Bow residents will deliberate over purchasing multiple town vehicles and security monitoring equipment for the police department, as well as discuss possible renovations to the municipal building in their annual town meeting Wednesday night.
Prior to the meeting, residents on Tuesday will vote at the Bow Community Building on candidates for town and school offices, including a contested race for two seats on the Board of Selectmen.
The town’s proposed operating budget of $12.5 million is the largest spending item up consideration during Wednesday’s meeting at Bow High School. If passed, it would be a 1.4% increase from last year’s $12.36 million budget. The 2022 tax rate increase is estimated to be $0.07 per thousand assessed property value, which would result in an increase of $21 for a $300,000 home.
“We made tough decisions in the last six budgets to make sure that we were able to keep the tax burden minimal for our citizens, and some of that we’ll have to continue to work on, and I hope to do that,” current Bow Board of Selectman Chairman Christopher Nicolopoulos said.
Other items include allowing the town to lease property on 21-51 Branch Londonderry Turnpike East to a company to construct a communications tower to help with the cell service in the area. According to Bow Town Manager David Stack, cell service at Bow schools has long been a complaint, and the implementation of a cell tower in the town would help the issue significantly.
In separate warrant articles, Bow residents will be able to vote on the purchasing of a dump truck and forestry truck, which would be a combined $185,100 taken from the Fire Truck and Public Works Department Capital Reserve Funds. Along with these vehicle replacements, other articles would appropriate $540,000 to the “reconstruction and paving of roads,” a project that would end in 2027, and retrofit an extra Fire Department rescue truck into a another dump truck that would double as a plow truck. That project would cost $82,000 if approved.
Other proposals for health and safety equipment for both the fire and police departments are on the table. Meeting-goers will vote on whether or not to buy $174,300 worth of Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus gear for firefighters The police department is looking to upgrade their security monitoring equipment, which would be $33,700 from their equipment capital reserve fund as well.
Various renovations to the Bow Municipal Building are up for consideration as well. The first of two articles would allocate $80,000 to the building which would relocate the Community Development Department to its main level, while the second would allocate $25,000 to renovate two main-level bathrooms. Both sums would be withdrawn from the Municipal Building and Grounds Capital Reserve Fund.
Another article ask residents to allocate $568,000 in tax dollars into various capital reserve funds.
On Tuesday, Bow residents will choose between five candidates for two seats on Bow’s Board of Selectman. Included in the five are Angela Brennan, Christopher Lins, David Farr, Anthony Foote and incumbent Nicolopoulos, who works as the commissioner of the New Hampshire Insurance Department.
The race has become a contentious one, with incumbent Nicolopolous facing criticism in a February editorial in the Bow Times for a decision that gave a contract to Matt Brown’s Truck Repair and Towing in Bow, which restricted four other companies from towing in the town. Brown has been a friend of Nicolopolous for years.
“Chris has a full-time job as State Insurance Commissioner,” the editorial concluded. “That is enough to keep him busy without acting like the Boss of Bow.”
Nicolopolous said he did not vote on the towing contract, and he made it clear that he had a relationship with Brown to the other selectmen.
“The first thing I said was, ‘that’s my friend and I can’t vote,’ ” Nicolopolous said.
Another candidate, Angela Brennan, found herself the target of a New Hampshire Republican Party funded mailer sent to Bow residents last week stating that Angela Brennan was “anti-parent” and “Biden-like progressive,” as well as denouncing her ability to serve as a selectman.
Some Bow residents condemned the ad in op-eds of their own in theMonitor stating local elections should not have partisan attacks.