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  • Brian (Friday, February 15 19 03:40 pm EST)

    Tricky Nicky has been very quiet on Facebook. Could he be clearing up his off color posts so he can for against Stone. John O’Connor should go to the council and expose Nick foul statements. I guess Nick needs to go. Then maybe the favoritism can stop.

  • Rachel (Wednesday, February 13 19 11:09 am EST)

    Tonight we'll see if the councilors all fall into line like a bunch of brain-dead lemmings and vote in the positive to transfer the money from the police department to pay the attorney and consultant fees for the councilors. I'm sure they'll try to say oh no it's not really the police officer money where touching but something else from the police department to try to gain some political cover for what they're really doing. I for one will not buy any excuse to come up with and I hope none of you do as well. These councilors will say or do anything to cover their own asses. This is why we need new leaders.

  • Jerry (Wednesday, February 13 19 10:33 am EST)

    We can spend $90,000 ea. for 3 special needs students that will never work,but we can't pay $83,000 for a needed police officer.

    Here's an idea- Let those 3 special needs students stay home,we hire a cop,and put $180,000 in the bank.

  • Ken (Wednesday, February 13 19 09:42 am EST)

    This Council has a spending problem. The Claremont voters need to kick Claire Lessard, Allen Damren, Charlene Lovett, Abigail Kier, Nick Koloski & Scott Pope off the Council in November. The taxpayers can no longer afford their liberal tax-and-spend way of thinking.

  • Diane (Wednesday, February 13 19 07:55 am EST)

    Claremont has a lot of raw potential that will never be realized with the terrible leaders we have today because they repeatedly place their own selfish interests before the greater good.

  • Karen (Tuesday, February 12 19 02:07 pm EST)

    The Council spending one heck of a lot of money firing and replacing Ryan McNutt. It seems to my husband and me that to these councilors money is no object. They figure they can keep spending lots of dough because they can always tax the public more money. The voters need to elect new people to the Council that will be more frugal with our money.

  • Erik (Tuesday, February 12 19 01:19 pm EST)

    I agree, Mark Chase does not seem to be well-suited to management of the police department. Crime is on the rise and he sits and twiddles his thumbs. It seems the police chief is also going to roll over and let the Council take the money he set aside for hiring a new police officer. If he doesn’t fight to keep this money then he needs to go. If he won’t fight for his officer’s safety and the safety of the public then Claremont would be well rid of him.

  • Jim Sullivan (Tuesday, February 12 19 11:25 am EST)

    Laura, earlier this morning I submitted a Right to Know Request for the Claremont crime statistic report comparing November 2018 with November 2017. I expect to have the documents within a week or so, then we will review the information and report our findings in an article.

  • Laura (Tuesday, February 12 19 11:05 am EST)

    I would like to know what kinds of crimes are going up and just how bad things are. Perhaps it is time for a new police chief too.

  • Don (Tuesday, February 12 19 09:24 am EST)

    Doesn’t anyone on the city council have any intelligence at all? Taking money away from the police department for any reason to pay lawyers and consultants for indecisive city councilors to feel better about the decisions they make is just plain stupid. Stealing the funding to hire a new police officer when Claremont is undergoing a crime spree is a whole other level of stupid. The voters have to replace these clods in November.

  • Rick (Tuesday, February 12 19 07:17 am EST)

    The Police Chief pulls the local crime statistics from his monthly report to the Council that people can read on the city website to hide from everyone the rising crime rate in several categories presumably to try to save his job. The Council can't stop spending oodles of money on consultants and attorneys because they need to be mollycoddled to counter their indecisiveness. The bills are piling up and the Council spent money they didn't have so their solution is to stop the police chief from hiring another police officer by taking that money to pay for their expensive safety net of handlers. Gotta love Claremont and the stupid public officials it produces.

  • Jerry (Tuesday, February 12 19 07:05 am EST)

    Mary Walters is a big part of the problem!!!!!

  • Jim Sullivan (Tuesday, February 12 19 03:15 am EST)

    Two articles published today!

    1) McNutt’s termination proving to be costly to the taxpayers!

    2) Council to raid Police budget to pay for Lawyers and Consultants!

    Full details on the News Flashes page of this website.

  • Thomas (Monday, February 11 19 02:10 pm EST)

    I think the councilors are nuts to make applicants for city manager submit to a psychological exam. I doubt many will go for that and we may end up with another unqualified city manager. Boy oh boy the city council has got to go.

  • Jerry (Monday, February 11 19 01:04 pm EST)

    The student population is going down dramatically,why isn't the school spending going down?

  • Jerry (Monday, February 11 19 01:02 pm EST)

    $90,000 per student annually!
    This is for people that will never have to work.Are we nuts or what? That's a lot of loot for re re school.
    Soak the parents,not me for Christ's sake!

  • Industrial Property Owner (Monday, February 11 19 10:22 am EST)

    I haven't participated in a while but I just had to comment about the extreme shortsightedness and foolishness of our city council. Procrastination is never a good management tactic. Psychological assessments of applicants is a touchy subject and it could very well cause well-qualified applicants to withdraw themselves from consideration. It is a frightening thought that there is the very real possibility of the 2019 city council being in total control of the municipal government in July in the event that a city manager is not hired by then. I'm sure that clause within the city charter was placed there to prevent the presence of a long-term interim city manager. I'm also sure that the authors of that clause did not consider the possibility of the voters electing a large group of incompetent nincompoops all at one time placing them in charge of the city government. The only thing we can do is hope and pray that this process does not encounter any glitches and that a competent professional city manager can be found and hired before July 1.

  • Jim Sullivan (Monday, February 11 19 08:00 am EST)

    Two articles published today.

    1) School Deliberative Session for Fiscal Year 2019-2020!

    2) The City Council begins to search for the next City Manager!

    Full details on the News Flashes page of this website.

  • Andrea (Friday, February 08 19 04:58 pm EST)

    Maybe it's time for all of us to chip in and hire a lawyer and hit these jerks where it hurts, they all need to be prosecuted.

  • Sarah (Friday, February 08 19 03:17 pm EST)

    We know we have bad city leaders when they are not even smart enough to properly fund the paving line in the budget. Nevertheless, they have no problem spending lots of money on lawyers, consultants and big multimillion-dollar projects that will do nothing for the true betterment of Claremont. These bad city leaders are Claremont’s worst enemy because they are stopping our community’s progress.

  • Gary (Friday, February 08 19 01:48 pm EST)

    I am still upset about all the special treatment that the owners of the Topstone building are receiving. A lot of public funds and grant money paid with public funds are being used to examine and come up with a plan to clean up the toxic site that still has not been evacuated yet for public safety reasons. It seems to me that Nick Koloski’s city councilor status has a very long reach within City Hall. A write off of about $225,000 in back property taxes that the taxpayers will never see because of this secret sweetheart deal. A 76% property assessment reduction to sweeten that deal even more. So far Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Maranville cannot seem to find any building code infractions when the ex-city manager and the ex-city solicitor swore there was a very long list to talk the city councilors out of taking possession of the building for back property taxes that were never paid. While the former city manager and the former city assessor from MRI secretly negotiated the tax write off and property assessment reduction deal with the owners of the Topstone property. This whole thing has been a scandal right from the beginning and few city councilors are taking these revelations seriously. Naturally, Nick Koloski is not because he has a conflict of interest but what is Scott Pope’s interest in all this? He has fought every opportunity to gain taxpayer relief and justice for this issue. He has taken sides with Nick Koloski, which in my opinion is the same side as the owners of the Topstone building. Why Scott Pope is betraying the trust of taxpayers for this issue is very puzzling to me. I doubt he will ever state the real reason why he is doing this but it does not matter. Scott Pope has shown his true loyalties and they do not lie with you, me or any other average citizen in Claremont. Scott Pope does not deserve to be a city councilor or serve on any board or committee in relation to the city, county or schools. Scott Pope is bad news and it is time for him to be permanently retired from public office courtesy of the voters of Claremont. Let us hope that 2020 will usher in a new era of true representative government with elected officials that are honest and transparent with the citizens they serve. To do that we need new leaders because our present-day leaders have failed us repeatedly.

  • Gail (Friday, February 08 19 12:49 pm EST)

    I saw a copy of the agenda for the next Council meeting in the newspaper. Mayor Lovett is going to sing the praises of Peter Wright at the next meeting. After reading how large financial losses for the hospital occurred under his watch leaving the hospital in precarious financial jeopardy with Mayor Lovett’s help no less as she was a member of the Board of Directors for Valley Regional Hospital during those years, I do not know how Mayor Lovett can honestly bestow any honor whatsoever on Peter Wright. It makes a mockery of other worthy citizens deserving of such notoriety. This just proves to me that Mayor Lovett’s words and actions cannot be trusted under any circumstances and it is time for the voters of Claremont to repudiate her for the type of person that she is and cast her off the Council in November.

  • Travis (Friday, February 08 19 11:20 am EST)

    We certainly do the new leadership. Clods like Scott Pope and Nick Koloski have been on the Council for far too long. Neither of them are intelligent nor representing the average taxpayer. Charlene Lovett and Allen Damren I representing the so-called upper crust of Claremont, the special interests who believe themselves to be the behind the scenes movers and shakers of our community. Claire Lessard is well intentioned but incredibly dimwitted with nothing really to offer. She wanted to keep Ryan McNutt for heaven sakes, and we now all know how bad his record was in Lancaster Massachusetts and that he did not learn from the mistakes that he made there. I believe Jonathan Stone also needs replacing because of the viewpoints he made on Facebook are not in tune with the average Claremont citizen and that makes him a poor representative of the people. Abigail Kier is just too much of a tax and spender for my taste, which only leaves Councilors O’Hearne & Zullo as members worthy of reelection.

  • Michael (Friday, February 08 19 07:10 am EST)

    I blame Mayor Charlene Lovett and Assistant Mayor Allen Damren for not looking out for the taxpaying public’s best interests. These two definitely have control issues. They both want to be in power but they do not seem to know what to do with the power once they have it. They badly handled the Topstone scandal and Mr. McNutt’s sneaky attempt to give 15% to 30% raises to the top paid municipal employees just to give the city assessor’s position a salary boost so he could hire the one person that he wanted who demanded higher compensation. The community center continues to lose money and public works and secretarial employees within the municipal government still have no contract and cannot even eke out a 2% pay raise in contract negotiations. As leaders go Lovett and Damren are remarkably incompetent and the other members of the council are not exactly brilliant leaders either. Some I believe are there for their own self-aggrandizement or for personal financial reasons. I am hopeful with so much local unrest that this election year will bring out new candidates to replace city councilors that most definitely need to go. In my humble opinion, the only city councilors worth salvaging are Andrew O’Hearne, Jonathan Stone and Jeremy Zullo. The others either have been there for too long, accomplishing nothing or have conflicts of interest or a propensity to represent special interests to the detriment of the constituents they were elected to represent. It is time for a change and the only way to make that happen is to elect honest citizens who will have only one goal in mind and that is to represent the best interests of the citizens of Claremont.

  • Katherine (Thursday, February 07 19 03:47 pm EST)

    Mayor Lovett and the rest of the city councilors need to stop with the wasteful spending and focus on the true needs of the community. Claremont's roadways must be paved and maintained. That takes money that our city councilors are simply not allocating to the proper budget. Their management skills are abysmal between their constant need to spend money foolishly to justify their existence and their predilection to avoid making difficult decisions by tabling issues or sending them to committee upon committee for review. Forget the Pleasant Street revitalization and start reenergizing the community with functional roadways that are not an embarrassment to the taxpaying public.

  • Dan (Thursday, February 07 19 01:55 pm EST)

    I hope the city councilors do not go forward with a $5.5 million downtown plan. That money would be better spent on fixing up the city roads that we all use every day. Cars are being beaten to shit because of all the bumps and potholes and those are the main thoroughfares. Don’t get me started about the back roads they are even worse. No funding for three years and then less than $250,000 for this year. What the hell are these councilors thinking? The roads will not fix themselves and what little money they are putting in the budget won’t even fund a modest Band-Aid approach. Come this November my family and I will not vote for any incumbent. None of them have proven worthy of our vote.

  • Joel (Thursday, February 07 19 12:54 pm EST)

    I appreciate Jim and AJ showing everyone the important excerpts from the old traffic report so we know the upside and downside of each alternative. I also appreciate their checking with the NH DOT to confirm that the city council isn’t as omnipotent as they think they are in that they do not have the authority to either shut down or make a change to one-way traffic on Pleasant Street. I really believe that all but three of the city councilors (Zullo, O’Hearne & Stone) are either complete imbeciles (Lessard, Koloski & Pope) or higher functioning idiots with a love for expanding government bureaucracy and spending through increased taxation of the citizenry (Lovett, Damren & Kier). Claremont needs to elect new city councilors in November.

  • Lisa (Thursday, February 07 19 11:47 am EST)

    I think it’s a pipe dream to believe that Pleasant Street will ever come back to what it used to be. Years ago, you needed old-fashioned stores because you didn’t have the Internet where you could buy stuff online and have it shipped directly to your home easy peasy lemon squeezy. Times have changed and our elected officials have to join the rest of us in this century and change their thinking. If they can’t that it’s time for us to elect new leadership this November.

  • Mike (Thursday, February 07 19 11:17 am EST)

    I agree with Tom. Level the Topstone building and to hell Nick Koloski.

  • Tom (Thursday, February 07 19 11:10 am EST)

    I do happen to support Nancy Merrill’s solution because she is dealing with building owners that are thumbing their noses at the system and getting away with it. Probably because they have a city councilor in their pocket so to speak as their primary tenant. If they can find the source of the contaminants then they may be able to take that property owner to court and have them clean up their property, the Topstone property and everything else in the middle. I’m guessing that’s the plan. As far as the Topstone property is concerned, I think the city should condemn it, evict all the tenants and then call in the wrecking ball and demolish the entire place as a matter of public safety and health.

  • Todd (Thursday, February 07 19 09:51 am EST)

    Nick sure is a little weasel. I get a bang out of how many gullible people there are in Claremont. Nick does all these donation collections using his business as a drop-off point for other people to make donations supporting different causes. Toys for kids. Clothing, backpacks, tents, etc. for the homeless. Cash for the student lunches. Every time he grabs the media headlines for distributing other people’s donations when he put either little or no money into the kitty himself. Then the dopes in Claremont and the stupid news media all gush and say what a wonderful humanitarian Nick is when he really is an opportunistic narcissist with a devious mind. PT Barnum would have been proud of this one because Nick is living proof that there is a sucker born every minute for he is playing almost everyone in Claremont for a sucker. People need to wake up and see Nick for what he really is.

  • Renee (Thursday, February 07 19 08:04 am EST)

    I am so sick and tired of all the special treatment that Councilman Nick Koloski receives from city bureaucrats and elected representatives. He continues to protest that he has absolutely nothing to do with the Topstone property but I certainly don’t believe that and neither do anyone else that I’ve talked to about this. Nick acts like an entitled little spoiled brat whose position on the Council has gone to his swelled head. I remember when he put his restaurant in in the city planning office and planning board gave his special treatment by not making him do an expensive change of you study that every other business owner faced with a similar situation in Claremont has had to do in both the past and afterward. Lebanon just decided once again not to move forward with Keno gambling in their community but the good old Claremont Council rammed it right through so Councilor Nick could have gambling in his bar. The owners of the Topstone building aren’t paying their taxes and it’s time to take the building and sell it to recoup that money. Oh No! Can’t do that the building’s toxic and it has lots of code violations but it’s not so bad that Councilor Nick can still run his assorted businesses in the building. Huh? When new Councilors came aboard and it looked like the tide was turning in the Topstone building might become city property now ex-city manager and the MRI hired assessor work behind closed doors secretly to wipe the slate clean on nearly one quarter of $1 million worth of back property taxes and dropped the property assessment by 76%. All the while Nancy Merrill in the planning office sweet-talked the Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission to get grant funding to pay for a study of the environmental brownfield hazard site at 101 Mulberry St. known as the Topstone property. She did this because the owners of the Topstone property wrote a letter to the NH DES telling them they have no money to take care of the hazardous materials on their property. They have wells on their property but they stopped monitoring them and sending in the test results. After that study was finished Nancy Merrill sweet-talked the NH DES to pay for five monitoring wells, testing and other investigatory services costing about $45,000 and putting those wells in the city’s right-of-way next to the Topstone property. Once again, the owners get out of paying to monitor the environmental hazardous problem that is there. If anyone doesn’t believe that all of the special treatment is because Councilor Nick is the largest tenant in the building then I would love to speak with you and offer you a very sweet deal for your chance to buy the Puksta Bridge for very reasonable price. You could set up a tollbooth and make a killing.

  • Jim Sullivan (Wednesday, February 06 19 03:34 pm EST)

    Harry, one of the owners of Topstone Holdings LLC stated in a letter addressed to the NH DES, which we have published more than once, stating that the property is not generating enough revenue for the owners to pay for anything regarding the environmental issues of the property. Claremont Planning & Development Director Nancy Merrill convinced the NH DES to place five monitoring wells on the City's right-of-way abutting the Topstone property and conduct an environmental study. NH DES will pay for this work. It is City Official's hope that this study will determine the source of the contamination. Time will tell. Topstone Holdings LLC is paying nothing for the services that are occurring on the City's right-of-way. I hope this clarifies the situation for you.

  • Harry (Wednesday, February 06 19 01:34 pm EST)

    So??? Does that mean Topstone is getting a free ride as well??

  • Jim Sullivan (Tuesday, February 05 19 09:29 pm EST)

    Harry, while researching that article I contacted the NH DES and found out that they are paying for this project out of their Brownfield Project Funds.

  • Harry (Tuesday, February 05 19 08:25 pm EST)

    Who the heck is paying for these brown field wells???????

  • Jim Sullivan (Tuesday, February 05 19 02:02 pm EST)

    Two new articles today.

    1) Topstone Brownfields Hazardous Environmental Site Update!

    2) City holds public forums to begin discussion how to revitalize Pleasant Street in Downtown Claremont!

    Full details on the News Flashes page of this website.

  • Susan (Saturday, February 02 19 01:17 pm EST)

    Neither the Eagle Times nor the Valley News reported the names of the Claremont school board candidates. Their reporting is getting so bad that they are not even reporting non-controversial news in a timely manner. Thank you Sullivan Report for keeping your readers well informed.

  • Jerry (Saturday, February 02 19 10:08 am EST)

    I agree with Todd,Brian Rapp is bad news for taxpayers.
    I wish we could buy him out of our town.

  • Todd (Saturday, February 02 19 12:46 am EST)

    Brian Rapp is bad news, the school board stripped him of the school board chairmanship and then the voters wisely kicked him out of office. A vote for him is a vote for a step backwards.

  • Ashley (Friday, February 01 19 09:00 pm EST)

    Thanks Jim for putting up the list of school board candidates. We appreciate all that you do.

  • Jim Sullivan (Friday, February 01 19 05:18 pm EST)

    List of Claremont School Board Candidates just published.

    Full details on the News Flashes page of this website.

  • Larry (Friday, February 01 19 08:42 am EST)

    John Big acknowledgment at the last council meeting. Just saying. And were they advised about it?

  • John (Thursday, January 31 19 10:38 pm EST)

    Bill Barrette retires after 14 years from the DPW and not one single city councilor or city administrator bothers to show up for the retirement party. What the heck is up with that?

  • Jeff (Wednesday, January 30 19 08:30 pm EST)

    Dave
    And when they clear the council what next? The FBI? Are you sure this isn’t Nick? He is the one that always brings up the AG.

  • Dave (Wednesday, January 30 19 06:50 pm EST)

    Can we send in the NH AG to investigate all of these allegations. Thats the only way your going to know what happened behind all those closed door meetings

  • Ryan (Wednesday, January 30 19 02:07 pm EST)

    The public needs to demand an internal City Council investigation in regards to abuse of powers.
    If David Putum is telling the truth, we have a problem.
    Who investigates those that need to be investigated?
    A motion should be made during the next meeting, by the public, during Citizens forum, to have an independent citizen committee investigate these serious abuse of powers allegations.

  • Donna (Wednesday, January 30 19 12:18 pm EST)

    Corruption takes many forms. I do not believe for a second that Claremont’s municipal government is corruption free.
    With everything, that we see on the Sullivan Report with documented proof on everything how can any rational person not think that corruption is rampant at City Hall.

  • Ken (Wednesday, January 30 19 11:53 am EST)

    It sure looks like Mayor Lovett has things to hide and perhaps other councilors do as well. I suspect it has something to do with the comments that Dave Putnam made at the last city council meeting about Mayor Charlene Lovett allegedly interfering with city department officials and that led to the resignations of the public works director and the city planner. If Mr. Putnam’s allegations are correct that Mayor Lovett violated the city charter and those are grounds for her removal from public office. That certainly, sounds like motive to suppress Mr. McQueen’s report by declaring it a personnel document and confidential so it is not subject to one of Mr. Sullivan’s right to know request and having the damaging excerpts of that report published on the Sullivan Report for everyone to read free of charge.

  • Gary (Wednesday, January 30 19 09:25 am EST)

    I was very happy when Councilman Zullo requested a written report from MRI about the communication consultation that was done by Mr. McQueen. I think releasing that report to the public would provide the public with more insight as to why Mr. McNutt was fired. I do not understand why Mayor Lovett is so adamant about this written report remaining confidential if all it will include is recommendations on how to communicate better. Something else is definitely going on here because none of this looks Kosher.

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