Category: Berlin NH

Summer Rain

It’s pouring out, for the first time in weeks. The 90 plus degree temperatures of the last 10 days made everyone lethargic, me included, and this reprieve is a blessing.

But in that time, aside from some interesting developments in Berlin and Coös County, I’ve unearthed some interesting opportunities as well.

First, I’m headed to Peru for three weeks in August for vacation. The trip was originally going to be a fun/climbing trip, but now I might be profiling the area I’m going to for Climbing Magazine. I’m going to go, shoot photos and write something up, and they’ll possibly buy it on spec.

Second, I’m trying to embed with the 94th Military Police Company, out of Londonderry, this fall. They are going to Iraq to train security forces, and I’m going to go to tell New Hampshire what their soldiers are doing in the war zone. I am currently looking for angles on this, but it should be an interesting project.

And then additionally there is all that is going on in my coverage area. I’ve been hearing rumors about the Fraser mill sale, but nothing I can put into print yet. And the city is finding out just what ATV do for business this weekend—it’ll be interesting to see if the festival has a real impact on non-ATV-centric stores. Broadband will be getting a major boost from a $44.5 million federal grant, and the struggle for biomass continues. There is never a shortage of stuff going on.

The other day all the staff at work had a meeting—my editor and the reporters from the Democrat—the first of its kind. We bounced stories off of each other and discussed angles. It was a great discussion, because we generated ideas not one of us would have come up with alone. It made me realize how much of a handicap it is to work in an office of one. I make the decisions and see things from my perspective, and that perspective rarely gets challenged or questioned. But my perspective isn’t all encompassing, and the Androscoggin Valley would do well to have more viewpoints looking at facts and for stories. We all had ideas for each other that spurred new ideas, and in the end the sum was greater than the whole. As a reporter trying to inform residents that greater sum is invaluable.

I’m hoping we can try it more often, because it gave me some great ideas. My office at WMCC is great, but every once in a while it’s nice to share an office with a colleague.

What Size Should It Be?

I was up north today having a conversation about Berlin, and the person I was talking with said Berlin shouldn’t be a city. It’s 10,000 people, the person said, which is more appropriate to a town. The government and expenses are disproportionate to the population, the person said, and everyone should be doing everything they can to bring those things in line.

Councilor Robert Danderson has said that numerous times. There is no good way to solve the problem, however. How do you shed infrastructure? How do you drop the expenses associated with the remains of a city that flourished a half decade ago?

I am always amazed when I walk into the city hall. It’s a classic building, with stone steps and high doorways. It fits with the city’s industrial past, but not its present.

And possibly not its future. Berlin will grow again, but it will never get back to 25,000 people. It will see a boost from the prison and any biomass developments, in addition to recreational traffic, but it will never be the draw the pulp and paper industry was. So what should the city do?

The city council, like most elected bodies, should be averse to change. Rocking the boat reduces the chance of getting reelected, so it seems doubtful they will take dramatic steps to revamp the way municipal government is run without an emergency.

Councilor Danderson is always pointing out how much more expensive Berlin is to run than similar sized communities. Berlin faces additional challenges, being the largest community in the county, but there may be some ways to cut expenses. The problem is there is no way to do that while still maintaining services. Residents are going to have to pay for services, or else accept they live in a community shackled by its past. The city will have to pay for street repair no matter what, unless they can actually close established streets in Berlin. They will have to pay to rebuild bridges. They will have to pay to maintain aging buildings, because they don’t have the funds to restore them.

That’s why the Neighborhood Stabilization Program is so impressive: it’s allowing the city to demolish houses, to reduce what there is too much of. The city could to do the same thing with roads. It could to do consolidate its footprint as houses go down to fewer miles of sidewalk, fewer stormwater drains and less pipe in the ground. It could try to reel in its infrastructure so it matches the population.

The city is already trying to play the game. It is working increase its population while reduce its infrastructure. How far can it go with it? A shrinking business, some people say, is a failing business, but with Berlin it is the key to rebirth. Now the city needs to take its success with housing and apply it across all fields. Maybe then, as a town of 10,000 or 12,000, it will be poised to flourish again.

Green Shoots

Did anyone else go to the farmers’ market today? I got there an hour after it opened, and already all the produce was gone. The bread sold out shortly after I arrived, and the other goods were going fast. It was a good start to something Berlin needs: something to draw people in.

It exemplified some of what Berlin needs. I drive across Pinkham Notch every time I go to work. Yesterday was the first time I ever saw a sign at the intersection of Route 16 and 2 near the Gorham Commons directing traffic to Berlin. Who put it up? WREN.

It took a group of 40 and 50-something women to come up with the idea to direct traffic to Berlin. In the lead up to no other event have I ever seen a sign there, in over a year of coming to Berlin. Drive in to the 50’s? No. Northern Forest Rally? No. Heritage Festival? No.

Why is that? I’ve heard people say Berlin doesn’t have anything to offer, but when these types of things are happening it does. This is a major thoroughfare to the North Country, the major thoroughfare to the eastern section of Coös County. Why wouldn’t everyone advertise there?

Now, granted, everything didn’t run perfect. The signs didn’t say Berlin, I was told, and some people were looking around Gorham for the market, to no avail. But there was a buzz in the city today, and at least one business reported some extra sales. Unlike the forest rally and other events, this isn’t a one-time deal. This will be there next Thursday, and the Thursday after that, with more vendors and more produce and more traffic. If people get to recognize this it can be a real draw, and one that reoccurs every year.

These opportunities are all around the region. The North Country needs economic stimulus, but the assets are there, in the people, the place, and the atmosphere. Who is going to put on a concert series at Northern Forest Heritage Park? And if someone does are they going to advertise it in Bethel?

It was energizing to see the market doing so well today, and to see so many familiar faces there. It isn’t like most of the state, where “community” rings hollow. I shook more hands and knew more people than I would had the market been in my own town. Part of that is certainly the nature of my job, but part of it is Berlin. It is a friendly city, where people smile when they see you instead of walking on past. To so many North Country residents those qualities are unremarkable, but in reality they are an invaluable asset as well.

Bounty of Berlin

I started a post about all the jobs things I’ve been going to lately, but then I got sidetracked. I was writing it at one of the meetings, and I figured I had better pay attention—I might want to write down what some of the speakers were saying.

That didn’t actually happen, although it was a meeting worth reporting on. But it did get sidetracked, and then I moved on to this: the Bounty of Berlin.

It’s from SaVoir Flare, one of the newer Main Street stores with attitude. The owner, Elizabeth Ruediger, has great taste and sass. She sees Main Street’s potential, and she’s trying to make it happen. Today, while talking about the possibilities in the downtown, she kept using that line: the Bounty of Berlin.

The impact is in how different the line is from people’s perceptions of Berlin. People who live less than an hour away don’t give Berlin a second thought. Why not? Because they have written it off. Mrs. Ruediger’s suggestion is to get what the city offers into people’s faces. I couldn’t agree more.

At the meeting I was at this morning a representative from the state Department of Resources and Economic Development told the crowd the majority of their spending on advertising about the state is spent outside the state. They advertise New Hampshire in Philadelphia, New York and Europe, he said, not in Manchester, Nashua and Conway. When is Berlin going to start doing the same thing? When is the city going to start taking its future into its own hands?

“Bounty” is right. One July 1 the WREN farmers’ market will open, bringing more “bounty” to the city. Soon BIDPA is going to pour $400,000 into a park next to their building on Main Street. The flower boxes line the sidewalks and fill the vacancies left by the two buildings the city cleaned up. Berlin looks beautiful in the summer; it’s time to get people there.

I know there are empty buildings and storefronts. Very soon JC Penney will join them. But the city has to work with what it has, and with Tony’s Pizza open, the Tea Bird’s Cafe sign up (as well as NCIA’s), WREN and SaVoir Flare in and running and Rumorz still open for business things are on the upswing. Now is the time to get behind things, time to really get them going. Now is the moment to capitalize on the fantastic layout of the city, it’s walkability, the treasure that is Tondreau Park, the beautiful architecture and all that makes Berlin special. This may be the best moment the city has to start something new, so it better not let things pass it by.

Just remember: “bounty.” The attitude needs to change inside the city, but it needs to change outside as well. “The Bounty of Berlin” should be the new catchphrase for everyone who talks about the city. It’s time to change some minds. It’s time to keep this ball rolling.

Going Deeper…

I was doing some research into PSNH’s new PUC docket, and I realized something I knew all along: no one is willing to go deep. Or maybe no one has the capacity to go deep. Or the resources. I did my CPD/PSNH story for NHPR last week, and several people commented it didn’t get deep enough. I totally agree. Unfortunately NHPR doesn’t have the resources to devote half an hour to such a story. (I’m not sure NHPR listeners have the patience to listen to a half-hour version of it either.)

But there is always more. As I wrote the script I knew there was more, and as the news editor cut it down and revised it to fit the time slot I knew I was going to get to say less.

But what’s the solution? PSNH already gives significantly to NHPR, and so do New Hampshire residents (read: rate payers). Interest groups are contributing what they can. Which one should we ask to give more to allow for more depth in reporting that affects them? And what implications would that have on the stories? (The host read a PSNH underwriting tag about 10 minutes before my story aired on Wednesday night. I had to laugh when I heard it—nice coincidence.)

Norm said something on here about the model for democracy being broken. I don’t agree; I agree with the Winston Churchill quote more: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

The same can be said for journalism. It isn’t perfect. In fact, someone at the IGA on Monday told me they can’t believe how bad the paper is (they were talking about the daily). I wish I knew a better answer. I wish there was a way to allow people to take part in democracy, to get engaged in the debates, that didn’t neglect the depth.

I’ve been trying to figure out how I could change that in Berlin. The fact is being a reporter is more than a full-time job; news doesn’t happen on the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule. But running after the day’s or the week’s news doesn’t allow for enough context, enough depth, to tell people what they really need to know. It takes those parts that get edited out to really understand what’s going on.

So how do you revive what lays on the cutting room floor? I’m not sure. As a staff of one, freelancing and reporting via cell phone and Internet, it’s tough to see where their is room for expansion. I see the need, but not the market. How do you make it profitable for a paper like the Reporter to reopen an office in Berlin, expand the staff and increase coverage. How do you pay for a three thousand word story about the ins and outs of energy? How do you make that argument to a publisher, who is running the paper as a business, not a philanthropic endeavor?

I don’t know, but I see the need. I recognize the criticism my story got as valid, but I have to take it as criticism of a broken system. I would have loved to add the details, but there simply wasn’t time. How do you make time? That’s the real question.

Budgeting Berlin

The council passed a budget last night that laid off six city employees, all of them teachers. The police department, fire department and public works department all avoided layoffs.

It was a close finish to the most important part of the council’s year. If the council’s goals are the same next year they will face an even more challenging scenario, but they pulled it off this year.

A representative from one of the city employee’s unions told me last night they could have found an additional $300,000 in savings, but after the council rejected the teachers’ proposal no one else wanted to be next. That might be ingredient that enables the city to keep the tax rate flat next year.

$200,000 made it in to take down dilapidated properties the city got through tax deeding, and $200,000 more for street repair. While those are minuscule amounts compared to what the city needs the council is clearly committed to upgrading the city’s aging infrastructure, though it has limited resources.

So if you live in Berlin, your taxes shouldn’t go up and your services shouldn’t go way down. The battles may have left some bad blood (a firefighter spoke last night with some strong words for the council) and class sizes are going to go up, but the fire department isn’t getting any smaller.

Now the city just has to expand its tax base. Easier said than done.

On another note, if you’re looking for an update on the CPD/PSNH dispute listen to NHPR tonight. My story about how some people feel PSNH is deciding Berlin’s future through its control of the energy markets should air around 5:45 p.m. It will have the latest on the easement issue. I talked to a number of councilors about this, but I tried to restrict the voices to those of people in the middle, instead of ardent CPD supporters or opponents. I only had four minutes to explain years, but I think it came out well. Let me know what you think.

A PPA and more

It’s official: PSNH has reached an agreement with Laidlaw Berlin Biopower to buy their power. The PUC still has to approve the PPA to ensure it is in the best interests of the rate payers, but this is a big step toward getting financing for a major generation project for any private developer.

At the same time there are some new roadblocks to CPD’s project, which will be in next week’s paper (Tuesday night meetings vs. weekly paper schedule). Again it involves PSNH. Energy, it again seems, will be a big part of the coming Reporter.

I’m also seeing if I can do an NHPR story on CPD and Laidlaw.

At the end of Wednesday night’s meeting there was a short debate about the mayor’s position on the two plants, as well as those of several other councilors, which didn’t make it into my council story last week. I had to follow up on a major story I’d done two weeks before, and by the end of it I didn’t have room for a new version of on an old argument. Not that the argument is unimportant, but I simply didn’t have room.

In fact, a lot happened on Monday night that didn’t make it into either paper. That’s how it always happens. There just isn’t enough space dedicated to news to capture all that goes on at those meetings. Those decisions are made by publishers, but reporters, editors and citizens have to live with it.

It makes me wonder about all mediated messages. It’s impossible to follow all that’s going on, but it is imperative residents stay informed. The media doesn’t have room for all of it, but unfortunately in Berlin there is seldom any other account of events. When Mayor Grenier asked for public comment on Monday night at the start and end of the meeting the only person in the audience was Bobby Haggart. There funny looks from councilors who recognized the absurdity of the moment.

Thus my version of what happened, and that of the daily’s reporter (both inevitably incomplete), make up the story of Monday night’s meeting. The councilors also have their opinions of the discussion, but their views reflect their politics. Residents don’t have access to a complete, unbiased view of the meeting. A few more first hand accounts would be phenomenal.

(Some people would say the meeting minutes provide this, but I assure you they are incomplete; not in content, perhaps, but in emotion. The debates often involve backstory and personnel interactions that the secretary doesn’t write down. It’s like reading a script versus watching a movie—one doesn’t compare to the other.)

People come out for issues, but not to ensure their city is run to their liking. For day to day decisions, often only the reporters (and Mr. Haggart) are watching. And there just isn’t enough newsprint available to capture it all.

Do you ever notice the daily has three stories on Wednesday about what happened on Monday? They could do more, too, if they had a bigger news hole. It’s amazing how much goes on in the evenings at city hall, and how few residents are engaged.

But then again, maybe the silence is approval. The budget hearing last month was much quieter than I’d expected, considering teachers, cops, public works employees and firefighters are all getting laid off. Maybe Berlin is OK with that. Maybe even thought the papers can’t get the word out people are confident the politicians are doing a fine job. Aside from the occasional street name change perhaps everyone is happy.

That seems like a stretch. I’ve talked to many people who don’t like what’s going on there, but then I never see them at public comment times. Everyone who cares about the city must know the papers do not have the space to answer all the pressing questions, and residents have to take a keen interest if they want to see Berlin thrive. The best stories develop largely through interactions with residents and seeing what people care, often at these meetings. Media doesn’t act alone. It takes engaged citizens to generate engaging reporting. And it isn’t enough to just read the stories. People need to show up.

Egg…

So I went to a couple businesses locally to see how the ATV trail did on opening weekend and over the long weekend, and I realized I misconstrued something in my last post. Every outdoor recreation-focused business in Berlin is in the same chicken or the egg situation, not just those doing “green” activities.

Even the “low hanging fruit” in Berlin is in need of infrastructure. The businesses that cater to ATV riders and snowmobiles are fighting to raise awareness of the opportunities and to expand the number of participants in their markets. Their challenge, like those of every other outdoor-centric business, is that Coös County isn’t known for recreation. They need that reputation to grow in order to be successful.

They are further along, however, with an event coming up and some regional press, but they are early in the process. Everything else is even further behind, but in the last post I made it sound like ATVing was already a sure bet in Berlin. It’s not. It’s still growing and hoping to become an established industry.

But it is growing. It has a future. Now the rest of “outdoor recreation” needs to catch up.

iSymposium

I cut out early at the end of day two of the Coös Symposium to race south on Route 16 to Berlin for the budget hearing. I felt I was leaving an abstraction of Coös County to go to Coös County, the real thing. I have to admit what I have missed most while at the Coös Symposium is the people that make up Coös County.

That may seem like a strange description, but the Symposium has been more a place to talk about solutions and strategies for remaking Coös than an opportunity to connect with the region. The makeup, I would estimate, is roughly one-half Coös residents and one-half outsiders like me. The conference lacks enough influence of the most important asset that makes the region special: its people. There is more creative energy and positivity than I usually encounter working in Berlin, but outsiders don’t have the uniquely Coös perspective that sets the region apart. It takes a critical mass of North Country residents to make the environment truly northern, and right now it’s still got the taste of southern.

I would love to see the symposium happen next time in Lancaster or Colebrook or Berlin, with the discussions held at restaurants and businesses and schools. I’d love to see this group interacting more with the residents of Coös, bringing their ideas, enthusiasm and solutions to the people who need them instead of keeping them cooped up inside grand hotels.

Let me make make myself clear: I love the discussions. But when I went to Berlin and spoke with a city councilor who had to turn down his invitation it became clear the glaring deficit in this model. He would have loved to have taken part, but he couldn’t make it because three days away is more than most people can manage. Like many enthusiastic Berlin residents, he has passion for the region, but he lacks the broad understanding of the issues that would enable him to better govern and promote the region. The conversations that have been happening at the Balsams would be perfect for him, but with a job, family and obligations he couldn’t manage it.

How many people could make that same argument? How easily does this model shed the participation of those who need to be most engaged: the next generation of leaders who are too busy living their lives to go for a vacation/workshop in the mountains.

How can the symposium better engage with Coös and those it purports to want to support? How can the event be made more accessible?

My pitch for next year: hold it in town. The conversations, connections and contributions this event can make are invaluable, but it would be better served if those conversations occured where the problems lie. Invite everyone, and try to connect with those least likely to see eye to eye. The energy from the conference is palpable, and that enthusiasm shouldn’t live just at the Balsams. What Coös really needs is a symposium infused into its being, something that can push the ball fast enough that Coös momentum starts to overtake itself.

The Long and Short of It

It was a long story week this week, and now I’m facing a short week with tight deadlines.

I started with one story idea for something in depth, but midway through the week several other things butted in. How the paper comes together is so interesting, because it grows out randomness and circumstance. For the past two weeks there have been dozens of opportunities for photos and stories; all winter I was plagued by too few. The weather warms and the stories come out of the woodwork. And then I’m choosing which one to cover, not trying to uncover something to write about.

This week I had to threaten a Freedom of Information Act request as part of the first story I had in mind. Along the way the details I got from that request fell through the cracks because of everything else going on. The basics made it in the paper, of course, but the real meat didn’t get in. Still, the story was more than 1,000 words, the stated limit for the Reporter.

Then another piece blew the limit out of the water. But when police are running metal detectors over every student in a local school it isn’t easy to distill that down.

Then I had a meeting with representatives from the Union of Concerned Scientists. The story I got out of that was another monster, approaching the 1,000 word limit.

I wish there was some “objective,” easy formula for how a paper comes together, but there isn’t. Decisions have to be made on every level, and some of those decisions come down to logistical restrictions. I’ve got proms, award ceremonies, honor rolls and dedications to photograph, firefighters to interview, councilors to pester and utility spokespeople to call. I’m thrilled when every once in a while a good story comes out with my name attached. I often wonder what this job would be like if there were an office, with colleges and desks and mailboxes. The Reporter is a tag-team effort across miles of fiber-optic cable. The quality of it could undoubtedly improve, but for what it is I’m proud. My editor and I, along with a few other awesome reporters, put two papers together every week. I’ve seen life rafts with more personnel.

This week is short, and I’m going to be cramming like a college freshman to get everything in. I have the Coös Symposium starting tomorrow, and because of the holiday my deadline is Friday. How much news can I pull together in a day and a half? I’ve got a bit going already, but I’m not sure. The big news of the last two weeks will hopefully keep rolling. The budget hearing on Wednesday will likely generate at least one piece, but I’m going to have to search for other stories on limited time. When it’s long it’s long, it seems, and this week it’s short. But at least there is news at all.