‘Let’s just get it over with and move on’: With incoming cost comparisons, school board leans toward Rundlett

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

Barb Higgins wants her fellow school board members to stop delaying the inevitable. The Concord Board of Education has been weighing the location of the new middle school should go to a public vote, either in the spring or the fall, or to simply work...

Merrimack Valley High trumpeter wins statewide music competition for second year in a row

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

Merrimack Valley High School senior Alison Lamontagne’s first foray into New Hampshire’s All-State Music Festival came not as a trumpeter, but rather as a vocalist.“When I was in eighth grade, I was approached by my band director and he heard me sing...

‘The public interest’: City and developer at odds over industrial versus residential use of Penacook land

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

A proposal to build nearly 200 housing units along the Merrimack River near the Wheelabrator power plant in Penacook is not in the “public interest” for multiple reasons, according to Concord’s city planner.The city has ample housing in the works, and...

Jan. 6 celebrants, hoping for pardons, gather in NH to rewrite narrative

By TODD BOOKMAN

Four years ago, Cindy Young and Kirstyn Niemela entered the U.S. Capitol building, part of a larger wave of disorder seeking to disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power.On Monday — the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack — they took to...

Little Free Libraries in Peterborough provide books to young readers

By DAVID ALLEN

In recent years, many public libraries have dispensed with fines for overdue books, but they would still like them back. However, some much smaller local libraries geared toward young people actually don’t expect books to be returned at all. “There’s...

UNH police chief criticized for protest response to take job in Ayotte administration

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

Longtime University of New Hampshire Police Chief Paul Dean, under scrutiny for his role in the response to a pro-Palestine protest last May, will leave the university to become incoming Governor Kelly Ayotte’s director of citizen services.The...

City removes day from diversity and inclusion calendar following concern from Jewish organization

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from Concord Mayor Byron Champlin.Late last month, a leader in New Hampshire’s Jewish community reached out to Concord staff to express concern about a description on a little-known...

Granite Geek: What’s the dollar value of a forest that you can’t cut down?

What is a living forest worth in money? That’s a simple-sounding question which has flummoxed New Hampshire for a long time.We know what forests are worth when they are no longer alive, after they’re cut down and sold, but putting a dollar figure on...

FDA limits toxic lead in some baby foods

By JONEL ALECCIA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday set maximum levels for lead in baby foods like jarred fruits and vegetables, yogurts and dry cereal, part of an effort to cut young kids’ exposure to the toxic metal that causes developmental and...

Constructing hope, building futures: Habitat for Humanity prioritizes home repairs and reselling affordable refurbished dwellings

By RACHEL WACHMAN

Back in September, a team of Habitat for Humanity volunteers began work on Beth Riley’s Loudon home, spending countless hours repairing the floors, plumbing, counters, doorways, stairwells, and exterior.Riley learned about Habitat for Humanity when a...

Hillsborough County adventurer takes viewers into the unknown

By ABIGAIL HAM

"The world is inherently a strange place,” Aleksandar Petakov said, his voice lowered to blend in with the quiet hum of the Peterborough Town Library on a snowy December afternoon.The 31-year-old knows what he’s talking about. Inspired by his lifelong...

Local overdose deaths are finally declining. What's working?

By ELIJAH de CASTRO

Several years ago, during the worst of the opioid crisis, the calls would come at any time, from rural areas, small towns or cities. But the urgency would be the same: Someone was overdosing, and local emergency response technician Mark Kraemer was on...

Community power program now covers about half of New Hampshire

By DAVID BROOKS

As community power prepares to enter its third full year in New Hampshire, close to half the state’s population will soon have access to a program which gives towns and cities more control over their electricity source.“We expect continued adoption in...

Everything you wanted to know about annual meeting but were afraid to ask

By DAVID BROOKS

If you’re new to a community that has annual meeting for town and school, the whole process can be intimidating. With that in mind, the Monitor hereby presents Everything You Wanted to Know About Annual Meeting But Were Afraid to Ask.What is annual...

‘Where’s the bus?’ – Concord bus system wants to modernize, but it requires more funding

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

Morgan Mbuyi remembers his first time riding the bus in Concord.

With a donation from Concord Holiday Inn’s new owner, Harbor Care gets furniture for their housing programs

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Inside the old Holiday Inn in downtown Concord, hundreds of recently empty hotel rooms are filled with a laundry list of furniture – bed frames, mattresses, desks, chairs, lamps, sheets, pillows.Developer Steve Duprey, who is renovating the hotel into...

Kearsarge voters overwhelmingly reject proposed school budget cap

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

More than 1,400 residents flooded Kearsarge Regional High School on Saturday morning to prevent their school district from becoming the next Croydon or Pembroke. In a show of rousing support for public education, voters soundly defeated a proposal...

‘Next stop’: A look inside Concord’s bus system

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

Every morning, Zoe Vigneault takes two buses to get to work.

From origin to transformation: William & Sons Coffee Co. brings a flavorful experience to Concord

By RACHEL WACHMAN

For Jonathan Hutchins, coffee is far more than a drink. It’s an ideology, an ecosystem, a source of connection between people and the natural world.“I enjoy finding out where things came from and how they work and how they came to us,” Hutchins said....

What happened to all that PFAS-filled foam collected in New Hampshire?

By DAVID BROOKS

They’re called “forever chemicals” but the program destroying PFAS in New Hampshire firefighting foam shows that a better name might be “everywhere chemicals.”“They really are everywhere,” said Amy Dindal, business line director for Battelle, a...