On 11/5/19, the local useful idiots came out in droves to do the NTU’s bidding. Among those deeds were reinstalling Alderman Dowd and the mayor, ousting Howard Coffman and Doris from the school board, and passing a ballot question that removed every private citizen’s right to vote by way of abolishing special elections. The elimination of special elections was sold to the useful idiots in the name of saving the city $40G expense to administer them, but this is a city willing to waste over $100M on building a new middle school. As the following election’s school candidate, Allison Dyer, has often said, “Make it make sense!”
And speaking of school elections, special elections, and school special elections, the latter took place a year earlier when the correct candidate to elect, Sandra Ziehm, lost to the NTU’s pick because only 3.38% of Nashua’s 56,000 voters bothered to vote. At this point, I will say off the cuff that a TOWN school special election should not cost $40G for a variety of reasons. I would surmise that the price tag(in Epsom, for example) would resemble that of an event that took place last December.
The short story in Epsom was that the polls were open at the library for a few hours on the Tuesday afternoon of 12/2/25 for a town vote that had to do with flood insurance. Because I live near the Suncook River, I wanted to learn more about what was going on, and I even alerted a neighbor who’s well-connected to other neighbors. While at the state house a few days before that day, I inquired to Ms. Virginia, the head selectman. She said it was essentially a housekeeping bill for modification of policy language that the town attorney said had to go to the voters for approval.
It’s a good idea to follow legal advice, and the reason for not waiting for the March election was a deadline at the end of the year that someone overlooked and noticed later. Fair enough. The weather was crappy and less than 100 people voted, but none of the matter was contentious and legal requirements were satisfied by its results. How much did it cost? I suppose I could ask to see the receipts, but I prefer to use my RTK questioning judiciously to avoid presenting myself as petty, so I’ll take it on good faith that the expenses were not burdensome.
I would argue that the expense of a local school special election would be akin to the special ballot question scenario I just mentioned. I think the voters should get to decide who gets to occupy an unexpected vacant seat on the local school board, especially considering that school spending is the lion’s share of a town’s operating budget. I can’t possibly be alone in feeling this way. Unfortunately, it appears that the current practice is to do things the “post-2019 Nashua way.”
As I mentioned in an earlier article, there’s a school vacancy in Epsom, and I erroneously expected a special election. A good candidate is still needed, but the winner of that seat won’t be ELECTED, s/he will be installed by the existing 4 members of the body. I’m curious to know who would be the tiebreaker if 2 candidates each get 2 votes. It should not be the superintendent, in my opinion.
The genesis of all my questions to the school operations experts in the GG community was that the late Dr. O’Sullivan was elected in the last election, and former member Carol Zink Mailloux (CZM) was appointed a few months later. Both of them acquired their seats to complete the remaining terms of the vacant seats.
Because Dr. O’Sullivan’s seat was not up for election until 2027 and CZM’s seat was due for election earlier this month, I thought there was some kind of protocol difference in deciding how their replacements were chosen. I started asking around in search of language written in some RSA, but Jody Underwood answered in simple terms. The rest of the body appoints someone to fill the vacant seat until the next election, and the voters elect someone to complete the remainder of the term in the following election. Timelines matter.
The death of Dr. O’Sullivan occurred after candidate filing time and 2 days before the town election, making the vacancy he created the longest possible one to be filled by APPOINTMENT. That’s a whole calendar year of someone voting the right way or the wrong way on all votes, including the important ones. Even though HB361 crossed the finish line last summer on its 3rd try and the local students are safe from being muzzled against their parents’ will, all of us are always vulnerable to the next crisis that arrives by surprise, whether or not we have kids in school.
The point of this article? While my critics will be quick to invoke the “local control” argument, I would support a bill that protects all towns from doing things “the Nashua way” because your right to vote should matter.
