It’s Just An Election…

A lot of people looking for a progressive Berlin are upset about the outcome of the election. I have to ask: Why?
Perhaps the candidate you wanted to win didn’t, but does that really matter? The city still has $4.3 million to take down or fix up dilapidated properties. It still has funky new stores opening on Main Street. It still has a brand new ATV trail, which people for years have been fighting for. The roof is still going up on Fagin’s Pub, and Tony’s Pizza is still newly opened. There is more good than bad going on in Berlin, and protesting effective democracy doesn’t seem to behoove people calling themselves “forward thinking.”
People came out to vote on the seventh: 40 percent of registered voters cast ballots. Paul Grenier’s message about jobs connected; many people have struggled in the last two years, more for reasons affecting the nation than what is going on in Berlin. I’ve heard numerous people say Berlin is turning around, and I don’t think changing a few councilors matters.
Honestly, I’m excited to see some of the faces that got elected to council get to work. Both Ryan Landry and Tim Cayer were appointed to their seats, and now they have the people’s support to back up their positions. Mr. Landry has a passion for Berlin, and I agree with Paul Grenier’s comment that he is a “rising star.” It was several months ago Mr. Landry was talking about being proactive with the property BIDPA acquired on Main Street, and here it is November and BIDPA is considering similar steps.
David Poulin is another person who I’m interested to see get to work. His speech at the debate was fiery and sharp, and he may come into city hall looking to push the progressive policies he espoused.
These people will be fighting for a progressive Berlin, and it’s likely it will continue to improve.

The council will be an interesting mix this session. Councilor Tom McCue will join the three councilors listed above to make a pretty united front. Councilors Lucie Remillard and Mark Evans will be swing voters on some issues, but the fact is I don’t know that Councilors-elect Bob Danderson and Mike Rozak are going to create a united front with Mayor-elect Grenier. On Laidlaw they have a consensus, but the fact is the city does not have much to do with that process for the foreseeable future. As everyone says, the ball is in Laidlaw’s court. The big issue before the council is keeping taxes down, which, quite frankly, every councilor seems committed to do. There are differences on how infrastructure spending will proceed, but in some ways the $4.5 million will already be spent by January. Capital improvements are going to move forward. If the $7 million TIGER grant comes through it will be even more sweeping improvements than residents imagine.

The election was a wake up call to progressively minded people. Berlin cannot afford to leave the laid-off mill worker behind. It can’t even afford to give the impression it is leaving the mill worker behind. “Vote Jobs” may be a hard promise to deliver, but over a two week campaign season it’s enticing rhetoric that finds support among people without jobs.
Mr. Grenier is in favor of both biomass projects, though he is more enthusiastic about Laidlaw than CPD. But neither plant will be operational before November 2011, when he will be up for reelection. The federal prison will open next fall and do good things for the economy, but many of the jobs won’t be for Berlin residents.
There is no easy answer. The long range view or the short range view—neither helps an unemployed worker tomorrow. But people and organizations within the city are taking steps to do something about the challenges Berlin faces, and they aren’t affected by council.
The Roger Brooks initiative, the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the RSA 155-B process, the new role BIDPA is developing for itself, the district heating plans, the 21/21 project—all of these are moving forward regardless of the electorate’s choices. Many of these have been supported by several councils, and they will continue to be supported in the future.
It is important for people who feel under-represented on the council to have a voice. Paul Grenier connected with people who are looking for short term gain. If he is able to deliver a substantial number of jobs by 2011 he will deserve reelection. If he can’t he will leave out-of-work voters feeling alienated, but that’s better than disregarding their votes today. Mr. Grenier clings to the city’s heritage, and he used it to rally support. And no one can deny on some topics he is right: the city can’t afford any more laid-off high school educated 50 year olds. What would they do for work next?
The current council didn’t disregard these voters, but they were unable to make them understand how the council’s long range plans benefited them.
David Bertrand had a hard time connecting with those voters, with his Ivy League education and his good job. I don’t know the demographics of Berlin, but it is likely there are more people who share Mr. Grenier’s background than Mr. Bertrand’s. Mr. Bertrand has great ideas for the city, but he needed to make better connections with the people he is trying to help to win. In the meantime, Mr. Grenier’s experience and rhetoric may have propelled him through this election, but his ability to deliver will likely make it a challenge to replicate his success in 2011.

Or, if things change fast enough in Berlin, he may be fine. The economy was bad in 2007, when Mr. Bertrand defeated Mr. Danderson resoundingly. It was still bad in 2009 when Mr. Grenier defeated Mr. Bertrand with similar numbers. If the economy rebounds before the next election Mr. Grenier will likely keep the seat. If not, the urge to toss the bastards out will probably sweep him aside, assuming someone decides to run against him. Regardless, however, Berlin’s fortune is changing.
Councilor Ron Goudreau said at Monday’s council meeting he’d like the city to have authority to fine property owners who don’t clean up after a fire. It would give them added incentive to get to work sooner, he said, and stop the problem so clearly illustrated on lower Main Street.
But fines don’t work, City Manager Pat MacQueen and Councilor McCue said, because all to often they are levied upon people who can’t pay. The city, in effect, is powerless in this case.
But at the same time it isn’t. When that $4.3 million makes its way through the city in the next two years it will change the face of Berlin. It will remove many of the buildings that stain city streets. It will push up the property values and make the city more inviting.
All the sudden, when a building burns down, the plot of land it used to sit on will be worth more than the cleanup. Land owners will have incentive to clean the property up, even if just to sell it. It won’t be worth it to walk away anymore, and the cleanups will take weeks or months instead of years.
And all this is because of the city, regardless of the council. Berlin is changing, no matter who wins office. Don’t worry about the direction of city because it’s already moving, and there is nothing that can get in its way.

WREN Migration

Members of Berlin Industrial Development and Park Authority met with the Women’s Rural Entrepreneurial Network last night. It was AWESOME!
Why? Because it was a group of beer-drinking men with wine-drinking women. Confident, capable, smart, funny, energetic, creative entrepreneurial wine-drinking women. Just the kind of women (and people) Berlin needs to kick start the next version of the city’s economy.
Berlin has those people now. I’ve said before, people like Andre Caron and Pam Laflamme fit into that category. So does Stacia Roberge, Sylvia Poulin, and Tim Cayer. David Poulin and Ryan Landry, along with Mr. Cayer and others are trying to bring this creativity to city government. There are people looking to create their own success in Berlin, thinking beyond the “mill mentality” and making things happen. But the fact is the city needs more people like them; it needs to figure out how to support and produce them.
WREN has amazing resources, which they said helped transform Bethlehem. They are resources that would give Berlin residents the tools to move into the 21st century, and help shake it lose from its industrial past.
(There will be an in depth report of the discussion that went on at WREN headquarters in next week’s Berlin Reporter.)
The members of BIDPA were receptive to a partnership with WREN, if unsure what they bring to the table. What I see BIDPA brings to the table is property. They could give WREN a building so they could open an operation in town, and the long term effects would far outweigh the monetary value of a property. There are problems with that, because then every non-profit in the city would approach BIDPA to give them a building, but few if any could do what WREN can for the Berlin’s economic future.
The discussion between these two groups was awkward and halting, but it was moving toward a shared goal—to bring entrepreneurialism to Berlin. The discussion lasted about an hour, but it was clear it could have gone on for days. Berlin is aching for this type of resource, and WREN needs to understand the challenge it’s looking at.
People who were trained to work in a mill can be trained to work for themselves, but they need to learn what it is they don’t know. This partnership would give people the tools to look outside the box, something they have never had to do.
Last week I heard a commentary on Marketplace from Charles Handy, the founder of the London Business School, about the new economy, and how people have to learn how to make their own work. They need to learn skills they can offer people that people will pay for, he said, because the time of employers taking care of everything is over. Berlin understands this better than most places, but its isolation keeps people from gaining the tools to reinvent themselves. The community college is a great resource, but if you can’t afford it what good is it?
Enter this new model, where training cost $40 instead of $4,000. There is opportunity here to build the 21st century workforce and mindset in Berlin, without abandoning those already there.
Mr. Handy learned these new skills at 49. He said you are never too old to reinvent yourself, which is something Berlin is hoping to prove. But it needs the energy, the creativity WREN can bring. It needs to figure out how to get WREN there, and sooner rather than later.

Berlin, Berlin and Istanbul

A lot of my time in Berlin is spent in the car since the Reporter has no dedicated office here. As a result I listen to a lot of NHPR. Today the news was consistently about Berlin, Germany, and the fall of the Berlin wall. The wall fell twenty years ago today (I was eight), but it still affects the people who lived through the transition.
I can’t remember the exact quote, but the NPR newscaster paraphrased Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying Berlin has to remember its past while pursuing a new future.
The debates that have raged lately in Berlin, N.H., have carried the same rhetoric. I spoke to Paul Grenier last night about the election, and he said one of the things motivated him most was the council’s decision to change the city seal. He said in the past that the seal was a tie to the city’s heritage, and the council disrespected that heritage when they voted to change it.
David Bertrand argued the council was not disrespecting the city’s past but instead was looking to the city’s future. The stack on the city seal was a reminder of the old Berlin, and this administration is one looking to create the new Berlin.
Remember your past while pursuing a new future. What does that mean? How carefully do you have to tread on the past to keep from desecrating it? What should be the litmus test for “progress,” and how much of a loss of heritage is acceptable?
There is bound to be change. On another program today, I heard a story about in Istanbul how middle class people are displacing the poor. They are moving into the city and taking over neighborhoods, pushing out people who have lived there all their lives. The picture of progress is good for some, but for others represents the loss of the community they knew.
Berlin is launching into a balancing act. It needs to embrace change, because the economic base the city relied on for a century isn’t coming back, and it also needs to remember its heritage to a sufficient degree that residents don’t get offended. History can become a problem when too much pride is attached to it, but at the same time it shouldn’t be dropped without consideration. Add to this that many residents are reluctant to face the challenging times they live in, as evidenced by the recent election, and elected officials will have to tread carefully.
Mr. Grenier drew an ominous picture of the Berlin economy, one that I think ignores many positives, but the picture connected with many residents. They, like him, may pine for when the mill was spewing yellow dust on the city and there were more jobs that there were working adults. Those residents may be tough to bring into a discussion about the changing economy, and they may not be open to changing the image of a city they grew up in.
How do you preserve a community that is wasting away? What changes do you make? The people who stay behind might be the most stubborn ones; how do you get them on board with those changes?
These questions, I think, are why the election went the way it did. The current council was proactive, and they worked with a long-range plan in mind. There isn’t much they could do about the world economy, but they suffered the consequences nonetheless.
They got caught off kilter on this tenuous path of heritage, future and change, at least according to the voters. I’m not sure what sticking to the path looks like, because my heritage is much different than Berlin’s. I am interested to see what the new council brings to the table, and how the electorate responds to their attempt to walk the line. They gave Mr. Bertrand two years to fulfill his promises, and when they weren’t to voters’ expectations they tossed him out. Mr. Grenier needs to deliver jobs in his two years, or he’ll face the same fate. Two years is not a lot of time to affect change in municipal government; I’ll be interested the see how he does.

Berlin is like a thousand communities around the country and around the world, all trying to find the right path forward. I hear fiery election rhetoric and read the online mudslinging and I get pessimistic, but then I take a ride into the city. I talk to people on the streets and in the businesses, and I watch the progress every day. It brings back my confidence for the future. Berlin too alive to pin down. It has too much passion and too many people who care to continue to wane. I realize the debates online and in city hall are between people for whom the city drives them. They will continue to boil over, and in so doing they will restore life to Berlin. That ride into the city is a rejuvenating experience for me, a validating one. It reminds me of why I love to report from Berlin, and what I know its future can be. I know not everyone sees it, but its there. Just walk downtown and you’ll see.

Good Press

I was driving around today and heard the newscast on NHPR mention the ATV trail opening tomorrow. In fact, I heard them mention it two different times. Residents of Berlin notice when statewide media report the fires that happen all too often in town. It’s worth pointing out when they are covering the good things as well. While it is usually WMUR people mention when they talk about this phenomenon, they aren’t the only media outlet in the state. Berlin needs to fight the image battle in whatever way they can.

Weather looks good for tomorrow. I’ll be up to cover the opening ceremonies. Hopefully some other media outlets will as well.

Update: I just took a look online, it looks like the story made it out on the AP wire. That’s a good sign people will show up. Heck with statewide media, that’s nationwide.

And I’ve noticed the war has broken out on here about CPD, PSNH and Laidlaw. Wow. Impressive. I’m still waiting to get the official transcript to get a clearer picture of what happened on Tuesday, but I’ve had a few good conversations about the issue. I don’t really worry, however about what people think any of it means. In the end the PUC will likely decide exactly what it means.
I received some vitriolic responses to my posting the report I got. As I’ve said before LPJ isn’t the news outlet I work for. I don’t print rumors in the paper. (I did, however, put Rumorz in the paper.) On LPJ I post whatever I like, including things I haven’t researched. In any such post I’ll point that out, but if you go through and read my posts and think its all news it’s you who has experienced a failure in judgment. In fact I’ve never claimed this site to be a replacement for the paper; it’s something I do for fun people interested in Berlin frequent to supplement their experience with the city. If you don’t like it feel free to direct your browser elsewhere. If you enjoy the discussion, feel free to contribute.
The debate about this one issue is so funny to me. The same day I posted the PUC comments I posted about a building collapsing on Mason Street. I thought it might have been part of the housing initiative effort. I tweeted congratulations to Andre Caron for taking down another one. I was wrong. The building collapsed due to a clogged roof drain, and it was torn down unexpectedly on the fire chiefs orders. I updated the information as I learned it, and no one complained I was shirking my journalistic duties.
Then I post a report I got about the hearings, clearly including the fact that the report is unsubstantiated in the post. Almost immediately get a comment from Laidlaw CEO Michael Bartoszek commenting about my “bad journalism.”
Bad journalism? Really? Which one of my stories in the Reporter was biased? I once was accused of bias because of the questions I asked someone I was interviewing. Really? Bias? Which one of my stories in the Reporter was biased? I don’t think people making these accusations understand what they are talking about when it comes to bias and bad journalism—I’d have to put it in the paper for those terms to apply.

I imagine Mr. Bartoszek is trying to protect his company’s reputation among investors, which commonly check out LPJ. I fully encourage him to tell his side of the story, either on here or anywhere else. And maybe if everyone understands the roll of this site it will relieve me of having to address accusations of bias or bad journalism. If you are coming to LPJ for the news you’re in the wrong spot—check out the Berlin Reporter if that’s what you’re looking for. If you are interested in hearing one more perspective on a dynamic city in the midst of change, that’s what this site is about. I have never billed it as a news site, or as a replacement for either the Reporter or the daily paper. If you want to add to the conversation, I’d love to hear your view. If you want to bitch about my trust fund (Huge. Really.) grow up and learn to read a newspaper.

By the way, I do have an opinion about events in Berlin. It would be impossible to spend as much time there as I do and not. I am not convinced biomass in the center of the city would kill it’s viability as a recreation destination. In fact, I think Berlin could cash in on green energy to improve its image, whether that is on the fringe of the city or in the center.
I don’t know if there is enough wood to support the two plants, but I don’t know there isn’t. Many experts aren’t sure, so I don’t write off the project because of that.
I think CPD does a good job of holding the city’s hand through a process that is often confusing and complex. Bill Gabler comes to Berlin almost daily and is happy to explain what CPD is doing every step of the way. Laidlaw could learn a lot from CPD’s approach. In northern New Hampshire having a face attached to a company goes a long way. Lou Bravakis seems like a great guy, and if he were in the community to the same extent as Mr. Gabler it would alleviate a lot of residents’ concerns.
Laidlaw could remove many of the hurdles in front of them if it wished. They could remove them because they erected them.
I am not, like many people who post comments here, dead set against the project. I think if Laidlaw were to approach Berlin with a bit more transparency, with a better recognition that this is a serious issue for a small city used to getting screwed by industrial interests, they could bring many opponents to their side.
It’s like Laidlaw doesn’t recognize Berlin has been scarred in the past. The city is like an abused child, both angry and scared by people approaching it and likely to lash out. It takes deliberate, cautious movements to move forward in Berlin and not raise the ire of residents. CPD has done that well. Laidlaw could follow suit.
They could easily fix their PR problem with a little heavy hand-holding, instead of another press release. Explain what happened in Ellicottville. Show up to city council meetings. Agree to provide a small percentage each year for community giving (it will likely reduce your taxes anyway). Talk about wood and workers and location like they are something other than statistics. In Berlin that mill site is precious. Some people hate it, others love it, but for everyone it is central to their identity. The people of Berlin, as Councilor Ryan Landry said, are more comfortable when that stack is puffing smoke. Don’t try to elbow your way in, Laidlaw; show people what you’re doing so they have confidence in you.
I don’t think Laidlaw recognizes how closely their project treads to the soul of the city. If they did maybe from the start they would have taken a different approach. Of course they want to make money, but I imagine they also want to be part of the community they are located in. They haven’t done a good job integrating thus far, but I believe that can change. All it would take is a little effort.

So Unique, In So Many Ways

The roof of a building at the corner of Pleasant Street and Mason Street collapsed yesterday. The public works director, fire chief and code enforcement officer assessed the structure and declared it unsafe. They called the company demolishing the southern burnt out building on Main Street and asked if they could use the excavator for a few minutes. The excavator drove up Main Street, demolished the building with the faulty roof, and then drove back down Main Street to finish its job there.

By lunchtime it was over.

Around that time the news director for NHPR sent me an email asking if I wanted to do a 45 second piece on the building collapse for the night’s newscast. He closed the email with, “Not a good sign for that tourist destination,” a reference to the story I did last week. In most circumstances it would be true, but he didn’t understand Berlin. I don’t understand Berlin either, but I am familiar enough with the city that my gut reaction to the situation was it was positive.

I first learned of the roof collapse on Twitter, from pictures posted by Katie Paine and others. The first thing I did was shoot off an email to city staff to ask if I’d missed a property scheduled for demolition. I even posted a note on Twitter congratulating Housing Coordinator Andre Caron for taking down another one. It wasn’t until I got an email back that I found out it wasn’t planned.

I told NHPR I would happily do the story, but I wasn’t going to take the angle it was a bad thing for the city. He was reacting as anyone would—it’s hard to imagine a building collapsing is a good thing—but I explained that things are different in Berlin.
That the city doesn’t have to pay to tear down the building is a good thing. That the city didn’t have to go through the RSA 155-B process is a good thing. That the city was able to reduce it’s excess properties by one is a good thing. From the point of view of the city, if all the vacant buildings could spontaneously give way without hurting anyone it would be a huge relief.
But think about that if you aren’t from Berlin. Think about that if you live in a city with too few properties. I have heard numerous complaints about how the southern part of the state ignores and denigrates the North Country. I don’t think that’s true; I think they simply don’t understand it.

When StoryCorps came to Berlin NHPR announced the dates it would be there and told people to sign up online. I did a story on the StoryCorps coming to the city for the Reporter, so I called NHPR to see how things were going. The woman I talked to said they weren’t getting a lot of people signing up and they didn’t understand why not. I told her they need a phone number in addition to the website because a lot of the people they were trying to reach aren’t on the Internet. When I saw her at the opening she thanked me for helping them connect with residents, something they hadn’t been effective at before.

Last night at city hall, as the election results were coming in, people were speaking in French. That is a wonderful piece of heritage I hope Berlin never loses, though it is doubtlessly difficult to preserve today. It is a facet of the community I notice all the time, and it’s something that makes me smile, simply because its a mystery to me.

To the rest of the state, all of Berlin speaks French, and it isn’t something they understand. In a lot of ways non-industrial economic development stopped south of the notches. A city so rooted in its traditions and its heritage is not something a society of transients is familiar with. What might make perfect sense anywhere else in the state is turned on its head in Berlin. It is a city unlike any other.

The news director asked me if I really thought it was worth the time to report the story of the building, seeing as people in Berlin didn’t see it as a disaster. Yes, I said, it is worth reporting, but not because a building collapsed. It’s news because it isn’t a disaster. It’s news because as the city fights its way out of the economic malaise it has been in for the last several decades it creates situations that defy rationality. It’s news because people are happy to see one more building go down, because it signals the rebirth of the city. It’s news because the rest of the state doesn’t understand this, and because they don’t understand they don’t know what to think of the city.

But it isn’t news that can fit into a 45 second spot. It isn’t a story easily told in a few short sentences. It is a story that goes back a century, and it is a story that happened just yesterday. I watch it unfold, and most of it I can’t put into the newspaper. It is more broad, more emotive and more powerful than I can capture in print. It is truly a spectacular transformation, one residents have been yearning for for generations. Berlin is shedding its skin, growing into a new self even it doesn’t understand. I will never be able to finish telling that story.

But I will continue to try.

The Next Administration

At the mayoral debate there was one question I thought was better than the others, and I didn’t asked it. Barbara Tetreault asked the candidates how they were going to unify the city, which has been polarized for years over the Laidlaw issue. Now Paul Grenier is going to be taking the reins of an administration as divided as the city. Even the alliances he formed to win this election are ones that may not play out well once they are in council chambers: Mike Rozak said at the debate he doesn’t agree with Mr. Grenier on much, but he agrees with him on the Laidlaw issue.
The council will have to get over the rough campaign. As I’ve said several times, I didn’t expect it to get this contentious, but from what people have told me this is mild by Berlin standards. But Councilor Ryan Landry had harsh word for Mr. Grenier at the council meeting several weeks ago. Soon the two men will sit together every Monday night. Councilor David Poulin was outspoken in his support of the incumbent council at the debate; now he will be joined by three of the people he criticized. Mr. Grenier, Mr. Rozak and Mr. Danderson blasted the current council pretty hard over the campaign. The three will soon join the six incumbents—somehow they’ll have to move forward.
Someone said as the election results came in that the old was going to have to learn to work with the new, and the city would get the best of both. Let’s hope that’s the case. What is so interesting is the traditional alliances have been shattered by one issue, and people who would normally support one another are on opposite sides.
I’m interested to see how Mr. Rozak and Councilor Mark Evans work together. Both are fiscal conservatives, but Mr. Evans backed Mr. Goudreau in the election. I’m also interested to see how Mr. Grenier and Mr. Rozak interact. I don’t know much of either man’s history, but as I understand it they don’t really come from the same side of most issues.
And then there is this new group of Mr. Poulin, Mr. Landry and Mr. Cayer. These councilors are trying to make the city think and act in new ways, ways the newly elected mayor and councilors do not agree with. They will have to work with the old guard to get anything done.
It will definitely be an interesting time in Berlin. It isn’t clear what the council can do to aid the Laidlaw project’s progress, or how the new councilors will fulfill their Vote Jobs promise before the next election, seeing as no biomass plant is likely to be operational before 2011.
In all, there was definitely a shift in the leadership, but not enough of a shift to make a 180 degree turn. It may be a contentious two years at city hall.
Or, as Ms. Tetreault suggested, the mayor might find a way to unite the city in order to move forward. Berlin can only hope.

Results

Right now, wards one and two are in.

Ryan Landry won ward one.

Bob Danderson won ward two.

Paul Grenier won both wards. Still waiting on wards three and four.

Update: Ward four goes to David Poulin and Tim Cayer. Paul Grenier won this ward as well.

Update: Ward three goes to Mike Rozak. Paul Grenier won this ward as well. Berlin has a new mayor.

PUC Madness

OK, it’s election night, a building collapsed and was demolished today, and the PUC held a pre-hearing concerning the Clean Power/PSNH dispute.
Crazy news day, making for a crazy news week. I didn’t make it to the PUC hearing in Concord, but what I’m hearing is that PSNH told the PUC they have no deal with Laidlaw. None. Zero.
I wasn’t there, but that’s the report I got. I’m going to look into it more, but the city has been operating for more than a year on the assumption they did, as per a press release sent out late September 2008. If they don’t I don’t know what that means. I have to look into it further, but that’s my understanding of what PSNH said at the hearing. At this point I don’t have anymore information.

Election Night

The election results should be announced by 8:30 p.m. tonight. LPJ will post the numbers immediately, and the Berlin Reporter will have a wrap-up tomorrow on their website. Again, because of the day of the week it won’t be in the print edition, but we’ll have the story the same time as the daily. In fact, if all you want are the numbers, LPJ will have them up by 9 p.m.

Sometimes makes you wonder how paper papers can last, with instant reporting capabilities.

In that vein, I’ll also put the results out on Twitter. Twitter is a great source for realtime news. Like right now, there is yet another old building coming down in the city. You can check out photos here. Right on Mason Street, one I wasn’t aware was coming down. I’m looking to find out some info, but without a doubt it adds one more positive sign to all those stirring around Berlin lately.

Update: The roof collapsed in the night and had to be torn down.