Different visions for Nashua emerge among city’s three mayoral candidates: First competitive race in eight years pits incumbent Donchess against a county commissioner and a master electrician

By DAVE SOLOMON, Granite State News Collaborative

It might sound like the start of a joke, but a lawyer, an electrician and a retired police officer walked into the race to be the next mayor of Nashua, and they are creating the city’s first interesting mayoral contenst since 2015.

At the time, attorney Jim Donchess, a Democrat, soundly defeated Republican Chris Williams, who had served eight years as president of the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce. Donchess had already served two terms as Nashua’s 51st mayor from 1984 to 1992 and was sworn in as the city’s 56th mayor in  2016 and ran unopposed in 2019 for another four-year term.

As that term expires, Donchess finds himself facing a challenge from one candidate with an impressive resume of government service, and another who prides himself on the fact that he has none. The top two vote-getters in the Sept. 12 nonpartisan primary will appear on the ballot for the general election on Nov. 7.

Republican Hillsborough County Commissioner Mike Soucy could hardly be called an outsider. Before being elected to the three-person commission in 2022, he served as a Nashua police officer, firefighter, and alderman. Mark Gallant, a master electrician and local radio talk show host, stresses the fact that he has no government experience and has made that the cornerstone of his campaign.

“If a person decides they want to make a career out of government, they can no longer run government because their main interest becomes growing government, not serving citizens,” says Gallant. “Anyone being promoted by the Democrats is a government official. Anyone being promoted by Republicans is a government official.”

Gallant does not stake out many specific positions on the issues, arguing instead for a return to the original model of “citizen legislator,” which he says would solve most of our problems.

“The system has been designed in a way to make you think you only have two legitimate choices, the government party of Democrats or the government party of Republicans,” said Gallant. “The only time they were forced, they did it kicking and screaming. They were forced to take a private citizen and promote him, and that was with the recent election of Donald Trump.”

People should have a job and a life outside of government, run for office to serve one or two terms, and then return to private life. That’s the essence of the Gallant platform, and the only way, he says, to address burdensome taxation, homelessness, addiction and other problems facing the community.

“To me, the right answer is to debate everything out in public and give the public more input than the government,” he said. “If I get elected, I’m serving one and done. I just want to do my civic duty.”

Not exactly nonpartisan

Although the Nashua mayoral race is technically nonpartisan, neither Soucy nor Donchess makes any bones about their affiliation, although both fall to the moderate end of the spectrum in their respective parties. 

“I’m a Republican, but a lot of my Republican friends call me a RINO (Republican in Name Only),” says Soucy, who sees modern U.S. politics as a football field in which most voters are gathered around the 50-yard line, while politicians have moved toward opposite goalposts.

“I have some on the far left over here, and friends on the right over there, who want nothing to do with the common good. Americans live between the 40s, a little left of center or a little right of center. If you are pragmatic and willing to enter into conversations with honorable intentions, we can work something out.”

While Donchess and Soucy both see themselves as playing the middle of the field, they have decidedly different visions of what Nashua should look like in the years ahead, particularly as regards the downtown.

Soucy has accused Donchess of pushing for a European-style downtown in Nashua, with narrower streets, slower-moving traffic and an emphasis on pedestrian access. While Donchess has promoted the Nashua Center for the Performing Arts from its inception, Soucy believes the project was ill-conceived and sold to voters by sleight-of-hand.

Donchess backed the bonding for the new arts center on Main Street and a new junior high to replace the aging Elm Street school, while Soucy believes a steady decline in school-age population made such new construction unnecessary. He cites studies that suggest the Elm Street Junior High could have been kept in operation a few years longer while the city closed as many as three elementary schools and remodeled one to create a new junior high.

Donchess says he is working to hold tax increases to 2 percent while Soucy says the city is already spending enough. “I’m going to try for a level-funded budget in my first year, and if we can reduce it, even better,” he said.

Gallant finds the debates over things like the arts center, new junior high school, and municipal budget as distractions from the key issue: lack of genuine citizen representation. “Almost everything people are arguing about, every issue, comes down to money. Never elect a government official to run government,” he said.

Nashua Performing Arts Center

When the $15.5 million bond issue to finance a new arts center went up for a vote in November 2017, it passed by 150 votes out of the more than 10,000 cast – an indication of the intense division on the issue. 

“It’s so politicized at this point, you have a lot of people -- I don’t care what shows are going to go in there -- they are just not going to go,” says Soucy.

If elected, Soucy would order a top-to-bottom investigation into the finances and operating structure of the arts center, which he says has cost the Nashua taxpayers more than was initially promised and has not operated with the necessary level of transparency.

“It’s so convoluted, so complicated, the only thing I can promise the voters at this point is we are going to look at this,” he said. “I don’t know if it means bringing an attorney into it or real estate expert, but we have to let the taxpayers know what happened, with a summary that your average high school kid could read and understand.”

There’s no mystery, according to Donchess, who says the voters were told the building would cost $20 million, with $15.5 million from a municipal bond and $4.5 million from other sources, and that’s what happened. Allegations of subsequent payments by the city for rent, cost overruns and additional loans that have been kept secret “have no basis in fact,” says Donchess, who also notes that predictions of low ticket sales due to competing venues in all directions failed to materialize.

“It’s been tremendously successful in attracting visitors and investment,” says Donchess. The city’s goal was to attract 70,000 visitors a year downtown, with ticket sales in the first two months (middle of May to middle of June) averaging about 10,000 a month.”

“There have been a lot of sold-out shows; and the restaurants are doing very well on nights of performances, so it has been an incredible boost to the downtown economy,” he said.

The alternative, according to Donchess, would have been to allow the vacant Alec’s Shoes store to occupy the heart of downtown indefinitely.

“Imagine what we would have there without the Nashua Center for the Arts,” he said, Since the pandemic, he said, “no one is leasing space that big. So, on the most significant corner in the downtown, we would have a vacant, dark, white elephant making downtown look like a dead zone, and instead of that we have an incredibly alive, active, successful performing arts center.”

Gallant described the arts center project as “taking on big debt on a gamble, in the hope that it’s going to work. Once someone has already stuck you with something you have no choice but to figure out how to make it work. I would promote the hell out of it.”

Controlling taxes

As the value of commercial real estate in Nashua and elsewhere has fallen precipitously amid high vacancy rates, the value of single-family homes has skyrocketed amid some of the lowest vacancy rates on record. The result is that single-family homeowners (and, by extension, renters) are bearing a greater portion of the tax burden as properties are revalued.

Add to that the bond payments for the arts center and new junior high, along with general inflation, and there can be sticker shock when tax bills are received.

Soucy says Donchess has grown government with unnecessary projects like the arts center and junior high school. Gallant agrees with that, and claims that Soucy would be a big spender also, kowtowing to the demands of the unions he grew up with as a first responder.

If Nashua is not competitive in its pay and benefits to first responders, they will find better jobs elsewhere, counters Soucy. “I’m promoting balance between the taxpayers and union workers,” he said. “Whatever the market dictates, we are going to have to go there. We won’t be above the market, but we have to match what the other communities have.”

The city has had year-ending budget surpluses over the past three fiscal years — of $8 million, $9 million and, this year, $11 million — which Soucy sees as a sign of over-taxation. 

Donchess points to the surpluses as a sign of good management, contributing to the city’s rare triple-A bond rating and its ranking as third-best-run city out of 188 in WalletHub.com’s 2023 rankings.

The last city budget was passed unanimously by a Board of Aldermen representing a wide range of ideologies. Donchess is recommending that $8 million of the surplus from the year ending June 30 go toward  mitigating tax rate, “which means in the fall of 2023 we will see an increase of 2 percent, less than half the rate of inflation,” said the mayor.

Donchess also points to the city’s initiative to advance collective power purchasing with the advent of Nashua Community Power in May, with savings averaging around $25 a month per resident on electric bills.

Sidewalk dining vs. downtown traffic

If one issue more than any other illustrates the different visions for Nashua, it is perhaps the question of what Main Street should look like. Should it remain a wide thoroughfare with four lanes of traffic or become a more pedestrian-friendly destination with wider sidewalks and “traffic-calming” infrastructure?

COVID-19 brought the issue to the forefront with the advent of concrete barriers to enable sidewalk dining. While Soucy said he supported the COVID initiative as a way to help save restaurants financially, he now sees the idea getting out of hand.

He points to the city’s master plan, supported by Donchess, which calls for the possible extension of sidewalks into existing parking or traffic lanes, with two lanes of traffic, one going each way, on Main Street. 

Soucy says he “knocked on every door” in the downtown area and asked every property owner who is not a restaurant owner what they thought of the current barriers, let alone the master plan.

“Eighteen businesses told me it was killing them. Three or four said they could end up closing. Three said they liked them, and one couldn’t care either way. Yet Mayor Donchess and his Imagine Nashua plan says they are getting good reviews from shop owners and citizens with reference to downtown barriers. He can’t see, hear or feel what his constituents want. It’s 85 percent or higher of people who do not want them.”

Donchess said the Master Plan is “guided by the citizens of Nashua,” and not by the mayor.

“It remains to be seen what’s going to happen,” he said. “The master plan, guided by the citizens of Nashua, recommended that some changes be made in that direction, but before taking a step like that we would have to take a lot more public input and decide what the community feels is best.”

According to Donchess, “There’s no question that outdoor dining has boosted the downtown economy. Post-COVID and even before, we don’t have the daytime office workers that we used to; no downtown does, so in order to maintain and build a stronger downtown economy you are really relying on restaurants.”

He points to surveys that suggest 80 percent of visitors to downtown Nashua came downtown for the restaurants or bars, “and those surveys were before the arts center opened.”

“Now that the (arts center) is there, if you combine that with restaurants, it’s way more than 90 percent of people who come downtown are doing restaurants, bars and the theater. If you want a downtown that’s alive; if you want to have young people live in your community, you’ve got to have an alive downtown.”

Affordable housing

After taxes, the lack of affordable housing ranks high on the list of local concerns. “If you really analyze this truly, the problem is government,” says Gallant. “It benefits them so much to have unaffordable housing. This is a cash cow for the government. They couldn’t ask for anything better. Until you get government controlled by the citizens and shrink it, everything is going to continue to rise by design.”

Soucy would like to see the city add at least 2,000 new apartment units in the years ahead. “We have to build,” he said, “and given the lack of land we have to build these three- or four-story complexes all over the place. This is the new Nashua. We are going to build apartments up, because when you have a limited amount of land, where else do you go.”

Toward that end, Donchess points to the “inclusionary” zoning ordinance Nashua passed, which requires affordable units and encourages multifamily housing that other communities discourage through “exclusionary” zoning.

The result is a building boom in the city with more than 1,000 units of new housing permitted in the past two years, with about a quarter designated as affordable (rent equals 30% of median income for Nashua).

Commuter rail

Donchess is a big supporter of extending commuter rail connections from Nashua to Lowell, Mass., and a hookup to the MBTA transportation system. The project has been a political football for 20 years, with no significant advance except that a feasibility study was almost complete, until the Executive Council recently shut off funding.

To Soucy and Gallant, such a project would just be another government boondoggle, with high costs and low ridership, subsidized by taxpayers.

“We are not urban enough to do that,” says Soucy, citing low potential ridership in studies and costs for constructing railway stations and upgrading hundreds of miles of track.

Donchess says he will continue to advocate for the project, which he sees as “a huge opportunity for the city.”

“It would add jobs, strengthen the economy, develop a lot of the tax base,” he said. “It would be a huge boost for Nashua. Right now, there is an unprecedented amount of money available for these rail projects, and without completion of the planning stage we are not eligible to get all that federal money. The Executive Council just turned their backs on a major opportunity for federal money that could greatly benefit the state and the city.”

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

Got Seaweed?: Could kelp help New England's Declining Seafood Industry, Climate Change

By Amanda Pirani, for Granite State News Collaborative

RYE –Along the shores at Odiorne State Park, sparkling tide pools and gray boulders provide the perfect environment for Gabby Bradt, a marine biologist and fisheries specialist at the New Hampshire Sea Grant, to forage for  yellow-green tendrils of Rockweed, a seaweed also known as Bladderwrack.

Since 2015 Bradt has led New Hampshire Sea Grant’s “Seaweed Mania” Spring workshops, teaching individuals how to harvest and prepare seaweed in her quest to open people’s minds to the plant’s potential.

Bradt is a key player in efforts by the New Hampshire Sea Grant to expand the public’s understanding of the roles seaweed can play in our lives, as seafood production declines due to climate change.

“Part of what I have been doing is trying to teach people that seafood and seaweed, it's not scary,” Bradt said. “The other aspect of it is going out in the field and learning to identify the, you know, 10, edible seaweeds that you can find on the coast of New England or New Hampshire, and sort of teaching them how to forage sustainably and all the rules and regulations that go with it.”  

New Hampshire law allows an individual to harvest up to three bushels of seaweed for personal use every day, according to New Hampshire Sea Grant. However, Bradt’s classes emphasize sustainability. Individuals are not recommended to harvest a whole three bushels (almost 28 gallons) unnecessarily, nor should they harvest from one site, which could disturb the environment.

Although the commercial seafood industry is a small portion of New Hampshire’s economy, it still brings in an estimated $700 million in yearly revenue which supports about 5,000 full and part-time jobs, according to 2020 data from the Department of Commerce.

For neighbors like Massachusetts and Maine, commercial fishing holds even greater importance. The industry supports almost 37,000 jobs in Maine, and over 127,000 jobs in Massachusetts.

However,  the robust seafood industry's future is threatened by rising sea temperatures as some species migrate north in search of cooler, less acidic waters.

A 2023 report from the National Marine Fisheries Service indicates that 2022 was the warmest year on record for the North Atlantic. As water temperatures increase, oceans store more carbon dioxide which in turn increases their acidity. This process can spell disaster for sea life, causing a number of harmful health defects to shellfish and fin-fish. 

In 2019 the U.S. Department of Commerce reported noticeable declines in New England seafood harvest. Commercial fishermen harvested over 516.7 million pounds of fish in 2019, a 15% decrease from 2010 and a 13% decrease from 2018.

Recently, the industry has seen the largest decreases in catches of Atlantic herring, Atlantic Mackerel and the American Lobster. Northern shrimp populations have plummeted so sharply that fishing them has been prohibited since 2014.

In the face of this threat, the scientific and marine community is looking to seaweed as a partial solution for the future because of its sustainability and unique role in ocean ecosystems.  

“One of the great things about growing kelp, unlike almost every other crop that we have, is that they don't require any (additional) water,” said Thew Suskiewicz seaweed supply and innovation manager at Atlantic Seafarms, Maine’s largest seaweed company.

“They don't require added nutrients or fertilizers and we don't use pesticides on them. So, from an input standpoint, and from an energy standpoint, they're about as efficient as you can get.”  

He also explained that seaweed farms can reduce the impacts of ocean acidification by creating a “zone” of low acidity in the places where the seaweed is growing. Through the process of photosynthesis, seaweed takes up carbon, lowering the acidity of the surrounding water. The macroalgae also take up nitrogen and phosphorus, which can contribute to excessive algae blooms and ocean acidification. 

These properties of seaweed make their surrounding environment more hospitable for shellfish such as mussels, oysters, crabs and lobster.  

Seaweed is easily mistaken for a plant, but it is actually a type of microalgae — a type of living organism that is classified separately from plants because of its lack of leaves, roots or stem.  Kelp, often used interchangeably with seaweed, is the subspecies of seaweed most popularly grown in the Northeast. 

“Kelp encompasses a bunch of different types of brown macroalgae, so the most common that's being grown right now is sugar kelp,” Bradt said.

For New England fishermen slowly watching their annual catch decline due to the impacts of climate change, seaweed is a promising venture. Many of the farmers with Atlantic Sea farms grow seaweed to supplement their income from lobstering or fishing. 

“They're seeing this as something that they can do when they're not lobstering in the offseason, that will continue to earn them money, continue to keep their crew…employed,” said Suskiewicz. “And allow them to use all of the skills and equipment they already have.”

No easy task 

However, harvesting seaweed is a challenging enterprise, as Kittery-based kelp farmers Inga Potter and Krista Rosen can attest.

One sunny Friday morning in May, Potter and Rosen, owners of Cold Current Kelp, traveled to Pepperrell Cove for their second kelp harvest of the spring season. In a few weeks, they need their lines to be completely removed to make room for summer activities on the water. Geared up in rubber gloves and bright orange fishing overalls, the two remove kelp off the lines by hand, hauling rope up from the water and carefully using a machete to slice it off. Then, they pack it piece-by-piece in storage containers. Working against the wind and the beating sun, the process can take hours. 

“[Harvesting] it’s very labor intensive if you're doing it piece by piece. There really doesn't exist yet in Maine a really fast and efficient way of drying kelp,” Rosen said.  

Potter and Rosen manage all of their processing alone. They put out the seed line in the fall, which grows throughout the winter. Then the kelp is harvested in the Spring and brought to a rented greenhouse for drying, which takes a few days. 

Rosen described the process as highly weather dependent, as the greenhouse must be dry or the kelp will absorb any moisture in the air.  

Potter and Rosen will offer the harvest to Maine customers primarily for use in beauty and skincare. They cited seaweed’s sustainability and its potential for local impact as their main motivations for founding Cold Current Kelp. 

“It feels good to be growing something that can impact the marine environment and potentially have effects on a global scale,”  Rosen said.

Obstacles to growth  

Commercial development of seaweed aquaculture in New England only began around 2010, and the industry is fairly young compared to the Asian market. As a result, regulatory infrastructure and processing facilities are not yet available in the capacity farmers need. 

In Maine, a surge in aquaculture interest during the past decade quickly outpaced the state’s capacity to lease permits. It is now estimated there are more than 140 farms in the state. The rapid evolution of the industry also means regulations can quickly become out of date.  

“The experimental and the standard leases, I think, typically take two or three years,” said Rosen. “And so that is an issue you hear in the aquaculture community, quite frequently, that the process could be a little faster.” 

Another obstacle for potential growers is the up-front costs of seaweed farming, which can be steep for those without fishing or lobstering gear. Currently, Potter and Rosen borrow a boat to plant and harvest, as owning one would be too expensive.  

Nonprofits expanding climate-friendly fishing practices, such as Greenwave, hold one piece of the puzzle. Their Kelp Climate Fund provides subsidies to ocean farmers committed to engaging in seaweed aquaculture, facilitating the transition process.  

New Hampshire’s Role  

Against a backdrop of an expanding seaweed industry along New England’s coast, Bradt expects that New Hampshire’s main contributions will continue to be through research and consumer demand. 

“I don't think in New Hampshire, there is really any real potential…maybe very small scale,” she said. “But not a lot that would bring in a lot of jobs or anything like that.”

Key challenges include limited coastline and the lack of infrastructure. Lobstering and fishing leave less room for aquaculture on New Hampshire’s shorter coastline. 

“We have such a short coastline,” said Bradt. “It's pretty rocky access to where you would want to go… you wouldn't be able to grow enough to meet any sort of demand.”

She suggested multi-trophic aquaculture (a farming system in which multiple organisms are grown together) might hold greater potential as a role for seaweed in New Hampshire. Oyster aquaculture has rapidly expanded in Great and Little Bay, and research is revealing the benefits of growing seaweed in combination with shellfish. 

Suskiewicz said that at Atlantic Sea Farms, farmers are already doing this. 

“Over the last couple of years, [shellfish growers have] actually come to us and said, ‘hey, when we put kelp lines around our mussel wraps, when we put kelp lines around our oyster cages, our oysters and mussels do better,’” said Suskiewicz. 

No ‘magic bullet’ 

In terms of climate change solutions, Bradt cautioned that seaweed should not be lauded as a “magic bullet” just yet. While seaweed has positive impacts locally, just how beneficial it would be on a larger scale is unknown. 

“It is really exciting… but we haven't tested it enough. We haven't scaled it up enough to be able to do that,” she said. 

She also noted that once growers try to expand past the local level, sustainability starts to become complicated. For example, seaweed products from the coast become less sustainable once they’re shipped to the middle of the country. 

“I think that's where things start to sort of fall apart, is trying to grow, and of course, everybody wants to grow,” Bradt said. 

Scientists hope that seaweed can help with the process of carbon sequestration, a method of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by capturing and containing it, either through living organisms or land formations. A common example of this effort is the planting of more trees to ‘save the planet’. 

However, seaweed is only storing carbon through photosynthesis as long as it remains unharvested or alive. 

“If you think about it, all right, fine, you have all these seaweed farms. And yes, they are sequestering carbon and so on and so forth,” she said. “But they're not going to live forever.” 

Once seaweed decomposes or is consumed by another organism, the carbon it was storing will find its way back into the environment. The lifespan of seaweeds varies, with some growing annually and others having lifespans as long as ten years. 

Suskiewicz agreed that Kelp alone cannot “cure” our coastal environments of acidification but added that seaweed is still a preferable food source because of its minimal impact on the environment.  

“For every calorie or pound of food that someone's consuming kelp, it's much less input than it is for almost anything else,” he said. 

Is the Northeast “sold” on seaweed? 

Whether it’s a kelp beer in Portsmouth or a seaweed salad while fine dining, many local businesses have embraced the macroalgae as they look toward a more sustainable future.

Evan Henessy, a Dover chef who runs fine dining restaurant Stages at One Washington,  prides himself on using local and sustainably sourced seafood. He describes seaweed as a highly versatile source for a savory “umami” flavor, which can be used to create anything from dashi, a Japanese soup broth, to a paste for salad dressing.  

“That's only a few possibilities in the culinary world,” he added. “But these are a lot of systems, a lot of work and a lot of people that need to be involved in creating this change.” 

Market Outlets for Seaweed

Currently, seaweed has several market applications.

Raw seaweed can be dried or frozen and served as a meal ingredient. It can also be added to commercial food products such as vegetarian burgers, condiments, and seasonings. On its own, it can be fermented or pickled for sale.

Seaweed is also used in many personal care products including face creams, face oils, face masks, shampoos, conditioners, soaps, and lotions.

In addition, seaweed can be found in health supplements and even fertilizer.

Henessy and Bradt emphasized marketing issues for a lack of significant demand in seaweed products. They also noted the lack of value-added products on the market. 

While research has shown uses for seaweed in everything from animal feed and  biomass fuels to compostable plastic, many of these products have yet to reach the commercial stage. A lack of variety in commercial seaweeds also limits potential consumer interest. If a consumer has a variety of options, they are more likely to find a seaweed product or food they enjoy. 

“I think that does limit people's interest in it,” Bradt said. “That's one area of research that people are trying to grow… what else can we grow at a commercial scale or more easily?” 

At the University of New Hampshire, Professor Chris Neefus has been researching the optimal methods for commercial Nori production, the seaweed mainly used for sushi. 

To grow new varieties of seaweed, researchers must determine the most conducive environment for growth, or how to replicate their natural environment. Different varieties of seaweed also have different life cycles, and may grow differently. While kelp can be grown off of seeded rope lines, other seaweeds might fare better in a lab tank. 

“So it's not as straightforward as being like I'm just gonna plant carrots and peas and you know, radishes all on different rows on the same plot of land,” Bradt said. “It's a lot more complicated.”

As a specialist in commercial fisheries, Bradt spends a lot of time thinking about how to sell sustainable products like seaweed. 

“I do really want to figure out how to hit that right messaging for marketing seaweed,” she said. “Other industries have had, you know, the success of kale, ‘got milk’… what about that resonated so much that demand and market share increased?”

Bradt’s hope is that over time the relationship between growers and markets will balance. 

“One of the things I'm working on with the Sea Grant seaweed hub is exactly trying to figure that out,” she said. “How do we expand those markets?”

She points to her daughter’s experiences with seaweed for a sense of what the future could be.   

“She never knew that it was gross and slimy,” said Bradt. “I always taught her ‘look, Rockweed, over here, pop this bubble, and now you have smooth skin.’ But at the same time, ‘clip the top over here, and it tastes like nuts. If you're hungry, there's a snack.’ She's been doing that her entire life.”   

Bradt sees educational efforts, like her work at the NH Sea Grant, as key to mobilizing the younger generation of entrepreneurs and consumers to utilize seaweed to its full potential.  

“Seaweed really, absolutely, has the potential to save the world,” Bradt said. “If we do it right.” 

Amanda Pirani is a New Hampshire native and previously studied at the University of New Hampshire, where she reported on seaweed for an advanced reporting course on Climate Change. She plans to continue her degree in political science as a rising junior at the University of Michigan.

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

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New Hampshire Food Bank Fights New Obstacles to Food Security: Rising food prices, climate change, creates challenges for organization

Rising food prices, climate change, creates challenges for organization

By Chloe Gross, for Granite State News Collaborative

MANCHESTER — On a Friday morning in late March, the New Hampshire Food Bank’s industrial kitchen was alive with the whirring of mixers, volunteers chopping vegetables, and staff stopping by to chat and tell Chef Paul Morrison that yesterday’s green goddess dressing was “so fresh” and how delicious his pot du creme tasted.

“It’s lots of work but worth it,” Morrison said.

And for food insecure state residents, the New Hampshire Food Bank is more than “worth it” — it is a lifeline. The organization, a program of Catholic Charities New Hampshire and Feeding America — the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization — provides supplementary food assistance to residents around the state, delivering more than 13 million meals in 2022. 

The Food Bank also promotes food system resilience by partnering with local farmers.

But lately, food has not been flowing so freely for this nonprofit organization. A perfect storm of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine have fueled food price hikes that have impacted the organization. But a still larger threat looms on the horizon for those laboring to bring nutrition to the food insecure: climate change.

According to the 2021 New Hampshire Climate Assessment, the state will experience more frequent short-term droughts similar to the summer of 2022’s dry spell that sent 90% of Hillsborough County into a severe drought. Global temperatures will continue to rise, but New Hampshire will not see an increase in total precipitation to balance the increased amount of moisture lost to evaporation.

Cameron Wake, a climate expert at the University of New Hampshire and an author of the climate assessment report, noted that while warmer temperatures could extend New Hampshire’s growing season, associated droughts are quickly shriveling the state’s orchards, drying irrigation pumps and cracking parched soil. Floods, he noted, will become more common because drought-ridden soils aren’t able to absorb torrential rains delivered by frequent, stronger storms.

Speaking to the Valley News, Rebecca Nelson, owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, said that unpredictable weather due to climate change is making it difficult to grow crops. 

“The extremes are disconcerting, with swings from drought to overly wet the last couple of years, and raising crops has become risky and hard to plan,” she said.

Other local farmers discussed how temperature extremes have delayed planting and stressed crops while extreme precipitation events flood their fields after lengthy dry spells.

As crops wither, farmers in the state and across the country search for solutions such as novel drought-resistant varieties. But Eileen Groll Liponis, executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank — ever aware of the systems that support the food bank’s mission — fears that the new strains “won’t be developed fast enough.”

The food bank purchases inventory from over 200 local farms through the NH Feeding NH program, developed by the food bank in partnership with the NH Food Alliance, NH Farm Bureau and Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire.

The 2022 USDA State Agriculture Overview recorded 4,100 individually operating commercial farms in NH, though most are small farms that don’t make more than $10,000 per year. 

The USDA awarded the food bank $900,000 in 2022 to use over two years for purchasing local produce and proteins, with further funding pending. In 2021 the food bank and its partner agencies purchased over 200,000 pounds of local food, helping keep local farmers afloat and food-insecure neighbors supplied with healthy food. With funds from this grant, the food bank is expanding the NH Feeding NH program and anticipates reaching more than 129,000 people this year. Furthermore, this program funneled about $264,000 back into New Hampshire's economy.

Increased demand, less food

While worries about future food supplies affect the food bank’s long-term planning, day-to-day operations continue. Over 16 million pounds of food flow from the food bank and into hungry hands and mouths every year. At least 7% of New Hampshire residents do not know where their next meal will come from, up from 5.7% reported by the USDA in 2021. And the food bank is feeling this demand. 

The Mobile Food Pantry program began with six trips to different parts of the state in response to the pandemic. Now the program sends out trucks once a week to deliver families two boxes of food: one full of protein and one with produce. Through this program alone, the food bank distributed over two million meals to almost 125,000 New Hampshire residents in 2021, up 55% compared to pre-pandemic figures. 

When asking about food insecurity in New Hampshire, go up north, Liponis said, “you get real honest answers.” 

For example, at a Coos County drop-off location, Liponis met five different women who said they gave up protein in their diets because it was too expensive. Mobile food pantries helped fill that need by supplying perishable items - such as milk- that historically have been difficult for conventional food pantries to distribute.

Demand for food has increased. But so has the cost of food, which has slowed the flow of donations into the food bank. Grocery stores and personal budgets both feel the squeeze: since the same amount of money purchases less food, there is little left over to donate. Most of the food bank’s inventory used to be supplied by donations from community food drives and fundraisers. But now, more food must be purchased to keep up with demand. 

Liponis, who oversees the purchasing of mass amounts of food, said that many shipments from Feeding America’s bulk-purchasing program now line the shelves of New Hampshire’s only food bank. And the $250,000 that used to cover a year’s worth of expenditure now barely stretches through one month, she added.

Sourcing protein is especially difficult, partially due to long-term droughts in the western U.S. and supply chain issues. Liponis explained that larger storm events, caused by atmospheric instability due to climate change, destroy feed crops and wash out infrastructure, both of which drive up meat prices.

Systemic droughts forced many farmers to abandon their annual crops last summer, including tomatoes, potatoes and carrots, to save their long-term investment in orchard crops. Last summer’s estimated tomato price increases have come to fruition: the projected 1 million ton drop in production created a price jump from last year’s $105 per ton to $138 per ton, according to the agriculture information magazine “The Grower.” Basics such as pasta sauce and ketchup have consequently seen recent price increases, not making it any easier for low-income residents to make ends meet.

In the winter, for the food insecure, “it’s heat or eat,” noted Liponis. 

But summertime does not bring reprieve from the choice between eating and paying bills: according to the recent New Hampshire climate assessment, the average number of days above 65 degrees Fahrenheit has increased by 74% since 1971 and this warming trend is not projected to slow anytime soon. Increasing temperatures will increase energy costs as air conditioning becomes more necessary in the summer, even in northern parts of the state. 

And as for putting food on the table any time of the year? Liponis said, “It’s not gonna get any easier.”

In light of continuing big-ag issues and heightened need for food assistance, the food bank has turned to New Hampshire’s local agricultural system. 

Liponis said that supporting the local food system is a key component of sustainability and climate resilience. Food Solutions New England, a program of the University of New Hampshire’s Sustainability Institute and parent organization of the NH Food Alliance, seeks to strengthen New England’s local food system. The program’s current vision is “50 by 60” — that is, New England aims to produce 50% of its food supply by 2060 to combat food insecurity, economic and environmental food scarcity projections and climate change.

Liponis said that transitioning to sustainable agriculture is pivotal to fighting climate change. And using more local foods may be one key: local foods don’t emit emissions from international travel, small farming businesses support regional economies, and regenerative farming practices can heal worn-out soils and lock away carbon. 

While fighting climate change wasn’t the New Hampshire Food Bank’s original goal, it turns out that what is good for feeding people is good for creating climate resilience, too. And in the meantime, Liponis and the Food Bank will keep fighting food insecurity, one obstacle at a time.

Chloe Gross is a rising senior at the University of New Hampshire where she studies Environmental Conservation and Sustainability with a minor in Forestry and a concentration in science writing. This piece was written for the ENGL 721: Advanced Reporting course on climate change.

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

ACLU calls Nashua’s prohibition on obscene speech “unconstitutional”

By Melissa Russell, Granite State News Collaborative

A Nashua ordinance prohibiting “crude, vulgar, profane and/or obscene remarks” represents an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment and should be repealed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire.

The ACLU sent a warning letter to the Nashua Board of Aldermen in early May regarding the ordinance, passed in September 2022, stating it was a violation of New Hampshire residents’ right to peaceably assemble to petition their elected representatives. 

A motion to amend the ordinance by deleting the prohibition of certain comments was on the agenda for the May 23 meeting, but it was not brought up. Mayor James Donchess stated that evening he would be meeting with the ACLU to discuss the ordinance. When reached for additional comment Donchess declined and referred questions to Corporation Counsel Steven Bolton.

According to resident Gary Braun, the Administration and Personnel Committee has tabled the question until August.

In the letter, ACLU staff attorney Henry Klementowicz stated while the city can limit time for public comment, can set rules preventing speakers from disrupting others and can require speech to be “orderly and peaceable,” it cannot constitutionally prohibit speech that is crude, vulgar, uncivil or profane.

A similarly worded ordinance was considered in 2020 but was not enacted at that time. The Board of Assessors has a similar prohibition in its bylaws.

Gregory Sullivan, president of the New England First Amendment Coalition, called the aldermen’s policy “bogus,” and said, “offensive speech is protected speech.”

“They (the aldermen) can do reasonable things. Time, place and manner restrictions are allowed so long as they are reasonable. They can restrict speakers to three minutes, but they can’t restrict speech they find offensive,” he said.

Bolton, in comments to the Granite State News Collaborative, said he strongly disagreed with the ACLU, adding, “If someone wants to express their opinion, they can do so utilizing the other millions of words in our language.”

Nashua resident Laurie Ortolano believes it is her long-standing beef with the city assessor and lawsuits citing other officials that led to the passage of the ordinance. In January 2021, Ortolano was arrested for trespassing at City Hall, following an episode in which she refused to leave the building, protesting a lack of responsiveness from Jesse Neumann, the city’s Right-to-Know attorney, according to The Nashua Telegraph. That paper reported Ortolano had a Right-to-Know lawsuit pending, accusing the city of withholding emails and other documents that she claimed to be public. Although Ortolano claimed her sit-in was “peaceful,” and that she “never raised her voice,” or “did anything to make anyone feel threatened,” city councilor Celia Leonard said her alleged refusal to leave the building despite multiple requests “created a hostile and threatening” situation. Leonard did not respond to a request for comment.

In a recent interview, Ortolano said she was the “first person arrested in City Hall for trespassing.”

A few months after the arrest, Ortolano attended a Board of Assessors meeting regarding abatements. She said her frustration over her own assessment led her to use objectionable language.

“I said I’m disgusted with what happened to me and I said it was the cu****est behavior I had ever seen. On July 22, at a finance meeting, the mayor cut me off and said ‘we will not tolerate criticism of employees; this has to stop, we’ve got to write a new public input policy to shut this down.’ I get three stinking minutes to talk and he interrupts me. I said, ‘shut your piehole, Mr. Mayor.’ I said it three times. The alderman next to me almost choked.”

Alderman John Sullivan was the sole vote against the ordinance and supports its repeal. He said his primary concern was “suppression creep,” and felt the city was trending against openness, transparency and free speech by discontinuing the use of Zoom for public meetings, which had been introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as not including letters from constituents in the public packet of information.

“I drew a line. People use bad language, but it is protected under the First Amendment. We live in a free society. It isn’t nice that people feel the need, but they are allowed to do it,” he said. 

Alderman Alex R. Comeau supported the ordinance “reluctantly,” he said, because he felt it was appropriate to limit certain speech during hours when children might be watching the meetings broadcast on local cable stations. 

“I don’t believe that prohibiting profanity is the same thing as viewpoint discrimination or prohibiting speech, because one of my constituents can still come to a meeting and tell me I’m stupid. We just can’t have them tell me I’m [expletive] stupid if we’re on TV,” he said.

He stated he supported repealing the language prohibition, in part because he feels it is his responsibility as an alderman to “keep the city out of court, especially given the city’s abysmal recent track record of court losses.”

If a constituent is upset and angry, Comeau said the board should consider the reasons for the anger and try to make improvements to the way the city operates, especially with respect to information and transparency.

“If someone comes to a meeting and chooses to use profanity, the chair of the meeting has the authority to cut off any speaker, so it seems we don’t need a codified ordinance to ask people not to curse,” he said.

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