| November 30th, 2009 The New Face of City Hall: What Does Ted Gatsas Have Planned for Manchester? Ted Gatsas won’t be sworn in as the city’s next mayor until January but he’s certainly not just taking it easy for the next month. Gatsas hit the ground running after election day searching for ways to trim the budget, clarify the city’s charter and overhaul the school district. “We’re aggressively moving forward,” he said. Gatsas said the biggest waste in the city is time, which needs to change. “We need to take more decisive action, sooner and quicker.” Wasting no time, last week he started a discussion that could completely change the city’s current public school structure. “We need to start looking at the change in dynamics,” he said. “Too many kids in high school are taking five years to graduate, which costs about $7,000 per student for each extra year.” He announced a plan that would shift ninth graders back to the middle schools and have the high schools house grades 10 through 12. “It’s been about 25 to 30 years since redistricting,” he said. “There’s been tremendous growth in the city since then,” he added, noting that redistricting could bring class sizes in the over-crowded elementary schools down to 22 to 24 students per class. The plan would make Manchester the only public school district in the state to exclude ninth-graders from the high school. Grades 10 to 12 would remain in the high schools, grades seven to nine would go to the middle schools and grades kindergarten through six would be in the elementary schools. Currently, ninth-graders go to high school and sixth-graders to middle school. Gatsas said this plan would alleviate the over- crowding in the city’s high schools. Moving district lines would also send more students to West high, which has low enrollment since Bedford pulled their students from the high school after building one in the town. To move even more students into the emptying school, talks with Hooksett are also in the future, Gatsas said, hoping the town will consider sending their kids to Manchester public schools. “We need to find a way to make it advantageous for Hooksett and learn from our mistakes,” he said. One solution may be to give Hooksett a voting spot on the school board, Gatsas said, something that had not been done for Bedford. Solving the issues facing the school district will be a collaborative effort, Gatsas said. He wants aldermen and school board members to have the opportunity to sit down and have an informal conversation about the issues each board is looking at and to see things from the other perspective. “Discussing the generalities on both sides will change the atmosphere between the two boards,” he said. Revisiting the charter In a quest for more transparency in government, Gatsas plans to review the city charter and clarify ambiguous sections, with a team of former city officials. “We need to look at rules, policies and decide whether some commissions need or have more authority in a non-political way.” He hopes that former city officials can bring the wisdom and lessons they learned during their terms. The first section on the table is campaign finance laws. During the mayoral campaign, there was disagreement about whether or not state campaign finance laws apply to city elections and if they don’t apply, what the actual rules are. State election laws forbid candidates from accepting more than $5,000 from a single donor. Gatsas previously suggested a time frame for reporting contributions that are more than $5,000, adding that he does support individual contributions to campaigns and would not want to discourage fundraising. Gatsas accepted eight checks for $10,000 and shattered campaign fundraising records. One thing is for sure, Gatsas said that the rules need to be clarified so everyone understands. Renovations and restorations are another area that Gatsas would like to see changed. “The city codes are great for new construction,” he said. “But they can tie hands in renovations.” Other areas of concern are budget guidelines and timelines as they relate to city departments and schools and the most representative way to fill vacancies for city boards when a seat is unexpectedly vacated. Gatsas also plans to revisit the question of whether making the school district a department of the city would make more sense than making it an independent district with it’s own taxing and appropriation authority. Streamlining government He told newly elected and current aldermen in a joint meeting that by Jan. 1 he wants to have a CIP budget ready to go, three months before the usual deadline in March. It’s just one example of how Gatsas wants a more streamlined, efficient government that doesn’t waste time or money. He also plans to examine the functions of different departments, looking for overlaps in responsibilities. He pointed to the highway department and the parks department, which both snow plow nearby areas in the winter, with the highway department plowing streets and the parks department plowing schools. “The highway department may be plowing Maple Street and pass two schools,” he said. “We could work out a system where the highway department does half the street, with the schools, and parks does the other side.” Gatsas wants to make sensible improvements to the city but projects like the restriping of south Elm Street don’t work, he said. “There is a lane turning left that’s going to buildings that are empty,” he said. The parking spaces were changed to diagonal spots, that shrunk the road from four lanes to two, creating some traffic issues, Gatsas said. Plans to redevelop the area are in the works, but Gatsas said redevelopment and traffic pattern studies should begin to happen before changing the traffic pattern. He was one of two aldermen who voted against the plan when it went before the board of mayor and aldermen. Streamlining government services is also important. “I want to change the face of government. We need to always be asking ourselves ‘can we do this better?’” The new face of government may be for residents to see fewer government faces. Currently, residents can register cars and pay taxes online and Gatsas wants more government services available online. He also wants to hear from city residents. “One night a month, we’re going to hold a ‘mayor’s night in’ where people can come to voice concerns and try to get their issues resolved,” he said. “My door is always open, there is nobody who has a monopoly on good ideas.” “I’m advocating for transparency in government,” he said. Collaboration Gatsas will be working with only one other Republican on the board of mayor and aldermen. How does Gatsas plan to get the board to work together for the city? Not seeming too concerned, he said “It’s all about good ideas and good dialogues. We all were elected to move the city in a positive direction.” Manchester Express, 11/30/2009 by Susan King Back To News |
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Paid for by Ted Gatsas for Mayor. B. Rivard, Fiscal Agent PO Box 6655, Manchester, NH 03108 603.623.0220
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