Mental health is a major concern in Women’s Foundation report on the status of girls in New Hampshire

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

According to the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation’s 2024 Status of Girls in New Hampshire report, girls are twice as likely as boys to experience poor mental health. The report says that over half of New Hampshire girls have reported experiencing depression while one-third have considered suicide. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda will discuss the New Hampshire Women's Foundation biannual report on girls in the Granite State with Devan Quinn, director of policy for the foundation.

Melanie Plenda:

What's the purpose behind the report? Why do we need to single out girls?

Devan Quinn:

This report, the Status of Girls, is the most comprehensive compilation of data on girls in the Granite State. What's unique about our research at the Women's Foundation is our gender lens. We know how vital data-driven research is to gender equality. We believe that accurate and comprehensive data must be the foundation for policies and laws that impact women and girls. Data-driven decisions by policymakers, advocates, education and community leaders will positively impact girls here in our state. Basically, if we aren't looking at the data by gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and geography, then we aren't seeing the full picture of experiences and well-being in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

What did you find about the mental health challenges New Hampshire girls are facing?

Devan Quinn:

I'll start by saying that the report highlights a strong, smart, resilient and diversifying population of girls with endless potential. The data also highlight disparate outcomes by gender, particularly in mental health.

As you mentioned, one of the most jarring highlights is the decline of mental health among all youth. However, girls are twice as likely as boys to experience poor mental health, depression, self-harm and suicide consideration. Fifty-eight percent of girls and 31% of boys felt depressed — this is higher than the national average and the highest in New England. And 32% of girls and 17% of boys reported considering suicide. When we look at hospital visits, 76% of all suicide or self-harm-related hospital visits were from girls. But girls also received mental health services at twice the rate of boys. Girls are also more likely to ask for help from services like the Crisis Text Line.

Melanie Plenda:

While mental health problems are on the rise for girls, youth substance abuse nationally is also following an upward trend, but that's not true in New Hampshire. So what's going on there, and are there any specific substances that are of concern for teen girls?

Devan Quinn:

Youth substance use has trended downward since 2019. Vaping use dropped the most, but New Hampshire girls have significantly higher rates than New Hampshire boys for misusing prescription drugs, and for current alcohol use, industry drinking and vaping. And white girls specifically are more likely to drink alcohol than girls of color.

The most recent data we have is from 2021, so it's difficult to know if these New Hampshire trends are the impact of the pandemic and a lack of socialization among peers, or it's the impact of public health efforts or something else. It's something we want to keep an eye on while also acknowledging that girls are engaging in substance use more than boys.

Melanie Plenda:

Shifting our focus to girls' education., the report says that a crucial component of closing the gender pay gap is addressing the gender gap in STEM fields which stands for science, technology, engineering and math. So what does the report reveal about ongoing gender disparities in STEM?

Devan Quinn:

We know that early on in school girls and boys perform similarly in all subject areas. But by the time they get to high school that starts to shift. Girls outperform boys in English language arts, they score similarly to boys in science but lower than boys in math. We also see much lower enrollment of girls in STEM and in high school CTE programs, or career and technology education programs. When we look at the data from the University System of New Hampshire — that includes UNH, Plymouth State College and Keene State College — we can see differences in which majors first-year students in state students are choosing. 

While we know that business and biological sciences are both in the top five for male and female students, women are actually more likely to study health sciences, psychology and education and men are more likely to study engineering and computer science. We should also note that New Hampshire has the second-highest in-state tuition costs, the lowest state funding for public higher education and the top student debt for recent graduates in the nation. So when we look at all these data points combined, we see that women are more likely to shoulder the burden of higher student debt and lower income than men once they enter the labor force.

Melanie Plenda:

So how do we address this?

Devan Quinn:

Well, it's so important that we disrupt the social and structural forces that systemically track women away from some of the most high-paying and fastest-growing occupations throughout their education.

To be clear, girls who want to have careers in fields that are women-dominated like nursing or teaching should be celebrated. The same for boys who want to have careers in engineering. What we don't want is for girls who are interested in engineering or boys who are interested in teaching to be socially or structurally tracked away from their interest. This can happen through overt sexism with comments from adults or peers about what girls are good at or not good at. It can be less obvious when girls receive more positive feedback about their work or interests that are traditionally gender-aligned. 

Girls can feel unwelcome in environments dominated by boys when we don't make an effort to make sure they feel welcome there. And it can happen on a macro level, when girls just don't see women in their communities in the roles they imagine themselves to be in, like doctors or architects. And conversely, when boys don't see as many male teachers to emulate. So this is why programs that encourage girls in STEM, all over the country and in our state are doing great work to make a difference for so many girls who are interested in those fields.

Melanie Plenda:

Another topic of conversation surrounding adolescents has been cyber bullying. How is cyber bullying impacting girls in New Hampshire?

Devan Quinn:

Bullying, which can be in person or through technology, which is called electronic bullying or cyberbullying, can cause physical, psychological, social or educational harm and contribute to health disparities. Girls are nearly twice as likely to experience electronic bullying than boys. We mentioned earlier that while girls and boys spend similar amounts of time on screens and devices, girls' social media usage has a greater negative effect on body image compared to boys.

Melanie Plenda:

What can be done to address this?

Devan Quinn:

Cyberbullying can happen anywhere or anytime, and while New Hampshire has laws that address bullying in schools, regulating bullying online can be pretty difficult. It's important to note that this generation has had a different childhood than their parents or older generations. This generation grew up with the internet, social media and smartphones in their pocket, and they also experienced really formidable years during COVID. So there are no easy solutions or overnight fixes. But I want to encourage parents and those concerned about this to start by listening to girls, and we need to follow up with the investment to make what they need possible in this area.

Melanie Plenda:

On top of presenting data, the report also highlights numerous legislative efforts and programs across the state aimed at supporting girls. Can you give us the highlights of those efforts?

Devan Quinn:

While there's so much to celebrate about New Hampshire girls, some of the data and topics can feel really heavy, which is why we also include spotlights throughout the report on organizations serving girls across the state and the amazing work that they do in our communities to lift up and support girls.

Some of our spotlights include New American Scholars, who offer targeted educational support specifically designed to meet the unique needs of refugee children. We also spotlight Breakthrough Manchester, which offers an intensive tuition-free academic programming to support Manchester students from traditionally underserved communities on their path to college. We spotlight Claremont Learning Partnership that offers support to youth experiencing abuse, racism, gender identity, questions, recovery, and more. We also spotlight Haven, which works to prevent sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking to support and empower adults, youth and families to heal from abuse and rebuild their lives. We encourage you to learn more about these amazing organizations and support them.

We also support our own advocacy efforts at the Women's Foundation, including efforts to protect the rights of trans girls and ensure that menstrual hygiene products are available for free in schools. We also supported legislative efforts on girls' mental health the past few years. We were proud to support a bill that required schools to include the 988 crisis helpline and the eating disorder hotline on the back of student ID cards. We also supported a bill developed by students that would require schools to offer mental health education just like they offer health class. So I mentioned before that things won't change overnight, but there's so much we can do to support girls right now. 

Melanie Plenda:

So the New Hampshire Women's Foundation says its mission is to invest in opportunity and equality for women and girls in the Granite State. What is the main takeaway you want policymakers and the public to have from this report?

Devan Quinn:

I want people to take away our three top points from this report.

First, the mental health crisis is among all youth, however, girls are twice as likely as boys to experience poor mental health, depression, self-harm and suicide consideration.Secondly, that girls outperform boys in English language arts, but score lower than boys in math. There's crucial work to do to close the gender STEM gap. Third, that simple headlines about New Hampshire kids don't tell the whole story, that it's imperative for us to look at the data by disparities by gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and by geography, and that these disparities are the results of historical, social and political inequality.

And I want people to know that despite the real challenges girls are facing, girls are also strong, smart, resilient, diversifying and have endless potential. I want to remind us to listen to girls, hear what they have to say, and give them the resources they need to thrive. 

Melanie Plenda:

Devan Quinn, director of policy of the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation, 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.

Granite State News Collaborative Partners Launch 'Know Your Vote' to Empower Young Voters Ahead of 2024 Elections

PRESS RELEASE -

A new youth-specific voter information project by the Granite State News Collaborative and its partners is launching today. The initiative, Know Your Vote, was inspired by the Baltimore Beat’s Youth Voter Guide and aims to educate New Hampshire’s voters under 29 ahead of the 2024 elections. 

It will feature online and social media content that will be available across the online and social platforms of the Granite State News Collaborative and its partners.

“When it comes to things like voter registration, voter information, this is all really new to us,” said Kay Bailey, the editor-in-chief of The Clock, Plymouth State University’s student paper.  “So being able to know more about these elections and getting information on these new experiences from people who are also experiencing this for the first time can be really powerful.”

Recent national polling by CBS and YouGov found that only 66% of registered voters 18-29 plan to vote in November. Additionally, 48% of the same demographic do not believe either major party candidate understands their needs. 

To kick off the project, we are asking young voters to complete this survey (also available in Spanish). Reporters will use the survey results as the basis for the articles included in the guide. The articles will be released throughout the summer and fall through GSNC’s website, its local news partners and social media. The hope is that the guide will be something young voters can use and refer to often in the lead up to the elections.

Know Your Vote is being designed, reported and produced by student and young professional journalists from GSNC, The Concord Monitor, The Laconia Daily Sun, The Ledger Transcript, NH PBS, The Clock, The Equinox, The New Hampshire and The Presidency and the Press program at Franklin Pierce University.

Laconia Daily Sun files motion to reconsider ombudsman’s rejection of legal fees

By Rhianwen Watkins, Granite State News Collaborative

The Laconia Daily Sun is continuing to press its right-to-know case against the Laconia School Board, contending the state right-to-know ombudsman’s office wrongly ruled in favor of the school board, and pushing for reconsideration of the ruling.

The news outlet’s attorney, Michael Lewis of Rath Young Pignatelli, a Concord-based law firm, contends the ombudsman based his ruling solely on the school board's arguments because he lost the Laconia Sun’s documentation during an office move. In addition, Lewis contends, the ombudsman failed to follow current right-to-know case law.

The case began in May of last year when the school board rejected the news outlet’s request to obtain two documents. The Sun argued the documents were wrongfully denied and filed a complaint with the right-to-know ombudsman’s office.

The Legislature established the ombudsman’s office in 2022 and it opened in January 2023 as a quasi-judicial government agency as an alternative to filing a lawsuit in court when an individual is unsatisfied with a public body’s response to a right-to-know request under RSA 91-A. Before the office was established, the only method of appeal was to file a lawsuit in superior court, a time-consuming, expensive process. Currently, if people are unhappy with the ombudsman’s ruling on whether a right-to-know complaint is justified, they can still appeal it in superior court.

The office consists of exactly one person, Thomas Kehr, the right-to-know ombudsman; his job is to decide whether government records must be disclosed, whether specific meetings must be open to the public, and whether penalties should be imposed for violations.

Julie Hirshan Hart, photo by  Adam Drapcho/The Laconia Daily Sun

After the Laconia Sun filed its right-to-know complaint with the ombudsman, the school board produced one of the two requested documents, saying it had been withheld because of an administrative error, according to Julie Hirshan Hart, editor of the Sun.

“It's inconsistent information because the denial-of-the-request email that we received said that, on the advice of counsel, they were not giving us the files because they were personnel files,” Hirshan Hart said.

Eventually, a hearing with the ombudsman was scheduled for April to hear both sides’ testimony. But before the hearing, the school board requested a meeting with the Laconia Sun and its lawyer at which the board provided the second piece of documentation the newspaper had requested. 

“They had given us both of the documents that we had asked for, but in order to obtain those documents it had been at significant legal costs,” Hirshan Hart said. “Since the issue of the attorney’s fees was still outstanding, we filed to keep the hearing with the ombudsman” to determine whether the school board should be required to cover the Laconia Sun’s legal fees.”

The newspaper argued that the school board should have to pay the legal fees because it wrongfully denied access to public records; had that not occurred, the newspaper would not have filed a complaint to the ombudsman.

Neither the Laconia School Board chair, Jennifer Anderson, nor the board’s attorney, Paul Fitzgerald, responded to a reporter’s inquiries about the case.

At the hearing, the ombudsman gave both parties a specific period of time to file written arguments over the issue of legal fees.

In June, the ombudsman ruled in favor of the school board. 

However, five days after the ruling, the ombudsman contacted Lewis, the newspaper’s attorney, and said he had thought the Laconia Sun had not filed its argument, but realized it had actually been lost during his office move and therefore he did not consider it. Lewis filed a motion for reconsideration on June 28 so the Sun’s arguments could be taken into account. The new ruling is yet to be made.

Court decision not considered

In 2022, a case titled Colquhoun vs. City of Nashua received statewide attention. The state Supreme Court ruled that if the city knew, or should have known, its blanket denial of access to city government emails violated the right-to-know law, then it should be liable for the resulting legal fees.

Lewis said the ombudsman’s ruling failed to cite that Supreme Court decision. Instead, Lewis wrote in the motion to reconsider that the ombudsman’s decision “relies on case law from between 1976 and 2010 while failing to cite or acknowledge very recent decisions from the New Hampshire Supreme Court, including the decision Colquhoun v. City of Nashua, 175 N.H. 474 (2022).” 

“I think it's a matter of important public accountability that a body designed to facilitate accountability — the right-to-know ombudsman, a specialist in the area — doesn't appear aware of recent New Hampshire Supreme Court case law that is binding on the state interpreting RSA 91-A, which is his specific purview,” Lewis said.

RSA 91-A is New Hampshire’s right-to-know law.

“The case was clear,” said Gregory V. Sullivan, a lawyer with Malloy and Sullivan, who has argued many right-to-know cases and is president of the New England First Amendment Coalition. 

“I'm in complete disagreement with the ombudsman's decision to deny attorney’s fees and costs in this case,” Sullivan said. “The standard is whether the governmental agency knew or should have known that the documents should be provided. The school district claimed that they weren't aware of the current state of the law until after the complaint was filed with the ombudsman's office, and then they complied with the request.”

“They either knew or certainly should have known that the documents should have been provided, and therefore attorney’s fees and costs, I think, were pretty much mandatory,” Sullivan said.

Asked why he did not cite the Colquhoun Supreme Court case, the ombudsman, Thomas Kehr, said he could not discuss the Laconia case while it is still open, but said he is “familiar with the case law that involves RSA 91-A.”

‘I belated found the pleadings’

Lewis, in his motion to reconsider, wrote, “The RKO’s [right-to-know ombudsman’s] communications indicate that the RKO did not review Laconia Daily Sun’s submissions before issuing its Decision because of the RKO’s dysfunction.” 

The document includes an email exchange between Lewis and Kehr in which Kehr states, “Due to administrative oversight, I belated [sic] found the pleadings, after the issuance of the order.”

In an interview, Kehr elaborated: “I issued a decision in the midst of taking incoming cases, deciding cases and also writing decisions for various cases, while my office was in the process of a move. Some of the paperwork that was filed in my office, through administrative oversight on my part, did not get docketed,” Kehr explained. “I assumed that there was no material when in fact there was. I issued the order, and thereafter, I found the materials that had been overlooked. At that point, I notified the party of that, and now we're reconsidering my decision. It’s pretty simple.”

Sullivan thinks the mistake was the result of a bigger issue.

“It's pretty clear to me that this is not a one-man job,” Sullivan said, noting that Kehr is the only employee in the ombudsman’s office and has no staff. “To me, that is absurd. That's on the Legislature that created the position but hasn't funded it and staffed it in order to meet the goal of efficiency.”

Kehr acknowledged his intense workload. 

In addition to creating the rules for his office and updating the website in a way that is easy to find those rules, Kehr also has 22 cases currently open and 36 closed since Jan. 27.

In total, Kehr has received 209 inquiries, of which about 30 involve right-to-know requests.

 “Trying to do this as one person is not the easiest thing in the world,” Kehr said.

The ombudsman law has an expiration date of July 2025. In other words, the office is in a trial run, to see if it serves the intended purpose.

“There's going to need to be legislation if indeed that office is going to continue to exist,” said Sullivan. “It should be an agency, not one person doing all the work. It's just too much.”

What happens next?

The Laconia Sun is awaiting the ombudsman’s decision on the motion to reconsider the legal fees issue,and hoping for a favorable ruling based on current law.

Under RSA 91-A:7-b, the ombudsman must make his final decision within 30 days, but has the ability to extend this period if there is good cause.

According to Kehr, the school board also has the right to respond to the motion to reconsider after it is sent to the ombudsman. Neither the school board nor its attorney responded to multiple inquiries on whether it will weigh in on the motion to reconsider.

If the ombudsman upholds his original denial of legal fees, the Laconia Sun could appeal to Superior Court.

 “The parties that really have a need for (RSA 91-A) are newspapers,” said Lewis, the Sun’s attorney. “And freedom of press is explicitly recognized under Part One, Article 22 of the New Hampshire Constitution as inviolable because it's connected to what our constitution says is the security of a free people.

“The people need the press to be able to inquire through these important rules and laws that ensure transparency and access for the purpose of accountability,” Lewis said. “That's how we get better as a society.”

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

Editor’s note, The Laconia Daily Sun is a partner in the Granite State News Collaborative. The Collaborative reporting and editing team maintained editorial independence in the reporting of this story. 

When property taxes overwhelm: The harsh realities behind evictions and foreclosures

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

What happens when a homeowner falls behind on property taxes, set high to offset the lack of income or sales tax in New Hampshire? One local paper explored that question in depth. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda discusses the Concord Monitor’s “Seized and Sold’ a series that explored property tax-related evictions and foreclosures in the Granite State. The series told the stories of residents who fell behind on those taxes due to illness, job loss and other factors and what happened to them. Here to discuss the series is Concord Monitor reporter Michaela Towfighi.

Melanie Plenda:

Michaela, tell us about the series and what inspired it.

Michaela Towfighi:

The series is something that we've been thinking about for a while now. It started in 2015 or ’16, when an old Monitor reporter, Elodie Reed, wrote about property taxes and tax deeds and people losing their house due to unpaid property taxes in Franklin. She interviewed a man named Larry Davis, and Larry lives on his family's old property, but off to the side in a converted garage that honestly is hardly a home. For a while he didn't have running water, no electricity, but he still was taxed living in this garage, and he was unable to pay his taxes. She had interviewed him a few times about his situation. When the readers read the story in the paper, an anonymous couple paid off his taxes for that year and put money forward for a few years. 

I started at the Monitor in 2022, and one of the first assignments my editor gave me was to go check in on Larry. Money had been put forward and he should have been fine for a few years, but my editor imagined he's behind on his taxes again, and that was the case. We went up to Larry's house at Franklin, and it was the same thing. He lives off Social Security, he's unable to work and his property tax bill just grew and grew. 

I wrote a story that summer that looked at Larry's situation. We then started thinking that this is most definitely happening to homeowners across the state. Being hired at the Monitor through the Report for America means we were able to get a grant through the Investigative Editing Corps to start looking at this at-large. That involved compiling statewide data and trying to see how many people are behind on their taxes in New Hampshire, what happens to those people, and when that's the case.

Melanie Plenda:

Tell us about some of the people who were featured in the series and how you found them.

Michaela Towfighi:

There were a few common themes we found when it came to people who lost their house to tax deeds. The first is that they often were elderly. They had paid off their mortgage, they thought that they had saved and were ready for retirement, and then they had some sort of life event or medical catastrophe that drastically changed their income, and they couldn't keep up with their bills on a fixed income. They also often lived in inexpensive housing, a lot are in manufactured houses, where really quickly the property tax bill can grow to be near the total value of their house. 

We found people mostly by knocking on doors. I narrowed in on a few communities, Franklin was one of them since they had one of the highest deed rates in the state. I went to a city council meeting last July where the council voted to seize a dozen homes for unpaid taxes. The next day, I took that list of addresses and just went door to door knocking on the door to see if anyone was home and if they would talk to you about their situation. 

That is how I found John Jones, who was featured in one of the first stories. When I first knocked on his door, John had no idea that this was happening. His partner Jessica answered the door and I said my spiel and she had no idea what I was talking about. She was like, “I think you have the wrong house. That didn't happen to us.” I went back a week or two later, and she had called the city and hadn’t received the notice in the mail the city sent them letting them know that this had happened. John had had a stroke and was paralyzed basically on half of his body lying in a hospital bed in the living room. She invited me in to sit in their living room and chat with him, and that started a relationship that is still strong a year later. That was just one example. 

Melanie Plenda:

How common is it that homes are taken by municipalities? What cities or towns did these seizures happen most often or happen a lot?

Michaela Towfighi:

What was really interesting and what we found is that it's hard to say how common this is. It’s even harder to know what happens to the homes after they're taken. Some, like Berlin, had the highest number of seizures — they had seized over 200 properties in that 10-year span we looked at. But I went up to Berlin as part of my reporting and talked to the assistant city manager there, and she told me that they take a lot of houses, but those houses are often vacant. They're left behind by former owners. They’re dilapidated, and they end up getting torn down. 

So they're not displacing people in their process. Instead, they're basically getting this property back on the tax roll, and it's getting sold to the next owner. That's drastically different from Concord. Concord has only seized a handful of properties in the last 10 years, but of those properties most are sold at auction. When they go to auction, it doesn't matter if they're occupied by the owner or not — whoever buys it is then responsible for evicting people if they currently live there. 

I talked to over 50 tax collectors in the process of reporting this, and it really just varies town to town. Some of these towns are really small, and the town clerk or tax collectors say, “These are our neighbors. We don't want to displace them. We don't want to put people out of housing. We will take ownership of their property, but we won't kick them out. We'll start a payment plan. We'll try to work with the homeowner to have them back paying taxes ,even if it's not in full.” Other tax collectors read the law really thoroughly and say, “It's our job to take these houses. After three years, we sell them, and we recoup the costs. We need to do that to be fair to other taxpayers who are paying on time”.

Melanie Plenda:

You mentioned in the series that other states do have some safeguards in place to prevent residents from losing their homes due to property taxes. Can you tell us about those and how they work?

Michaela Towfighi:

New Hampshire is an outlier among New England states when it comes to what help is available. Most states have what's called a circuit breaker system that basically says if your property tax bill exceeds a certain percent of your income, the state will kick in the difference to pay your bill. That is just a protection in place, especially for people who are elderly and on a fixed income. Their property tax bill might be growing and outpacing what their Social Security payments are. If their taxes are more than 10% of their income the state will say, “You pay up to that 10%, and then we will pay the rest.”

New Hampshire has a very, very small version of that program in place right now. It applies to the statewide education property tax. It's called the Low and Moderate Income Property Tax Program, I believe, but the reality is that the SWEPT portion of your bill is less than 5%. So again, it equates to people maybe getting a $50 discount on their taxes, but nothing to the degree that other states have.

Melanie Plenda:

You also noted in the series that foreclosures were supposed to be suspended during the pandemic but that didn't necessarily happen. So can you tell us more about that and what you found?

Michaela Towfighi:

That was one of the most interesting findings throughout this whole process. That came from just calling random tax collectors with my spreadsheet pulled up in front of me. I had the data on how many deeds they'd issued in the last 10 years. Then I would ask tax collectors to walk me through that. I'd mentioned earlier that Berlin had the highest number of seizures — they seized over 200 properties in this 10-year period. When I called the tax collector, she showed that if you're looking at a year by year, you might notice that there were zero in 2020 and again in 2021 because they weren’t allowed during that time. That was the first I'd heard that. 

When I had looked at the numbers, there were hundreds of deeds during that period. It basically turns out that when the governor was suspending evictions he had issued a moratorium which provided more forgiveness on mortgage foreclosures — things like that. He also issued an executive order that paused the tax deed process. It said that municipalities were not allowed to deed during the state of emergency for the pandemic that began in April of 2020. What then was confusing was in July he lifted the eviction moratorium and the moratorium on foreclosures, and after that the Municipal Association and other lawyers provided advice to towns and cities that it applied to the tax deed process so that they could resume taking properties. Some followed that — they only suspended the process for a few months. Others followed the original order, which said it was in place for the duration of the state of emergency, that would have been through June of 2021. 

But what was most puzzling about the whole order and its enforcement was that the governor's office and the attorney general's office, who were responsible for enforcing it, refused to answer our questions about the order. We asked them numerous times, “Can you provide the duration of the order? Can you provide what was the intention with it? If a town were to seize property during this time and violate the order, what are the implications? Who's responsible for enforcing that? What penalties are involved?” They declined to comment on all of those fronts.

Melanie Plenda:

What's the status of this series? Is it still going? Do you think there is more reporting to do?

Michaela Towfighi:

I definitely think there's more reporting to do. I mean, we'll continue to follow tax deed sales and auctions. An exciting follow-up is that someone had read the series, and they looked at John Jones's current tax bill and saw that he now owed another $2,000 for the next year and paid off that portion for him. So he'll be set for the next year or so. But I think there are definitely more conversations to be had about the property tax burden growing bills, especially on the elderly, and what assistance is available to them and how that's communicated.

Melanie Plenda:

Monitor reporter Michaela Towfighi, 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.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.

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.

Nashua Nonprofit Spotlight Series: Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County’s widening mission

By Elaina Bedio-Granite State News Collaborative

Editor’s note: This is another installment in the Nashua Nonprofit Spotlight Series highlighting some of the Greater Nashua area’s approximately 365 nonprofit organizations and the meaningful work and crucial services they provide. Each upcoming article in this series features a different Nashua nonprofit. Please send all inquiries to elaina@nashuadigital.info.

The purpose of this series is to highlight local nonprofits, especially those who would benefit from a bump in visibility. So it might seem curious to select an organization with ubiquitous name recognition like Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County. Most people have at least a nominal idea of the services Meals on Wheels provides — delivering meals to people who, for one reason or another, cannot easily get to a grocery store. But that is merely the tip of the iceberg of the organization’s services.

According to its mission statement, Meals on Wheels’s aim is ’ “to create connection and enrich the lives of older and homebound adults who live independently through nutrition, social engagement, and community services.” Since its establishment in 1977, Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County has been doing just that, and it has evolved to meet the needs of the communities it serves. In addition to nutrition, MoW has focused on tackling the problem of social isolation experienced by the people they serve.

Changing times

One of Meals on Wheels’ biggest catalysts for change was the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the challenges were mostly operational.

Jon Eriquezzo, left, president of Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County, and Zach Paone, director of development, at the organization’s soon-to-open newly consolidated headquarters at the site of the former Blake’s Restaurant in Manchester. (Photo by Elaina Bedio)

“Before the pandemic … we were just a typical Meals on Wheels program,” said Jon Eriquezzo, president of Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County. “During the pandemic, we were forced to change everything.” Among their new initiatives were offering grab-and-go meals, distributing meals to people in parking lots and creation of the Dine Out Club, a   program involving local restaurants.

However, in the months and years that followed, supply chain issues caused costs to soar, said Eriquezzo. “We started getting hit with all of these expenses ... and what that usually does to a Meals on Wheels provider is it makes you kind of implode a little bit. We're going to serve less food. We're going to have a waitlist. We're going to stop serving on Mondays. And, ultimately, some Meals on Wheels providers are forced to close and not do business anymore once expenses get too high.”

So the organization got creative in finding ways to reduce costs without reducing quality of service. The first move was to consolidate some locations. This includes the closing of the Carpenter Center in Manchester and two locations in Merrimack whose operations will be consolidated under one roof – the former Blake’s Restaurant on South Main Street in Manchester.  

Another major change is the food itself. MoW had previously utilized a large, national foodservice provider to deliver food to their nutrition centers around the county. Now, they purchase food from Birch Stream Farms in Maine.

“We get milk directly from the dairy. We get bread directly from the bakery, local. The fruits are fresher. Everything we're getting seems to taste better, but also less expensive” said Eriquezzo. In other words, they managed to reduce costs and increase quality by supporting a local farm.  

Addressing isolation

What is true of Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County is true of any of the Meals on Wheels chapters across the country. Often, the person delivering meals will be the recipient’s only company that day.  

Members of Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County’s Dine Out Club enjoy a recent meal at The Village Eatery in Merrimack. (Courtesy photo)

Eriquezzo recounted a day when he took a delivery shift and was met by an elderly woman who had been expecting him.

“I go in. Her hair is done. She's got the big earrings. She's got the pearls. She has a full dress on like ‘I Love Lucy’ or something … red lipstick. She was decked out. She was sitting there with an ashtray overflowing with cigarettes. I realized at that moment she dressed up for me.”

“My first delivery ever was in my neighborhood, " recounted Zach Paone, director of development. “I knocked on the door and saw a face I had never seen before, which is the problem.”

These interactions can be incredibly meaningful to both the person receiving the meal and the one delivering it, but it’s not the only way Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County combats social isolation.  

The Dine Out Club is a case in point. The program provides clients with a club card that can be presented at select restaurants for a free meal. Each establishment provides a few options from which they can choose. The opportunity to eat at a restaurant can be a luxury. What’s more, those who utilize the program frequently meet up and eat together regularly, fostering meaningful interactions, and even relationships.

With the purchase of the former Blake’s site, MoW will be able to utilize their own industrial kitchen and offer “community dining” to people 60 and older.

“Our focus when we first open is being able to provide community dining to people of this area and then also have enough equipment in there to prepare food for other community dining sites as well.” Eriquezzo is hopeful that the location will be ready to open early next year.

How you can help

With the purchase of the former Blake’s Restaurant in Manchester, Meals on Wheels will be able to utilize their own industrial kitchen and offer ‘community dining’ to people 60 and older. (Photo by Elaina Bedio)

When asked what the organization needs most and how the community can best support Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County, Eriquezzo and Paone said delivery drivers and volunteers are their greatest need.  

“What does it take to volunteer?” asked Eriquezzo. “First of all, it doesn't take much to volunteer. It's not a huge time commitment. It's about three hours a week, and what you get out of this is just so huge. Everybody is so happy to see you.”

Donations are also crucial, as renovations at the new site are ongoing and programs are expanding to meet more needs in the community.

“We are going to be pursuing some pretty significant capital expenses in the next couple of years to maintain this wonderful operation we have going here,” said Paone. “So you'll start to hear more about that in the next year, I think, from a capital campaign standpoint. But we are looking to really expand what we're doing.”

You can follow Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County on Facebook. You can also visit their website to learn about volunteer opportunities, making a donation and other ways to support their mission, including registering for the Miles for Meals Run & Walk on Sept. 14 at Mine Falls Park in Nashua.

This article was produced in partnership  with Nashua Digital, Nashua Ink Link and is being shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative.  For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

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.

New Hampshire Housing Market Faces Increase in Rates; How Will This Impact NH Residents

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

Affordable housing is an issue across the region, but the pinch is especially felt here in New Hampshire. Vacancy rates for rental units are 8.6%. The median rent for a two bedroom unit is $1,764, an 11.4% increase in just a year. On this episode of The State We’re In, New Hampshire Housing’s Executive Director and CEO Rob Dapice, and Senior Director of Research, Engagement, and Policy, Heather McCann talk about what's going on in the housing market and how it affects residents.

Melanie Plenda:

Rob, can you give us some background about New Hampshire Housing and the survey's origins?

Rob Dapice:

Sure. Thank you, Melanie. New Hampshire Housing is a public corporation and what that means is that we were established by state law and we have a board of directors appointed by the governor and executive council. But we're not part of the government. We don't receive operating funds from the state. But we administer a range of programs that help promote and finance housing for the people of New Hampshire, and that includes financing multifamily, affordable rental housing. It includes helping our lender partners to offer mortgages that help people achieve homeownership. And we administer the housing choice voucher or section eight program for areas of the state that are served by a local housing authority. We also do a fair amount of research work and conduct research engagement and policy work to help inform stakeholders around the state in their housing conversations. And that's where the rent survey comes from.

Melanie Plenda:

Rob, can you give us a broad overview of the findings? 

Rob Dapice:

Sure, you touched on a few of them in the opening, but rents are up again, you mentioned the gross monthly median rent for two bedroom apartments of almost $1,800, statewide, a vacancy rate that's abnormally low at 0.6% statewide, and an annual increase in monthly gross rent of 11.4%, across the state, And the survey breaks that down by region, but to talk a little bit about what that represents in terms of a trend. That's the fifth year that we've seen increases in the monthly rent and the vacancy remains at an extraordinarily low level, we've been doing the survey using similar methods going back for 40 years, and this is the lowest we've seen the vacancy is where it's been in the last couple of years.

Melanie Plenda:

And Rob, what do these findings mean not only for renters in New Hampshire, but for people who want to buy a home in New Hampshire?

Rob Dapice:

They have very few choices. And so again, people are often looking for a home when they experience life events, maybe they want to form a new household, they're getting married, or moving in with a partner. Certainly, it can be as a result of divorce, or somebody's moving into the workforce, graduating from college, whatever the reason may be, there are fewer and fewer choices and that restricts people's ability to live the way they want to live. It restricts labor, mobility and affects the economy in that way, and certainly affects people who are most vulnerable. Whether it's individuals with disabilities, coming out of incarceration or lower, simply lower on the income spectrum, they're more more vulnerable and more likely to become homeless or lose their housing stability and wind up in an overcrowded or unstable situation.

Melanie Plenda:

And Heather, what did you think of the findings? Did anything about it surprise you at all?

Heather McCann:

Well, given the overall housing landscape in New Hampshire, as Rob has described, I was confident that we would see an increase in rents. The question was just how much they would increase. The high cost of purchasing homes and the very limited supply of homes for sale in New Hampshire especially for first time homebuyers or someone looking to make the transition from renting to ownership puts more pressure on the rental market. So I wasn't surprised to see the vacancy rate remain under 1%. Every year, though, I've come to expect it. So it's not much of a surprise. But a really big concern is the affordability issue. The stark contrast between rental costs and the median renter household income is a troubling reality that puts tremendous financial strain on many individuals and families throughout the state.

Melanie Plenda:

What would cause such a huge spike? And are the reasons that you're seeing the spike in Grafton County? Similar to reasons for increases across the state?

Rob Dapice:

Yes, I think similar dynamics exist in Grafton County as as to others. I mean, Grafton County has a very sort of micro urban area in Lebanon, Hanover, Enfield, where there's a lot of economic activity, a lot of demand, and not a lot of other metro areas from which people might plausibly commute. And so I think that creates sort of a perfect storm at times. But certainly we see significant rent increases like that often when a building changes ownership. Sometimes there are reasons that a new owner has to put a lot of money into a new property. But whatever the reason, it's very hard for households to manage that kind of increase.

Melanie Plenda:

And how their rental costs have been rising and vacancy rates have been falling for some time yet, it seems like the pandemic has exacerbated these trends. I mean, is that accurate? And if so, why is that?

Heather McCann:

Yeah, so I would say this is true, the pandemic prompted a shift in living preferences as remote work opportunities provided people with greater flexibility, many people reevaluated their space requirements in New Hampshire as a desirable place to live. So while we already had a challenging market, both on the rental and purchase side prior to the pandemic and increase in demand, coupled with limited supply, drives prices higher and adds competition to the market. We also saw, particularly in last year's survey, more rental properties that were sold than we've ever seen in previous years. And that could be a result of the pandemic, or an increase in property values people saw an opportunity to sell. And so this change in ownership, as Rob previously mentioned, often leads to adjustments in rental rates, causing rents to rise in certain cases.

Melanie Plenda:

And Rob, what does the survey tell us about the overall housing market and where it's headed?

Rob Dapice:

Historically, as I mentioned, this is extraordinarily a time of extraordinarily tight housing market conditions. It's just not normal to have so few houses on the market and so few rental apartments. I think it is important to get this data at the state level, because there has been some news coverage of housing market conditions loosening in certain areas of the state in some areas of the country. There are some news stories that talk about the southwest, where population has exploded, there's been a lot of new multifamily construction. And as a result of that explosion in new construction, rents have at least moderated somewhat, the report tells us that we simply haven't seen that yet. And there's really no nowhere relief coming just yet in terms of New Hampshire and housing market conditions.

Melanie Plenda:

Many economists link the housing shortage to the tight job market. After all, it's easier to find people to work somewhere if they have a place to live. So affordable housing can be linked to the overall economy of a community or the state. Yet, as you mentioned, building more housing in a community can be difficult, especially if people are concerned about too much development in town. So Rob and Heather, can you speak to that? What could you say to people who don't want development in their community or backyard? Let's start with Heather and then to Rob?

Heather McCann:

Yeah, so the availability of affordable housing plays a significant role in attracting and retaining a skilled workforce. So when people have access to suitable housing, they're more likely to consider opportunities in a given area, boosting the overall economy of the state. Community engagement, I feel, is really critical, talking through concerns educating community members and, and what offering diverse housing options means within each community, I often find people have an easier time connecting these dots, when it affects them personally. So for example, their children are looking to buy or rent a place close by, but there's nothing available or affordable to them, or the household is looking to downsize and they want to stay within their community, but there isn't anything available. So when you make these connections for people, it can help foster productive conversations around these issues.

Melanie Plenda:

And just a follow up on that I know that even in covering local communities for years the idea of affordable housing will always sometimes get the pushback from community members that this will lower my property values or this will somehow impact us adversely. So when can you talk about some of those specifics? Like what are the benefits of having a more diverse, a more diverse housing market in a community.

Heather McCann:

So it helps everybody in the community overall. So you get people that are going through kind of life stages. If you think about where you've lived in your lifetime, it's not always that single family home, it's an apartment, and as you go through your life, you have different needs. And hopefully, you can afford to make changes to your housing situation, based on those needs and how they evolve and change over time. I think people have a stigma of affordable housing or workforce housing. But they often neglect to realize that affordable housing, workforce housing can be naturally occurring, so it's homes that maybe are smaller, that are more affordable to people with a lower income. It's not necessarily a building that's just dedicated to people of a certain income level. And so it's a lot broader than people may assume. And it impacts everybody in their community in one way or another.

Melanie Plenda:

And Rob, what do you think?

Rob Dapice:

So, first I would say absolutely. The tight housing market affects the economy and labor supply. And that's why you see the Business and Industry Association, a statewide Chamber of Commerce, has for years identified housing as one of its top issues. And you hear from large employers like Dartmouth Health and Fidelity that tell stories about numerous employees accepting jobs, and then rescinding their acceptance because they can't find a place to live that they can afford. In terms of what I would say to people who are concerned about development in their town, I would say first, I understand and change can be frightening and unsettling. But Heather talked about education. And I think one of the wonderful things that we've seen is in a lot of towns in New Hampshire, the places that people love most about their town, the downtown's that were built in the 19th century, are now made illegal by local zoning. And in a lot of cases, if you wanted to build a similar community, now, you couldn't do it because of the regulations that have been imposed in the past few decades. So just being aware of that, and being aware that a lot of the most wonderful places in our communities are, are really not able to be replicated or improved, because our local zoning is important. And the other thing I would say is all changes are unsettling, it's scary, it's important to understand the changes happening, and particularly for those folks who are in suburbs that might be considered wealthy or desirable, those places are getting a lot more expensive to live. And the path that we're on in a lot of communities is for less expensive houses to become more expensive houses. And that affects the community when people who have lived there for a long time, can't stay in the community that they know and love and in many cases work in. And so understanding how providing the opportunity for other reasonable housing options and more affordable housing alternatives, can sort of preserve a lot of what's special about the communities important too.

Melanie Plenda:

And one more follow up question. You had mentioned what the state could do more to address local regulations. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What could the state do?

Rob Dapice:

So, as I said, I think the state has a role in working with municipalities to ensure that their regulations are not so burdensome, that private property owners are sort of unable to meet the demand for housing. So this already exists in law, just the state has a workforce housing law, which says that cities and towns have to create or allow for reasonable opportunities for different kinds of housing to exist. But I think that that law could perhaps be a little bit more specific, or maybe there's opportunities to identify the distinctions between reasonable regulations that serve to protect a community's character and environmental quality and restrictions that go too far.

Melanie Plenda:

Oh, that's really interesting. New Hampshire Housing Executive Director and CEO Rob Dapice, and Senior Director of Research, Engagement, and Policy, Heather McCann. 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.

The State Of Journalism: What Can Reporters Do to Regain Trust in the Public?

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

Around the country, local news is struggling. Shrinking newsrooms due to financial pressure, burned out reporters, publicness trust journalism is being hit harder than it ever has before. While New Hampshire is not immune from the crisis, here in the Granite State news organizations are doing everything in their power to innovate and engage to keep local journalism alive and sustainable. Annmarie Timmins senior reporter for New Hampshire Bulletin, Carol Robidoux founder and publisher of Manchester Inkling and founding member of the Granite State News Collaborative, and Julie Hirshan Hart reporter and editor for The Laconia Daily Sun are here to discuss the state of journalism in New Hampshire, what's happening in the news industry and how it impacts communities within the Granite State. 

Melanie Plenda:

Annmarie, can you tell us about some of the bigger issues facing local news and how you've seen their impact in the Granite State?

Annmarie Timmins:

I guess I’ll start by saying I think we're really lucky here. We have a very strong news presence. There's so many different kinds, and a lot of it's free to read, thanks in large part to the collaborative and other nonprofits. But that's not to say that there aren't challenges right now. I was at the Concord monitor for about 20 ish years. And when I was there, we had 15 reporters on staff. And we always felt like, why are they starving us of resources? I think they're down to five reporters now and still manage to get the paper out. So I think what I'm seeing generally as newsrooms are shrinking, but the demands for news every day remain. So I just think reporters are working on more stories with less time that results in a very different kind of story than big takeaway, investigative pieces. So I think the resources in New Hampshire are very, very strapped here. And I just don't know how a lot of my colleagues get news out every day. So I think that's a big picture. We're luckier than most and that we have so much free local news here. But it's hard to get it out. And I wonder how long some of us can continue to do that.

Melanie Plenda:

And, Julie, let's pick up on that with you. How do these issues kind of play out in the community? What impacts do they have on the everyday lives of community members?

Julie Hirshan Hart:

Well, as Anne Marie mentioned, now, we're all trying to do more with less so as our newsrooms are shrinking and as we have less resources, we still have the same number of stories that we have to cover, we still have the same number of towns that we have to deliver news on in our coverage area. So our community, with the advent of the internet and social media, is used to being able to access the information that they want immediately. And we have to do our best to keep pace with that, while also prioritizing the most important stories and trying to balance delivering all of that information to our readers with less resources.

Melanie Plenda:

I know all three of you have really, really built community engagement into what you do, prioritizing, knowing your sources and building relationships with them, and knowing your community members. So, you know, let's talk about that a little bit. So Annmarie, as a reporter, talk to us about how you broke this barrier of distrust and formed those relationships with your sources and why that's important.

Annmarie Timmins:

I will say it's getting much harder to do during my time at the monitor, in part because the monitor was a trusted new source. There wasn't this competition of people masquerading as new sources that Carol described. And because I've been around a long time, I have a long source list from people I met many, many years ago and it was just much easier because there wasn't as much distrust, there was people who felt like the monitor had a bent, but in the end, they could separate the newsroom from the editorial page. 

What I'm seeing now is a sort of trickle down of what we saw during the Trump administration, the press being enemy number one, that still is coming up for me. And so when I call people who presume I am a progressive, Uber liberal socialists like filling the word, source, they won't talk to me. And they're often rude about it. And so it's hard to find a way to get into a conversation. So for us, the Republican leadership at the Statehouse has been very distrustful of us, they've sort of tend to go toward another outlet that is really opinion, but calls itself news for most of the time. 

And so when we don't have their voices in a story, it's unfortunate for readers, I think, so what I'm trying to do is, take the abuse that I get from some people who view us as not the good journalism outlet, and just keep going back and keep going back and trying to convince them send them my story that I wrote about their subjects and say, please let me know, if you find anything inaccurate here or slanted. It's just a long, long process, I really have not encountered this kind of resistance before. I'm even asked, "Are you on my side?" when I call a news outlet, a source, or try to talk to someone at an event even about why they're there. And it's just, it's more and more hostile. 

And I think the other piece is Carol alluded to this, that news is being delivered in a different way. So if you take Twitter, I feel like it's largely become a platform, at least for my writing for the Libertarian Party, for example, is very much targeting me. For anything I write, it's not clear to me, they've read the story, but they feel like I'm a progressive reporter. And they'll say things like, people should throw tomatoes at me, or I'm a hateful person, or I'm a bad person. And the amount of pylon that I see on Twitter within a day, there'll be 45 people liking that. So that kind of, I think, distrust just piles on and then if I try to talk to anyone in that party, they just know me as this Twitter, you know, personality. And so it's just, it's hard, you have to keep trying to do it. And it's abusive sometimes. But I have my notebook between me and them. And I tried to think this is not about me, this is about them. And it's my duty to keep trying, but it's become harder.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, first, no one should have to put up with that level of abuse from anybody in any field. And I'm sorry that you have to go through that. And all journalists are going through that right now. But one follow up question, when someone does ask you, “Are you on my side?”, how do you respond? I'm curious, because what would you say in that situation? 

Annmarie Timmins:

One quick example, I was at an event where the Proud Boys were there protesting it. And I just went up, I said, “What are your concerns? What brings you out today?”. I was easily attacked like, “that's a biased question”. And so, how is that bias? I don't know. But I tried to explain that this is what we do. This is how journalism works, that I'm talking to these people. But I also feel like it's really important. I hear from them. It's kind of journalism, one on one, I increasingly have to have that conversation. I'm not sure it's persuasive. But that's usually my response to say no. And even like, could we just have a conversation first, set the interview aside, and you can ask me sort of how I'm approaching the story. And we'll just have a casual conversation, and then please, then maybe decide if you want to talk to me. So it's a lot more explaining what we do, which I don't think is a bad thing to help people understand what journalists do. But more and more I'm happy to say, this is how I approach it. This is journalism. Why do you think that's a biased question? So just trying to be open to a conversation has helped a little bit.

Melanie Plenda:

And, Julie, how do you implement that kind of community gauge engagement into your newsroom? I know you've done quite a few initiatives in that regard.

Julie Hirshan Hart:

So we try to prioritize transparency in everything that we do, to try to invite the community in and see behind the scenes see how we're doing our work, who it is in our newsroom that's doing that work so that they can connect with us when they see us out in the community, and recognize us as trusted reporters who work for a legitimate newsroom. We've started hosting events, which help many community members, whether their sources or readers, get to know us as journalists, and also help them understand the work that we do.

Melanie Plenda:

And I think to me engagement comes from the need for diversity, diverse audiences, diverse sources and diverse newsrooms, staff, all of you. Why is diversity in news so crucial? And how do you implement diverse perspectives both in and out of your newsrooms?

Julie Hirshan Hart:

Diversity can look a lot different. One thing we're focusing on in our newsroom is, instead of just relying on those official sources that we've had in our contact lists for years, is looking for younger voices or looking for new voices that have a different perspective on an issue than we might be used to. And also just being present in the community going to those community events, whether we're more reporting on them or not, but that develops sources, like we mentioned earlier, makes people recognize you and be willing to come up to you and share story ideas, meeting as many people as possible. We try to do editorial boards as often as we can and invite people into the office just to talk about what's on their mind and that helps us not only learn about new sources, but new story ideas. And social media has become a huge part of our work that connects us with different sources that we might not meet, through our day to day work out in the community or at our desks. And it really allows us to include the voices of sources we might not otherwise be able to.

From left to right; Annmarie Timmins, Carol Robidoux, and Julie Hirshan

Melanie Plenda:

Annmarie Timmins, senior reporter for the New Hampshire Bulletin, Julie Hirshan, editor for the Laconia Daily Sun, and Carol Robidoux, founder and publisher of Manchester Inkling and founding member of the Granite State News Collaborative. Thank you all so much for joining us today and what you do every day.

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.