Tag: 250220

Sox finally open the wallet

The Big Story – Alex Bregman: There is an old adage that says it’s not how much you spend, it’s how you spend it. That is the opening discussion point for the Red Sox signing Bregman to a contract that will pay him $40 million a year for the next three years. Even before you get to the fact that his RBI total dropped from 98 to 75, giving a guy who hasn’t driven in 100 runs since 2019 an annual salary that’s larger than all but four MLB players seems like a massive overpay. Which could have been applied to get top-of-the-line FA starters like Max Fried or Corbin Burnes. There’s also the fact that he’s ticketed to play second base, where he’s only played seven games in the majors — last done in 2017.

On the bright side he’s a needed right-handed batter, a solid to very good fielder at least at third base, with major playoff experience, and is the kind of willing leader this young team needs.

Plus John Henry finally acted like a major market owner with a deal that’s only three years. So it won’t strangle them if he’s deeper on the back nine than they think.

Sports 101: Who’s the only player in college basketball (Division I) to lead the nation in scoring and rebounding in the same season?

News Item – Have Celtics Righted the Ship? In winning eight of 10 going into the All-Star break some think they have. Me, not so much. They have a focus problem that has them play down or up to the competition on a nightly basis. Like beating Cleveland and New York in recent high-profile games and losing to Dallas just after they traded Luka Doncic. And that lack of urgency has them an embarrassing 17-10 at home, while it’s a league best 22-6 on the road. Something that suggests their underwhelming 39-16 overall record is more a function of head/motivation issues than physical ability.

News Item – End-of-Year NFL Awards: With football over, here are a few random awards for the just concluded 2024 season.

MVP – Josh Allen –One of the harder choices since 1963 with voters having to decide between Allen, Saquon Barkley and Lamar Jackson.

A Little History – 1963 MVP Vote –Y.A. Tittle threw arecord-setting 36-TD-pass season and Jim Brown ran for all-time records 1,837 yards and 6.7 per carry average. Tittle won.

Most Ironic Story – The Jets, of Course – Seeing their high draft pick QB bust Sam Darnold in the MVP conversation for leading Minnesota to an unexpected 14-3 season, just as they went 5-12 with supposed QB savior Aaron Rodgers.

Worst Decision – Player Category – Has to be Atlanta giving 36-year-old Kirk Cousins a four-year guaranteed deal for a bazillion dollars and then seeing him benched over the rookie they drafted right after signing him. And now they’re on the hook for around $100 million.

Worst Decision – Coach Category –The over-his-head Jerod Mayo. Bob Kraft, why would you hire a guy because he was polite on a trip to Israel?

Worst Decision by an Owner – Bob Kraft – First there was hiring Mayo, then compounding the problem by keeping the same personnel people in place (except Coach B) that had been drafting terribly for several years, which is what they did again after Drake Maye fell in their lap at third overall.

The Numbers:

6.5 – million dollar net loss for Pennsylvania sportsbooks on bets they handled in Pennsylvania on the Super Bowl.

30,000 – career points scored platinum reached by Kevin Durant with a free throw vs. Memphis last week.

Sports 101 Answer: The late Hank Gathers, Loyola Marymount.

Final Thought – The GOAT Race at QB: The dumbest post-Super Bowl comment I heard came not so surprisingly from Steven A. Blowhard on ESPN that the GOAT race between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes was overbecause he dropped to 3-2 in SBs after his less than stellar effort vs. the Eagles. Guess he forgot Brady was 3-2 in SBs after losing for a second time to the Giants in 2011. It’s silly to say it’s over after Mahomes’ first seven full seasons. Especially since Brady didn’t win his fourth SB until his 14th season.

Thus all you can compare is after their first seven seasons, and I hate to tell the homers in the crowd, Mahomes has got Brady in playoff appearances (7-6), playoff record (17-4/14-5), playoff one-and-dones (PM none, Brady 2), TD passes (46-26) and QB rating (105.4-87.1).

That puts Mahomes in position to catch Brady if he’s able to match his amazing longevity. And if so, will he be able to manage the tall task of winning four more in his late 30s, which Brady needed to do after going 10 years between winning his third and fourth SB?

So actually the race is just getting started, not the done deal some guy on TV proclaimed. Email Dave Long at [email protected].

Future homeowners

New Hampshire Housing helps Granite Staters find their home

New Hampshire Housing was established by statute in 1981 and is, according to its website, a self-supporting public corporation that promotes, finances and supports housing solutions for the people of New Hampshire. It operates rental and homeownership programs to help those with low or moderate incomes obtain affordable housing. It has assisted 55,000 families in the purchase of homes and helped finance the “creation of more than 16,000 multifamily housing units,” while receiving no operating funds from the state government. Etienne LaFond, the Director of Communications and Marketing for New Hampshire Housing, spoke to the Hippo about what New Hampshire Housing does. Visit nhhfa.org.

Can you give a brief overview of what New Hampshire Housing does?

New Hampshire Housing is a housing authority for the state of New Hampshire. We are a public company with a board that is appointed by the governor. We help administer rental assistance programs. We work with our partners in multi-family development in order to fund and execute on the construction of various developments throughout the state of New Hampshire and we also have a home ownership division which helps people get affordable single-family home loans, down payment assistance and various other programs.

What is rental assistance and what sorts of services do you provide for people looking to rent in the state?

We provide direct assistance to very low-income households. We help them maintain decent and affordable housing through HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher Program. This program, it’s always pretty much been set up to help prevent homelessness and offers stable housing for thousands of Granite State residents. Through that program a qualified household pays a portion of their income toward rent and utilities, and New Hampshire Housing will pay the balance directly to the landlord … [also] emergency housing resources, we provide a lot of those to renters. Normally, setting up the voucher and wait list program, we’re mainly administering that program. HUD also supports the program in which the voucher can also be used for home ownership mortgage assistance, which is actually one of our favorite programs here. It kind of gives the ability to take these people who, home ownership is just never in the cards, but it’s possible to kind of convert that voucher to sort of help with mortgage payment assistance. This has helped hundreds of participants purchase their own homes.

Can you expand on the home ownership aspect of New Hampshire Housing?

We work statewide with a larger network of lenders and real estate professionals, so Realtors, etc., to offer single-family mortgage programs. These also can include purchasing your home yourself, refinancing, or even a purchase slash rehabilitation. It’s primarily used by moderate-income buyers, but we have low down payment options. We have various programs where people can get up to $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000 in cash down payment assistance. We also provide programs that have closing costs assistance, discount mortgage insurance and rehab options.

Can you talk about the work you all do with lead removal?

We have a Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Programs program (NHH LHCHHP) that helps to basically eliminate childhood lead poisoning. We provide educational tools, resources and funding. We get those through federal grants but also state loans, and that’s to assist homeowners, property owners of rental apartments, and even child care facilities so they can be lead-safe certified. That grant funding comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. So that’s been a pretty big thing for people to apply for that grant. We prioritize a property where there’s a poisoned child under 6 years of age with an elevated blood level of lead…. It’s something we’re pretty active with. Those are actually federal grants, so it’s not a loan….

Do you all have any events or new programs coming up?

We often send out, like TEFRA, notices of public hearing for certain places where we’re developing. I know that we had one in the rail yard. We also have an upcoming home ownership conference, which is coming in three weeks. That is going to be talking to Realtors and professionals and the bank industry about the current state of single-family home ownership and what tools are at their disposal in order to make home ownership possible, especially in an area of high demand but low supply. One thing that I think that has been really of note is that there’s a new Opioid Use Disorder Supportive Housing Capital Program. We launched this new initiative to provide stable housing for people who have been impacted by opioid use disorder. So there’s a notice of funding opportunity. We still have applications all the way until March 11.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention about New Hampshire Housing that I haven’t asked you about?

One of the other things that is lesser-known in our various divisions is from our research and advocacy wing. We look into the way that local municipalities and citizens can find ways to tackle housing challenges. So most recently on Feb. 7 we released a case study. We had a housing opportunity planning program where we gave grants to a lot of local municipal communities and we had case studies about people who had used those funds, Bethlehem, Berlin, Canterbury, Keene, Plymouth, there’s quite a few. It shows how they’re addressing housing challenges through changes to their zoning, their planning ideas, and actually updating their master plans to deal with innovative housing solutions. That report is actually currently up and available on our website. It’s pretty awesome to see some of the innovative ways people have done things. For example, Keene, they created a cottage court overlay district, which is encouraging more pedestrian-friendly housing downtown. Canterbury, for example, made a farmstead design alternative for more flexibility through a view process about what’s required in a property and offered design incentives to protect the towns for people who have often been worried about the rural character or something like the open space. Perhaps there’s other ways to figure out the actual design of housing to not lose the character but still provide it for a population that increasingly has to move out in order to find new opportunities. —Zachary Lewis

News & Notes 25/02/20

Landfill moratorium

During her Feb. 13 budget address, Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced “a landfill moratorium and a revamped regulatory process for approving these projects going forward, to ensure that our beauty as a state is not compromised,” according to text of the address available at governor.nh.gov. New Hampshire has six large landfills including “two private mega-landfills” in Bethlehem and Rochester and “roughly half of the waste buried in New Hampshire landfills comes from out of state,” according to a press release from the Conservation Law Foundation. “For too long, our state has been burdened with out-of-state waste, leading to harmful pollution,” said Tom Irwin, vice president of Conservation Law Foundation, in the statement. “While this is a significant first step, more work remains. It’s essential that we prioritize waste reduction and implement innovative solutions to ensure that waste disposal is only a last resort.” For more on that organization, see clf.org.

More from Ayotte

In her address presenting her recommended budget for fiscal year 2026-2027, Ayotte said, “In comparison to our last budget, we are spending $150 million less in General Funds. This adjustment in General Funds was undertaken smartly and thoughtfully, with a scalpel, not a shovel. It does so without across the board cuts and prioritizing those who are depending on services provided by the State,” according to the text at governor.nh.gov. Ayotte highlighted aspects of the budget including that: “This budget … ensures that our education system has the resources it needs. We are making a $98.8 million investment in special education, nearly a 50% increase from the previous biennium.” Ayotte’s address also highlighted that the budget “sends more money to the local level,” “begins the overhaul of the Group 2 retirement system,” “expands education freedom to all public school students,” “will help get cell phones out of the classroom,” and “continues the tuition freeze at our community colleges” among other points. In discussing cuts, Ayotte said “We focused on making our government more efficient and ensuring tax dollars do more with less. We cut bloated contracts with out-of-state vendors, took a hard look at how our agencies operate and worked with commissioners to dial in spending. … We brought our adult Medicaid eligibility back in line with pre-pandemic levels and joined our neighbors in requiring nominal copays for those receiving these benefits.”

See the full address at governor.nh.gov/news/2025-budget-address. You can find the text of Ayotte’s recommended budget at gc.nh.gov/lba/budget/fy2026_2027_budget.aspx.

Chamber prez retires

Tim Sink, president and CEO of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, will step down from his position on Sept. 30, according to a Chamber press release. Sink has been Chamber president for nearly 33 years. “I have had the privilege of serving this dynamic chamber through some challenging and exciting times. It has been an incredible and fulfilling opportunity and I am beyond grateful for the hundreds of talented and generous volunteers and staff that have helped build this organization into what it is today,” Sink said in a statement in the release.

Tech support

United Way of Greater Nashua has expanded its Digital Navigator Program, which provides tree technology assistance at locations throughout the community, according to a press release. Find digital navigators available to the public at Rodgers Memorial Library in Hudson (on Tuesdays from 1 to 2 p.m.) and navigators available for clients, congregants and residents at Nashua Presbyterian Church, Coliseum Residence, AHEPA 35 and H.E.A.R.T.S. Peer Support, the release said. The United Way of Greater Nashua is looking for additional Digital Navigator locations as well as volunteers for the program; contact [email protected] for details. See unitedwaynashua.org.

Homeownership

New Hampshire Housing, “a self-supporting public corporation that promotes, finances, and supports housing solutions for the people of New Hampshire,” according to its website, will hold a Homeownership Conference on Tuesday, March 18, from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Grappone Conference Center in Concord. Tickets cost $50 and include breakfast, according to an email about the event. The agenda for the conference includes: “Housing Market & Policy Update,” “AI and Digital Innovation in Real Estate & Lending,” “Economic Outlook: Market Trends & Interest Rates” and “Housing Solutions Panel: Innovation in Action,” the email said. See nhhfa.org.

For the dogs

Salem Animal Rescue League (4 SARL Drive in Salem; sarlnh.org) is holding a Pot of Gold raffle through March 17, according to a press release. The League is selling 350 tickets for $50 each with the big winner taking home $5,000, the release said. The next early bird drawing, for $200, will be held on March 3, the release said. All proceeds from the raffle will support the animals at the League, the release said.

Every Little Thing (NR, 2025), a documentary about a woman who cares for hummingbirds in Los Angeles, will screen at Sweeney Hall auditorium at NHTI in Concord as part of the NHTI Friday Night Film Series on Friday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. Admission costs $10 at the door, cash or check.

The Pembroke Historical Society’s presentation of “Vanished Veterans: An Illustrated Introduction to NH’s Civil War Monuments and Memorials” by historian George Morrison was delayed due to weather and now you can catch it on Thursday, March 6, at 7 p.m. at the Pembroke Town Library, 313 Pembroke St. in Pembroke. The event is free and open to the public. Call 566-1031 for info.

Local Street Eats, 112 W. Pearl St. in Nashua, will host a Boozy Book Swap on Tuesday, March 4, at 6 p.m. Bring up to 10 gently used books with “a little note on a sticky note sharing what you loved about each book and stick it to the cover,” according to the event description. A $25 ticket comes with a glass of wine and a personal charcuterie plate (a full menu is available for purchase). Browse others’ offerings and take up to as many books as you brought. See local-streeteats.com.

Students from Rochester’s Spaulding High School designed and painted a new mural for Max the Moose, New Hampshire’s mascot who is housed at the New Hampshire Department of Education. Max’s new background is a mural showcasing the White Mountains and created with paints and paint markers, according to a department press release.

The Nashua Garden Club will host a program on “Groundcovers: What are They and How to Use Them” presented by Kathie Skinner, lifetime master gardener, on Wednesday, March 5, at 7 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 121 Manchester St. in Nashua. The event is free and open to the public. See nashuanhgardenclub.org.

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