Pavilions are Popping Up All Over

There are two new pavilions being built in Milford right now, and another one was built last year. These are great examples of projects that get done in town behind the scenes by dedicated citizens, often without town funding.

1. The old pavilion at Keyes field was in bad shape and was torn down a couple of years ago. Through the work of a group of people and the donations of a few, a new pavilion was built and dedicated this year. Some of the key organizations and people were the Trustees of the Keyes Memorial Trust, Milford Lumber Company, Granite State Concrete, Skip Gautier, and Jerry Guthrie. Thanks everyone!


2. The Lions Club is building a pavilion at the MCAA fields on North River Road based on the same plans that were created for the Keyes field pavilion. A major portion of the cost of this pavilion was donated by Peter Leishman in memory of Muzzy Morell. This is the bio of Muzzy that was published in the 2006 town report:

"Arthur J. “Muzzy” Morell Jr. - “A life long resident who gave back to the community he loved so much”
We all mourn the passing of a friend who has touched so many people in this wonderful town. His generosity was felt by so many and went unnoticed by those who honored him with the 2006 Citizen of the Year.
One of the founding members of the Milford Community Athletic Association (MCAA) and was instrumental in creating the Keyes Field Recreation Complex. He was a coach, mentor, friend and Dad who loved sports. He also volunteered many hours to the SHARE program and was known as the “guardian angel”.
Muzzy was a member of the American Legion, Knights of Columbus and the Milford Lions Club who honored him with a Melvin Jones Fellow. He was an Army veteran having served during the Korean War. Over the years he served on various Town committees.
A graduate of Milford High School class of 1947 and a self employed electrician for more than 40 years, you could always find him in service with a smile. His dedication of service and friendship will be surely missed by all."

The construction project is headed by John Miller who has spearheaded all aspects of the project, and has done a great job. Joe Stella has contributed a lot, and a few other Lions have helped out. There will be a dedication ceremony on Sunday October 22nd. Thanks John!

3. Matt Clemens(a senior at Milford High) is building a stage at Keyes field for his Boy Scouts Eagle project. The stage is between the pool and the other pavilion that was recently built. This is an ambitious project for a young man like Matt, and it is a real test of character. He had to decide what to do, develop the plans for the project, gain the proper approvals (which was especially difficult due to all the red tape in town), fund raise all the money for the project, beg for help from lots of people, and do a lot of the work. He is about 75% done on the project, and is planning a dedication concert on Saturday October 21st in the afternoon. Great work Matt!

Manifest Educational Hardship

I've been doing some work on the school district policies, and there is one obscure one that I just reviewed I'd like to bring to your attention. This is Milford School District Policy # 5090, Manifest Educational Hardship.

In general, resident students of a New Hampshire school district are assigned to a public school within the district by the Superintendent or his designee.

However, in unusual and extraordinary circumstances, parents or guardians may request a change of assignment to another public school within the district, or to another public school in a another district. When the parent or guardian believes that the assignment which has been made will result in a manifest educational hardship to the student, the School Board will consider these requests, according to the procedures in the policy.

This policy is based upon New Hampshire RSA 193:3 Change of School or Assignment; Manifest Educational Hardship or Best Interest; Excusing Attendance.

There are a bunch of details on how this works, but basically, the idea is that if a student has a problem with their assigned school, then there is a mechanism for the student to move to a different location.

Normally, the sending school board (where the student is first assigned) will review that case and decide whether they will support the change in venue for the student. If the move is approved, then the Superintendent for the sending location will contact a Superintendent for a proposed receiving location to see if the receiving district is willing to accept the student. If the school board for the receiving district approves the request, the the student will move to the new district. The sending district would then pay full tuition to the receiving district for the student.

This is a rare event, but has the potential for being very important to an individual student. Students can have major difficulties with interactions with a particular peer group where a complete divorce from the situation is the best course of action.

It is good for people to know that this process exists. You never know when the need to apply it will arise. A student may have drug, alcohol, or relationship problems that are best addressed by a completely new environment.

Stellos Stadium

I went to the Milford High School "Home" football game last weekend that was held at Stellos Stadium near Nashua South High School. I had heard about Stellos Stadium on many occasions, but I had never been there before this game.

I left the game with that dreaded disease, (first described by Freud?), commonly known as "Stadium Envy". Stellos is a great football stadium with every amenity that is needed for a local football game. It has great parking, stands, concessions, lighting, and artificial turf.

The stands in particular were noteworthy. The home stands appear to hold about 2500 people and the visitor stands hold about 500, for a total of about 3,000 seats.

We are upgrading the Milford football facilities, but they will not be anywhere near the class of Stellos. We are hoping to get stands with seating for a total of 1,000 people. This is a far cry from the 3,000 at Stellos. Our field will be sod, which will be an upgrade from the dust bowl that we had previously, but it is not as nice as artificial turf.

Well, I'll just have to get over my Stadium Envy and be happy with what we are getting in Milford. The new track and field will be light-years ahead of what we had before and will be a wonderful improvement for the town. (I can still dream though...)

Milford School Board 9/17/07

Superintendent's Report

* Liz O'Hare and Toby Tarnow are offering a new course for students at the High School that is geared toward creating radio drama shows. The course is called the Riverbend iTheater, and they will be creating radio theater productions at the Amato Performing Arts Center at the Boys and Girls Club. More information on the program can be found if you click this link.

* NECAP testing will occur during the first three weeks of October. A summary of last year's NECAP test results will be presented to the school board within the next month.

* There has been some developments on the issue of the windows at the Heron Pond School. Some of the windows in the original portion of the building are difficult to open, and we have been trying to figure out what to do about the problem since the building was originally built. I have tested roughly 15 windows in different rooms, and I have found that I can open all of them, but they are somewhat difficult to operate. Some of the women teachers do not have the physical strength to open some of the windows since it takes a bit of force, and you usually have to lean over a bit to apply the force. We had determined several years ago that the windows were within spec, but were still more difficult to open than we wanted. Recently I have heard that there are at least a small number of windows that are more difficult to open than others, and they may be out of spec.

The manufacturer of the windows, Mannix Windows from Brentwood, NY, has agreed that the windows are in warranty, and that they are guaranteed to be within opening force specifications, which is a pull of 45 pounds. By coincidence, they have a company representative in the area this week, and he will come to the school and do an inspection on all the windows to see if they are within spec or not. If they are out of spec, then Mannix will bring them back within spec.

The company representative will also provide training to District personnel as to how to adjust the windows. They will also provide information on kits that may be available to retrofit windows that are within spec but still harder to open than what is desired.

* The Mason School District is still looking to leave their current arrangement and send their students to Milford schools instead. They are asking for a letter from our District to the Dept of Education that indicates that we want to have them. We had looked at this in some detail a couple of years ago, and this is a win-win situation. They have slightly less than 100 students in grades 6-12, and we should be able to accommodate them in Milford with minimal impact. They would pay tuition based on a formula, and the tuition payments would be in excess of our incremental costs for educating the students. It is likely that at our next meeting we will authorize the administration to issue the letter that Mason is looking to receive.

Potential Warrant Articles

At the beginning of the budget preparation period each year, we try to identify all the potential warrant articles that may be on the March ballot. Putting this list together helps to insure that we consider each item during the budget preparation, but it does not mean that we will necessarily have each of these warrant articles. These are the potential articles, in no particular order.

* Asking for authorization for Mason or other school districts to send tuition students to Milford schools

* One or more construction requests for the creation of Kindergarten facilities. Possibilities include the renovation of the Bales Annex, new construction on the Brox property, and/or purchase/lease of other unidentified facilities.

* Purchase of the property next to the High School on West Street for use as a parking lot.

* Authorization to sell two building lots off of the Heron Pond site. These lots would be used to build houses by the building trades ATC program.

* Potential contract with classified staff bargaining unit.

Bales Study Committee

Ron Carvell and Paula Durand were appointed to the Bales Study Committee. Bob Willette is the School Board Rep.

High School Renovations

The board voted to award the track surfacing bid to Maine Tennis and Track for $203,045.

Leighton A. White has started construction in a big way on the field. They have torn down the bleachers and have started the dirt work.

Our construction management firm, Turnstone Corporation, is looking into the availability of some used bleachers from Adelphi University on Long Island. They have some bleachers that are relatively new that they have taken down because they are building a new stadium. A lot of details need to be worked out, but if it dows work, then there is the possibility that we could get larger bleachers for the same money they we were planning on spending on new. It is unusual to be able to buy used bleachers in good condition, so it is not even something that we had originally planned on investigating.

Milford School Board 9/4/07

Superintendent's Report

The new school year started last week, and it went very well. The staff was in on Monday and Tuesday with start-up activities, grades K-9 started on Wednesday, and grades 10-12 started on Thursday.

They held the District-wide meeting on Tuesday. Bert Becker and I were able to attend the meeting, and it was quite good. I was impressed with the positive outlook that everyone exhibited during the meting. Everyone seemed to be really looking forward to a new school year and the influx of new students. It is difficult to positively motivate large organizations, and our District appears to have excellent morale. There are a lot of factors that go into this, but I think that some of the major ones are our Superintendent's performance, and the fair contracts that we have with our bargaining units.

The three largest classes in the district are the 6th, 9th, and 10th grades, with all of them over 240 students. The formal enrollment numbers will be presented at the first October board meeting, with the board setting the enrollment projections for the next year's budget at the second October meeting. The numbers can fluctuate during the first few weeks of the year, which is why the state waits until October first summarize the enrollment figures for the entire state.

The calendar that was created by Sue Asselin was distributed to the board. Sue has been creating these calendars for a couple of years, and does a great job of it. She raises the money to produce the calendars by selling ads in the calendars, and she prints enough of them to enable all students in the District to get one. The calendars list all the standard school events for the year, and they are a wonderful tool for keeping track of school activities. We use them at our house, and they work great. Thanks Sue!

Beth Powers (High School English Teacher) received the Champion of Human Rights award about a month ago from the NEA. This was partially due to her support of the Peach jam program in Milford.

The district had received written notice from the state that they felt that our ballot question was not detailed enough, and that we might not be authorized to sell bonds for the high school renovation project. Additional information was provided to the state, including the voter guide that was mailed to all residences in town, and the state decided to allow us to sell bonds. We will need to be more critical with the wording of future articles to insure that we do not get into similar situations.

Adequate Yearly Progress

Laurie Johnson gave a brief overview of the AYP results that had been announced by the state last week. She is going to do a much more in-depth overview within a month or so once she has all the detailed data to summarize.

In short, the District made AYP but the K-8 Reading program did not make AYP. The Heron Pond educational disability sub-group did not make AYP for Reading, and as a result, the entire K-8 program did not make AYP for Reading. If the K-8 Reading program does not make AYP next year, then it will be designated as being in need of improvement.

Buildings and Grounds Reports

Bill Cooper gave his annual report summarizing the B&G activities that occurred during the summer break. He passed out a four page report detailing all the actions, but these are some of the highlights:

* Replaced carpeting and painted in the Front Office areas of the High School, Middle School, and Jacques.

* Remediated Asbestos in 15 rooms in the High School in preparation of the renovations that will mainly occur next summer.

* Installed guard rails at the Middle School and Bales.

* Installed a second culvert at Heron Pond to help drain the pond during very high water events.

* The ball field at Heron Pond is in great shape with new fencing, loam, and seeding. It will be rested this fall and go into heavy use starting next spring. It is expected that the MCAA will be allowed to use it in addition to various school uses.

* There were a series of security camera improvements at most schools.

Budget Process Guidelines and Parameters

Peter Bragdon submitted the budget guidelines that we used last year, with a few slight modifications to make some needed corrections.

We changed it during the meeting to add a reference in the voters guide section that the guide should not include political advertising, except that a free candidate profile section would be allowed, similar to the voters guide that was produced last year.

Labor Day Parade 2007

The VFW did their usual fine job with this year's Labor Day Parade. The weather was perfect, everything went on time, and there were no big gaps between groups.

The funding for the parade was limited this year due to the VFW gambling crackdown that occurred earlier this year, so they were not able to afford the out-of-town bands that usually show up for the parade. I like having the extra bands, and I hope that they find a way to fund them next year.

There are a few events that go on each year that really make a difference in Milford. These are things like the pumpkin festival, the Fourth of July fireworks, and the Labor Day parade. These are all key contributors to improving the spirit of the town, and as such, they indirectly help to increase the economic vitality of the town. Because they are so important to the town, I think that we should support them at least partially though taxes rather than though private funding. I would be in favor of putting at least partial support of the Labor Day parade on the ballot as a separate warrant article next year to see if others in town agree. It would be a shame if the parade were to disappear due to lack of private funding.

There was a good selection of politicians this year since it is a Presidential primary year. I like having the politicians in the parade, and I'd like to see that continue. There are some people that really don't like having the pol's around, but I think that they add a lot to the mix.

We had two top tier presidential candidates with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, a second tier candidate with Chris Dodd, our Congressman Paul Hodes, and Governor John Lynch as the Grand Marshall of the parade.

I sat in an area with a mix of residents ranging from little kids to seniors. Everyone in our area seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Barack Obama came over to our area to shake hands, and it was really interesting. You could feel the electricity in the air when he came by, with just about everyone getting excited. Mitt Romney also shook hands in our area, but the response was much more muted.