Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
With the deadline for petitions for spots on this year's town election ballot passed, it looks like several positions on the School Board will remain empty. In contrast, open Selectboard and Library Trustee positions will be hotly contested.
No one is running for the three-year Rockingham school director position previously held by Thomas Brennan, who is not returning.
Only one candidate has thrown a hat in the ring for the two-year position: Richard “Rick” Holloway. However, Colin James and Sherri Arvin will contest the open one-year seat.
On the Bellows Falls Union High School Board, incumbent Jim “Jiggs” McAuliffe is running unopposed for the three-year seat. The one-year seat previously held by Russell Capron, who died on Jan. 14, has one candidate: Cindy Anne Santorelli.
Rockingham Development Director Francis “Dutch” Walsh testified on Jan. 23 before the New Hampshire House Public Works and Highways Committee on a bill introduced to the New Hampshire Legislature by Rep. John Cloutier, D-Claremont. The bill, HB1205, would put reconstruction of the Vilas Bridge that links Bellows Falls and...
A civil complaint has been filed in Windham Superior Court against the Rockingham Free Public Library (RFPL) trustees by former library director Célina Houlné. Houlné, who was terminated as library director on Aug. 29, 2013, seeks reinstatement, compensation for lost income and benefits, and payment for attorneys' fees. She...
Board approves budget for Town Meeting ROCKINGHAM-The Selectboard has approved a $5 million fiscal year 2015 budget as presented, with $4 million to be raised by taxes. Neither the library budget nor the social service agency contributions were included in the town budget, and will be considered and voted on in separate articles. Voters will consider the budget at Annual Town Meeting in March. Town to consider Arch Bridge lighting ROCKINGHAM-Town Manager Chip Stearns has informed the Selectboard that the...
Bellows Falls Village Trustees voted to put an end to discussions about merging the village government with the town after approximately 30 residents showed up at a joint meeting with the Rockingham Selectboard. Villagers attended the Jan. 7 meeting carrying signs reading, “Let's Take Back Our Village.” Most came to the meeting, which was called to consider appointing a combined merger committee, to voice their displeasure, saying that reconsidering the plan to merge the two municipal entities was illegal because...
In a 5-3 vote, the Rockingham Free Public Library Board of Trustees last week passed a level-funded budget for fiscal year 2015 that deadlocked its own finance committee. That budget does not include a cost-of-living wage increase proposed by staff. If the budget is approved by the Selectboard, the town of Rockingham will be asked to raise $320,806 in taxes at the Annual Town Meeting in March. At the previous trustees meeting, the two-person finance committee could not find agreement...
Outside the small village of Andahuaylillas, in the even-smaller community of Q'ewar, situated high in the Andes Mountains of southern Peru, indigenous women in the area can find a way out of the cycle of poverty by employing therapeutic art skills. Begun by sculptor Julio Herrera and Lucy Terrazas in 2000, the project, “El Proyecto Social Q'ewar,” now employs 47 women south of the capital of the region, near Cuzco, Peru and has captured the imagination of one southern Vermont...
The Vermont Attorney General's office says Rockingham Free Public Library Trustees Chair Jan Mitchell-Love had violated the Open Meeting Law several times this year, but said that there is no proof that she “knowingly and intentionally” did so. That was the conclusion of Assistant Attorney General Bill Reynolds, who responded on Monday to complaints of violations of the law in a letter to Mitchell-Love. The investigation stemmed from allegations filed in April, May, and June by Trustees Elayne Clift and...
