Harris:

Well, we start with trying to with the complication of the narrative and the critical dialogue, we start with a title that we think captures something that they think about. But maybe it might be something different, but it has some complications to it. Like diversity is a dirty word, which is one of the first ones that we did. Because we knew that that word diversity was a trigger word for some people, and it had different narratives around it. So it was complicated. So we start with that narrative. And then we create the space in the tone that James was talking about, that Shantel mentioned. And then we try to get that narrative to flow. And we're looking for those pieces that give us the opposite in the same

Melanie Plenda:

What do you hope attendees take away from this experience? Let's start with James and then to Shantel and Nathan.

James Rinker:

Yeah, so for me in terms of my work, I really just hope that people come from this with just a little bit more information. I am moderating these conversations and I've done a lot of research myself, and these will be co facilitated with other journalists and community leaders throughout the state, and in that route in those communities. We're really hoping that people come from these, just knowing that they sat and listened, that they heard from people in their community that had this different viewpoint and that they felt it was okay, to make mistakes to fumble, because this is an issue that in gender for me healthcare now in the United States, and talking about the topic is met with a lot of just closed off judgment. People are too scared to talk about it in a way that we can come together and just find, where are you coming from from this. And so I really hope people come from my work, and specifically my conversations, whether it's reading the stories or listening to each other in these spaces, to just remember where other people are coming from, and to know that it's okay to have these conversations in their own communities outside of these structured spaces, that they can take this kind of work anywhere.

Shantel Palacio.

Melanie Plenda:

Absolutely, and Shantel.

Shantel Palacio:

So we have these conversations around the dinner table with our dean. And we talk about politics, and education, and policy, and all of these things that we're going to cover in CDS. And we want everyone in the room to feel that way. Like they're sitting around a dinner table. And they're talking about these crazy topics, respectfully, and if they hear something new, great. And if you hear something all in a different way, great too.

Nathan Harris:

Every time I go to one of these, I learn something. So I always do have an objective, I would like for the group or people in the group to walk away with one thing that they didn't know, that either surprised them, or it updated their information or something they thought they knew. And typically, in all the ones that we've done, there's always been at least one or two things. So there may be more, but if they walk away with one thing, I personally feel like it was very successful.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, these are great projects and best of luck to all of you on your endeavors, UNH grad students Shantel Palacio and Nathan Harris founders of Beyond the Border, a Critical Dialogue Series, and James Rinker, Digital Community Engagement Journalist for The Keene Sentinel and part of the current cohort of the solutions journalism networks Complicating the Narrative Fellowship. Thank you all so much for joining us today.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Navigating Inflation: Strategies for Average Worker's Salary to Sustain Economic Relief Amidst Growing Pressures

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

The rise of inflation has had a major effect on people especially those whose salary hasn’t caught up. On this episode of The State We’re In, Melanie Plenda talks with Phil Sletten, Research Director for New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute to discuss the economy, inflation, and what relief the average person might find to pay their bills.

Melanie Plenda:

So can you give us a brief overview of what's going on with the economy right now? Are we in a recession? Are we headed into one? Or is the economy good? I read headlines every day with contradictory information. So what's going on?

Phil Sletten:

Yeah, and it's understandable, because there's a lot going on. And sometimes there are trends that have counter trends from other sets of data. Fundamentally, the national economy is in quite good shape. The economy was running relatively hot, as in, the economic growth was quite fast, particularly coming out of the COVID 19 pandemic. And that economic growth has slowed some in 2022, on average, and has not leapt back up to high levels that we saw, for example, in 2021. And that's true in New Hampshire as well speaking generally, the economic growth that we've seen has been actually relatively robust. The job growth nationwide has been strong. And inflation, which was quite high in 2022, has been coming down and has come down for 12 of the last 13 months. Only in the last month did we see year over year inflation be a little bit higher than the year before. So the national economy is not in a recession. 

Indeed, the forecasts that we saw even as early as, as recently as January of this year, that suggested there would be a recession at some point this year appear to have generally changed to show that there's less likely to be a recession, the Congressional Budget Office doesn't have one in their two year forecast, for example, although they do have the economy slowing. In New Hampshire, we haven't seen a strong job growth year over year. And part of that is because of our labor force constraint. It's not because there's a lack of demand in the economy for goods and services. It's because there are not as many people in the labor force. So the labor force is only slightly grown relative to last year thus far in 2023. And it's difficult for employers to find employees to fill positions.

Melanie Plenda:

And just to follow up on that real quick, do we know why that is?

Phil Sletten:

That's a great question. So, I do want to be clear that the number of jobs that employers say they have filled is actually higher than it was in 2022. But the number of people in New Hampshire who say they're employed, is actually a little bit lower than it was or about the same as it was this far and average this year.So that suggests that maybe more people are staying in the state to work as opposed to commuting out of state, more people may be taking part time jobs. So to for example, in response to rising costs, and the major constraints that we see on the growth and labor force, are really rooted in housing and childcare constraints, the lack of accessible and affordable housing, and the lack of accessible and affordable childcare means that there are people who otherwise would have moved into the state who haven't been able to find a place to live in the state or who would have moved around the state for work who haven't been able to find an affordable place to live. And for people who are already in the state, but need to have some access to childcare and need to care for a child or children. They have not been able to find childcare that's affordable in a way that makes sense for them to engage in the labor force as fully whether that means they're working part time instead of full time, or because they are not working at all to care for a child at home. That is something that there are some numbers that suggest that's a pretty significant labor force constraint in the state as well.

Melanie Plenda:

And so let's get back to inflation for a bit. So what is inflation and where does it come into play? Why has inflation risen so sharply in the last year? What's causing it?

Phil Sletten:

Yeah, that's a great question. So inflation, when economists are talking about inflation, generally it's referring to an overall increase in prices. So the price of a particular item or a particular service might go up or down but be independent of how other prices move. Inflation is referring to all prices, or at least the price overall of the collection of things that most of us purchase. When we are behaving in the economy, when we're buying goods and services, the prices overall have gone up. And that is reflecting the erosion of the value of the currency, meaning the dollars that you have buy fewer things, right, and the dollars that you have buy fewer services. So when we're talking about inflation, we're talking about that general increase. And why has it gone up is a complex question, because there are lots of different factors that have been at play. 

Initially following the COVID-19 recession, the price increases were isolated to a few areas, used cars and airline tickets. But especially over the course of the second half of 2021, we saw increased demand for goods and services more generally, particularly on the good side, because a lot of people shifted their spending from services to goods as the COVID 19 pandemic started to affect how we all behaved. And that meant that supply chains had to respond and supply chains had trouble responding. And there were a lot of goods that were suddenly more people were buying things for their households, as opposed to going out and getting haircuts and going to the movies. So there was the response, that was something that a lot of supply chains had difficulty doing getting goods to people who were looking to purchase them, and that led to some price increases as well. Households had savings, that coming out of the pandemic, they spent a significant amount of that savings because of both changes in habits, not going on vacations in the same way that you might have, for example. But also in changing your spending patterns because of federal fiscal stimulus that put more money in people's pockets. Some of that money was used right away in the economy, some of it allowed people to build up savings. And those savings were pretty significant, especially for upper middle and upper income households in 2022, a lot of those have actually been spent now that in aggregate, those additional savings from the pandemic have appeared to have eroded away. So but that contributed to inflation as well, because people were able to spend more and spend more in different ways in the economy. 

Also energy prices, particularly because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, energy and food prices both increased substantially. And those two are interrelated because the food has to move around. And that's usually powered by energy. And, of course, the unique nature of Russia and Ukraine, and both the energy and food markets respectively, led to a substantial increase in inflation in 2022, is some research from the Economic Policy Institute suggests that the increased corporate profits that we've seen, may be part of it as well, people expecting inflation leading to higher prices, and those prices may have outpaced the costs in some cases. But, inflation expectations lead people to make different decisions to try and forecast what inflation would be. And if everyone's expecting inflation, they're more likely going to plan for it. And that can help cause it actually, as well. So there are a lot of different factors, some of the choices that the Federal Reserve made between 2020 and now, a lot of different factors have contributed to inflation. There's no one single reason that we've been seeing it, but we have seen quite a bit of it relative to the last, 30 years or so of history. There's been quite a bit particularly in 2022, but it has eased substantially in 2023.

Melanie Plenda:

Recently, you did a study about the state business tax rate reductions leading to hundreds of millions less for public services. So can you unpack that for us? What did that study entail?

Phil Sletten:

Sure, and the reason that we embarked on this study is to really understand or do our best to understand why business tax revenues have gone up over the last, roughly half decade. So between state fiscal year 2015 and state fiscal year 2022. The combined revenues from the business profits tax and the business enterprise tax, which are the state's two primary business tax revenue sources, the combined revenues went up 118%. That's substantial, especially in the context of New Hampshire's fiscal situation and the New Hampshire state budget. The business profits tax is the single largest tax revenue source the state has now by a factor of two. So a lot of the surpluses, the dollars that are generated over budget plan. Over the plan that the state budget made in terms of how much revenue was going to come in, those surpluses have been largely generated, not entirely, but largely generated by additional business tax revenues. So why have they come in so strong? And was it because of a policy change that was happening at the same time, which were rate reductions, the both the business profits and the business enterprise tax rates were reduced incrementally over time between 2015 and 2023? If that is the cause, then that would be a valuable fiscal policy to know about because then we could. That's something state policymakers have control over as opposed to other factors they wouldn't they don't have control over. 

We didn't find evidence that the tax rate reductions led to increased revenue or offset the revenue losses associated with the tax rate reductions. There was not a correlation between the business profits tax rate and job growth over time, and there was not a correlation between the business profits tax rate and economic growth in New Hampshire relative to the rest of New England over time, and the business enterprise tax revenues went down when the numbers are parsed out, Business Enterprise tax revenues went down business profits, tax revenue still went up. National corporate profits appear to be a primary driver behind that, as well as federal tax policy changes associated with the tax cuts and Jobs Act which was passed back in December 2017. And provided incentive for multinational companies which comprise more than half of the revenue that's collected by the business profits tax come from filers of business filers that indicate that they have a significant international component. 

Those revenues, they're one time revenues associated with the tax cuts and jobs act as well as permanent changes to the tax base, that have likely boosted revenue as well. So we didn't we didn't find an economic relationship, certainly one on one that was sufficient or significant enough to identify that there was an increase in our corporate tax revenues, that was caused by our tax rate reductions. And also other states saw their corporate tax revenues increase as well, during this time period, nationally, the increase was about the same as New Hampshire, between state fiscal years 2015 and 2021. And in the rest of New England combined, it was actually higher. It varies by state. But that depends on particular state policies and economic conditions and how businesses are behaving in each of those states. But we saw an increase elsewhere, that's what strongly indicated, New Hampshire was not unique in seeing this rise in corporate tax revenue. And finally, there was not there was no other research, there was no academic research, peer reviewed research that indicated that a corporate tax rate reduction here would lead to increased revenue. So those other causes are likely what's contributing to it. And as a result, we were able to then calculate based on available research and economic modeling, what the tax rate reductions would have been, what the tax revenues would have been, how much higher they would have been if the rate reductions hadn't taken place between 2015. And now or and 2022, I should say. And that's based on some of the economic modeling that indicates there was some economic feedback from tax rate reductions, but again, not enough to offset the tax revenue losses.

Melanie Plenda:

For viewers who don't pay business taxes, why should they be interested in the business tax rate? How does it affect them? And how would you explain that to them simply?

Phil Sletten:

Sure, well, New Hampshire relies on our business tax revenues more for state budget expenditures than any other state does. In New Hampshire in 2021, roughly 31% of state tax revenue came from corporate taxes, where the next closest state was New Jersey with 14%. So it is very important for our state budget and for funding state services, and for supporting the state budget in a way that permits the state to send more money to local governments, whether that's for education, or, in many cases, supporting highway route and bridge construction as well, or for general economic aid or fiscal aid to local governments. So it does impact, for example, local property taxes in that way indirectly. There's also if we learn more about corporate tax rate changes, business tax rate changes, and who's paying business taxes and what those impacts are in the economy. And that helps us understand what are the impacts that we as people in New Hampshire are buying things and looking for work? Could feel when it comes to a state level tax rate change. If there were a strong effect on employment, for example, or if a lot of the costs associated with the tax rate changes were passed on directly to consumers in New Hampshire, that would be important to know and valuable to know, and those corporate tax rates and understanding the impact of these business tax rates on the economy. Having that understanding allows us to under a hat allows us to better know how our state is raising money and spending money and what the trade offs, the economic trade offs and the trade offs and services are associated with that. So business tax rates are not something that most of us see every day, but they can affect our county compensation and they can affect the services that we see.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, there's a lot to think about there. New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute Research Director Phil Sletten, thank you so much for joining us today.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Bears in the Backyard: What Do We Need To Know To Stay Safe

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Today we're here to talk about bears. Bears have been cropping up in neighborhoods across New Hampshire. And is that a good thing? Here to answer our burning bear questions is New Hampshire Fish and Game, Bear Project Leader, and Wildlife Damage Biologist, Dan Bailey.

Melanie Plenda:

So can you tell us a bit about what you do? What does being a bear project leader and wildlife damage biologists entail?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, absolutely. And first of all, good afternoon, and thank you for having me. So my position with New Hampshire Fish and Game, again, is Bear Project Leader, I am tasked with managing the bear population throughout the state. So in New Hampshire, bears are managed by region, we have six bear management regions in New Hampshire. Each one of these regions has a specific population goal and objective that we strive to keep that population in. And we manage to be there by region, because as you can guess, their populations are not the same throughout the state. So by managing them at these smaller levels, we can more accurately manipulate them to where we want those populations to be. Another thing to note is, our main tool to manage bear populations in New Hampshire is through hunting season structures. So these hunting seasons allow us to harvest bears and keep those populations in check. And we can either liberalize seasons, if we need to decrease population in certain regions, or we can take a more conservative approach, and have a shorter season if we're looking to grill populations. Another large aspect of my job is managing conflicts throughout the state. So we have bear technicians that work seasonally for the department and for our partner, agency, USDA Wildlife Services. They assist us in managing these conflicts, through education, technical assistance, and conflict abatement loans.

Melanie Plenda:

So when you say conflict, can you explain what you mean by that? What does that look like in the wild? And with what you do?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, so when I'm referring to conflicts, I'm referring to a homeowner, or maybe it's a commercial grower that is having an issue with a bear and is reaching out to the department for help. You know, this can be a variety of things from somebody seeing a bear in their backyard and perceiving that as a threat to bears getting into unsecured garbage in a household, bears getting into bird feeders at homes, or unprotected poultry or livestock. So there's really a variety of conflicts we can call them. But really, it's anyone calling in looking for assistance.

Melanie Plenda:

When you go in to deal with those conflicts, is there some is there an overarching strategy, like underlying it? Are you trying to make sure that you just kind of relocate the bear? Or what are some of the thinking around that conflict sort of resolution?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, in New Hampshire, conflict resolution typically revolves around education, and trying to secure food attractants, they are very food motivated, a majority of our bear conflicts in the state revolve around bears getting into some kind of food attract in that household. The way we would mitigate that is to educate the homeowner on securing that food attractant. And if that is unavailable to the bear, and the bear cannot access it, then that problem will resolve itself. So it's really just trying to figure out, what's the problem at hand? And what's the best solution? You mentioned, relocation, really, we do not relocate there. We don't do this, because it may be a short term solution to the issue, but it's not a long term solution, that bear is at that property for a reason. And if we move that bear, another bear will likely just fill its place. So we need to get at the root of the issue.

Melanie Plenda:

So why is that? Are there more bears? Are our neighborhoods closer to theirs? What's going on there?

Dan Bailey:

I'd say that's due to a variety of factors. Number one, there are more there, over the past 30 years, our bear population in the state has more than doubled. But if you also think about our human population, we've added about 300,000 residents to the state of New Hampshire during that same time frame. So we have more people on the landscape, we have more bears on the landscape. And another factor that I would add, especially in recent years, most homes now have security cameras. So you're seeing, people are seeing they're at their home, when they normally wouldn't, we get a lot of videos sent in of a bear crossing through someone's yard at two o'clock in the morning, there have always crossed in their yard at two o'clock in the morning, but now they are aware of it because they have these home security cameras. COVID, and people working from home more, has also influenced that because as people are home on their property more, they are more apt to see these bears when they pass through.

Melanie Plenda:

Interesting. And so can we talk a little bit more about why the bear population has doubled? Is it because of hunting? Or how is that changed?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, so management strategies, our bear population was a lot lower and below its environmental carrying capacity, back in the 80s and the 90s. And the department's approach was to grow the bear population. So our harvest strategy was conservative, not many bears were being taken during the hunting season, allowing for the population to grow. Now our population is at the level that we want it to be sustained at. So we take a more liberalized approach during that hunting season, especially in some of these management regions, the White Mountains region and the Central Lakes region where our populations are, right now a little above our goal. So we're taking a liberalized approach to try to bring those populations back down to levels that we want to see them stay at.

Melanie Plenda:

And we spoke a bit about this already, but do we need to be worried about bears? Are they a threat to humans or pets?

Dan Bailey:

No, we certainly do not need to be worried about them. If you're seeing a bear likely it's either passing through your property or it's there because there's a food source. So if you do not want to see bears on your property, make sure that you secure all food attractants like we talked about bird seed, unsecured garbage, pet food, and backyard pool alter your livestock. But yeah, that is the reason that the bears are on your property, they have one goal and that is to get food. So likely if you're having an issue where a bear is repeatedly on your property, it's because it's getting something. And that does not include your pets that does not include people. They're not looking for those as a food source. It's more of these things that we've talked about.

Melanie Plenda:

And what's the best way to prevent bear visits is putting your garbage inside enough? It seems like bear proof feeders aren't the best solution.

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, so as we talked about before, making sure that your home is free of any food attractants. So, you know, the department recommends that bird feeders only be out between December 1 and April 1. So anytime during the summer months, spring, summer and fall, bird feeders should be removed. Garbage should be secured either in a locked structure or in a bear resistant or bear proof container. That way bears can't get at it. 

Melanie Plenda:

And if someone has concerns about bears in their neighborhood, what should they do?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, they're concerned about bear issues in their neighborhood, they can reach out to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, Wildlife Division specifically. And we can help them with any issues or concerns they may have.

Melanie Plenda:

And if you do encounter a bear, what should you do?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, typically, if you encounter a bear saying you're in the woods, my experience has been if I see a bear, it's because it hasn't seen me yet. So just making your presence known, clap your hands, say, “hey, bear”, typically, you'll find that that bear will quickly take off in the other direction.

Melanie Plenda:

What if a bear is in your pool or your house? Both of those things have happened in other states recently.

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, you know, those are very different situations. So I'll start with the pool. Yeah, if you have a bear in your pool, they don't see it as a pool, they don't see it as your property. They see it is a water source. They're avid swimmers. And likely, there, we see these videos during, these heat waves, and bears just cooling off. So just some harassment, clapping your hands using pots and pans using an air horn, any kind of loud, sharp sound to harass that bear and make it feel uncomfortable on your property. A bear being in your home is a different situation. In New Hampshire, if you have a bear that has entered your home, we certainly would urge you to contact the department so that we can work with you to mitigate that situation.

Melanie Plenda:

And one last question, just kind of coming back to that idea of climate change. How are you taking the impacts of climate change into your sort of management of these pieces? And do you think that we will be seeing more of our food sources being impacted? What's happening there a little bit?

Dan Bailey:

Yeah, I would say, looking at the past few summers, I think three out of our past four summers, we've been in a drought. At this time of year, bears diet heavily, very heavily rely on berry crops, which we call soft mass, you have raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and various cherry crops that are available to bear during the summer months. When we have these years of significant droughts, it impacts those berry crops. And it means that there's less food available on the landscape for bears. So, that certainly has negative effects. It means bears have to travel further for food because there's less available. And as we see that continue, and if this cycle of drought, summers continues, that certainly will negatively impact bears availability or food availability on the landscape. The other thing we're seeing, with climate change, we're seeing that we're having shorter, more mild winters which means bears are active longer. They're active further into the winter, and they're active earlier in the spring. And the main issue that arises there is because, food availability, especially in the early spring, there's not a lot of food on the landscape for bears. So they gravitate towards these bird feeders and suburban settings where there's food attractants and that increase in conflict can lower that social carrying capacity and negatively impact our bear population.

Melanie Plenda:

Dan Bailey, New Hampshire Fish and Game Bear Project Leader, and Wildlife Damage Biologist, thank you so much for joining us today.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.