A persistent figure with decades of experience in Granite State governance has decided to cap off yet another line on his resume, as former state congressman and Supreme Court justice Chuck Douglas has resigned from the Bow Budget Committee.
Douglas, who would have been in his final year of a three-year term, said he stepped down from the committee recently because he would be too busy in the fall and next January to devote proper attention to next year’s budget, which could be facing the challenge of paying Eversource an $8.5 million refund based on the difference between the town’s and the company’s 2012-13 valuation of Merrimack Station.
Douglas said he will be traveling to South America for 2½ weeks in the fall and will then be on the road in January, when the budget process goes into full swing.
Merrimack Station “is a serious concern to the town and is going to have a tremendous impact on future budgets,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to the others for me to be on the board and not be able to participate in the process.”
A superior court ruling in December set the value of all Eversource property related to the plant at $67.4 million in 2013, about 42 percent of the valuation on a town tax bill. There are several unknowns with Merrimack Station – the town has filed a notice of appeal to the state Supreme Court, and if it loses, how and when the town would pay back the difference is unclear. If Eversource is granted an abatement for 2014-16, that could potentially add another $4 million to what the town owes.
In addition to Merrimack Station, Douglas said the committee may face the question of whether the town could withstand a renovation to the Bow Elementary School and the first payments on the $4.3 million public safety building.
“The committee’s going to be very busy next year, and they’re going to need all hands on deck,” he said.
Douglas has a history of political involvement in Bow through his role as a founder and chair of the citizens group Concerned Taxpayers of Bow. He moved to the town in 2013 and founded the group that same year in response to a $7.7 million proposal for the public safety building. At the time, taxes in Bow were above $30 per $1,000 of assessed property value, and Douglas knew Merrimack Station was not going to be able to support the tax base forever.
“Anyone who could see the writing on the wall could see the golden goose wasn’t going to be laying eggs forever,” he said.
Douglas credited his group with making sure more expensive iterations of the public safety building, which was approved last year with a $4.3 million price tag, failed.
“If there wasn’t an organized group who was putting out mailers, emails, and turning people out to vote, God knows what our tax rate would be,” he said. “And now we’ve got a good building for a reasonable price.”
In addition to his job as a attorney at Douglas, Leonard & Garvey, P.C., in Concord, Douglas was appointed to the governor’s Judicial Selection Commission in February. He has served as a justice on the New Hampshire Supreme Court and as a Superior Court judge. He served as a Republican congressman from 1989-91. He also resurrected the Bow Times in 2015 and currently serves as its editor.
Applications for Douglas’s open position will be accepted until May 15, according to Bow’s town website. The position will be a one-year term until next March, when voters will elect a member to a three-year term.
(Caitlin Andrews can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @ActualCAndrews.)