Liz Canada 0:00

You got a big job being the chair of a select board.

Niko Papakonstantis 0:02

It's you know, we all five of us. It's it's a very important job. It's a volunteer job. I mean, we're volunteers. We are paid a a small stipend. Uh that's not why we do it though.

Liz Canada 0:14

Um how much is the stipend, Niko?

Niko Papakonstantis 0:17

The stipend for the select board is $3,000 a year, and the chair gets $4,000 a year.

Liz Canada 0:22

Okay. Rolling in the big bucks as the chair of the select board, I see. You are listening to New Hampshire Has Issues, and I am your host, Liz Canada. We're gonna talk about examples that are from Exeter. And I know that a lot of you are not from Exeter. Some of you are from the big city of Manchester or Concord, and some of you are from towns that are way up in the north country. And all sorts of other places. You know, I'm not good at geography, so I don't even want to pretend to know where different places are. But the examples we use from Exeter are not really Exeter specific. They're just examples to talk about what's happening as a whole in our state. Costs are going up, local budgets are going up. There are issues with keeping municipal employees, there are emergencies that come up, and like what happens if your community gets a $1 million bill that you have to pay right away? How easy is it for your community to pay it? And truly, I think the big question is: how do local communities pay for things that the state has stopped paying for, or that the federal government has cut? How do we keep moving forward? Is it sustainable? If you would like to support the show, you can visit patreon.com slash nh has issues. If you have an idea for an episode, send me an email. Newhampshire has issues at gmail.com. Bonus points, if you have a favorite episode that you can point to and say, you know, I really like that conversation you had with fill in the blank and tell me why. Ooh, that sounds like such an English teacher thing to say. Be specific. And in this episode, that's what we're trying to be. We're trying to be specific to give you an idea of what's happening at the local level because of what's happened here in the state and across the country. Thank you for listening. Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask, will my property taxes ever go down? Are you going to answer that question for me, Niko?

Niko Papakonstantis 2:37

I hope so. I wish I could. If I if I could, then I'd I would truly be an expert, but I I don't think I can touch that one. I don't think anybody can right now, sadly.

Liz Canada 2:46

It's a dangerous game talking about property taxes. But also that's kind of what's on everyone's mind right now. You want to hit me with your tagline?

Niko Papakonstantis 2:53

New Hampshire has issues.

Liz Canada 2:55

Um and what's the rest of the The Podcast That Dares to Ask.

Niko Papakonstantis 3:00

The podcast that dares to ask. Can our town continue to afford federal and state cuts?

Liz Canada 3:08

Ooh, very good one. Very, very good one. I am your host, Liz Canada, and joining me today is the chair of the Exeter Select Board, Niko Papakonstantis.

Niko Papakonstantis 3:20

Niko, thank you.

Liz Canada 3:21

Welcome to the show.

Niko Papakonstantis 3:23

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to spend some time with you.

Liz Canada 3:26

I'm so glad that you're here. I like to start every episode with a simple question. You're the chair of the Exeter Select Board. What does it mean to be a chair of a select board? And follow up, what is a select board? Because I don't think I had ever heard of one before I moved to the state.

Niko Papakonstantis 3:42

Okay. Well, let's let's start from the second question and then move into the first question. So what is a select board? A select board is the governing body that governs the town. Um some towns have three-member select boards. Exeter has a five-member select board. Uh the select board are elected officials. They are elected uh by the registered voters in Exeter. This is the first year of my third term. And um, I do, actually. It has its reward, um, serving the community, obviously. Yeah. But I look at serving on the select board as, you know, obviously you have the authority given to you by the RSAs in New Hampshire. You're the governing body, but I don't look at it more as a I don't look at it as an authority thing. I look at it as the voters in the town have put faith and confidence in the board and given us the awesome responsibility of making sure that the town has clean water, the core essential functions, clean water, safe streets, public safety to name three of the biggest core essential functions. We're also the stewards of the taxpayer dollars, town land, and um hopefully, um, and with with the board that I've had the pleasure to serve on, uh, we we I think we do make progress in town and make the quality of life better for our citizens. I mean, that's truly what the select board should do. So again, I've been on the board. This is my seventh year, this is the sixth year that I've chaired. Um, and to say that I'm incredibly humbled that um my colleagues on the board um have had the confidence in me to continue to lead. You know, the chair of the select board's like the chair of any other board. They, you know, put together the agenda along with the town manager. Uh they lead the meeting, uh, moderate the meeting, entertain motions. But again, I'm blessed and and humbled to work with four other individuals that um, you know, we don't always we're pretty much aligned. I mean, we don't always agree on everything, which is healthy, but we're aligned in the way that we're here, the five of us are here for the same reason, and that's to serve the community and to improve the quality of life. Um, there's no hidden agendas, and you'll you'll see that in other towns. Um, you know, you'll have can you'll have contentious boards. But we're fortunate this board, it's a very easy board to be the chair because I'm working with four quality people. And so the town of Exeter is very lucky, I think.

Liz Canada 6:05

And full transparency to the listener. I'm married to one of those select board members. I will let the listener figure out which one. We won't give it away, no spoilers. Okay. It's not Niko, but it's somebody else.

Niko Papakonstantis 6:18

Exeter is part of uh what's called an SP2 form of government in New Hampshire. There's two parts. There's a deliberative session where all of the warrant articles on the ballot are presented by the town moderator. And anybody that's a voting resident in Exeter can get up and speak to that warrant article, or they can move to amend the warrant article.

Liz Canada 6:41

Can we talk about what a warrant article is? Because that term is like, what the heck is a warrant article? A warrant? That sounds scary to me, though. That might be around warrants. What does that mean?

Niko Papakonstantis 6:55

The warrant uh um the ballot is you know is usually typically three to four pages. Uh it's very long. Um and the warrant article, uh the you know, there's usually anywhere between 25 to 40 warrant articles, depending upon what uh we're asking folks for.

Liz Canada 7:15

So what are some examples of warrant articles in like regular person language? What would be some examples of those? Sure.

Niko Papakonstantis 7:23

It could be a capital improvement project that requires a bond. There are several warrant articles that will deal with the general budget, the water budget, the sewer budget. You know, there's some uh regular warrant articles that appear every year for capital improvement uh uh funds, revolving funds.

Liz Canada 7:39

What's a capital improvement project? What does that mean?

Niko Papakonstantis 7:43

So capital improvement project is any project that requires a significant amount of money, usually over $25,000, that's going towards making improvements in town. For instance, you know, any work on redesigning streets, any project involving water sewer, uh it could be uh building something.

Liz Canada 8:04

A new police and fire, yeah.

Niko Papakonstantis 8:07

Substation, correct.

Liz Canada 8:08

Yeah, right. We just recently had that on ours. Yep.

Niko Papakonstantis 8:11

So those are some examples of capital. Anything to make you know a big improvement on either an existing structure or one you're gonna build, but it requires the vote for a significant amount of money.

Liz Canada 8:21

There's also vehicles, like if your town needs a new firetruck, that is one of the capital improvement projects. Plows. Plows. Oh my God. We live in New England, New Hampshire. We might need plows, street cleaners, the sweepers.

Niko Papakonstantis 8:38

Thank you for bringing that up. Shout out, Exeter. It was um no, it it's but this here's an example um really you know, on on the town to um communicate better. Last year's election, the street sweeper was the only warrant article that did not pass.

Liz Canada 8:55

The only warrant article that didn't pass.

Niko Papakonstantis 8:58

So unbelievable.

Liz Canada 9:01

What did a street sweeper ever do to you?

Niko Papakonstantis 9:04

Well exactly. But we're putting it back on because it's not really just to clean the streets. I don't think it's not just for that.

Liz Canada 9:12

So I've said this on the show before. I serve on our town's budget recommendations committee, and I learned in the meeting in the summer, you know, the street sweeper had been voted down, we knew that. But then learned about how important it is for what goes through the stormwater and w water treatment plant, right? Like it it affects the nitrogen levels. And I was like, how do we even begin to explain this to the voters? Of like, it's not just, well, I I don't really care that our streets are not clean. It's like it actually, there are all of these long-term impacts on all of our other facilities. Right.

Niko Papakonstantis 9:48

I'm glad we could put in a quick plug.

Liz Canada 9:49

Thank you for that. Quick plug for the street sweeper. But those are capital improvement projects. Right. Uh big park changes, like that kind of stuff is capital improvement projects. So warrant articles are these specific sort of items that people in the community can vote on, which is essentially their ballot, the different questions on the ballot. You mentioned the deliberative session. I think it's good to talk about because what a mysterious process that really is, and that we are an SB2 town.

Niko Papakonstantis 10:23

It's like the old-fashioned town meetings.

Liz Canada 10:25

Old-fashioned.

Niko Papakonstantis 10:26

Old-fashioned town meetings.

Liz Canada 10:27

Old-fashioned town meetings, yeah. I mean, this is as local as it gets, is the deliberative session in a town like ours. Every warrant article, every item is talked about. A select board member often like can speak to it because you all have been in your meetings all year long talking about it. And then members of the public can get up to the microphone and ask questions about what it is and what it means. And debate. Yes, there have been some hotly contested debates out there of what's going on. Usually about big projects. That's often the case, is that big projects like, you know, you want to renovate the library or you want to get a street sweeper, you get folks at the microphone to debate it of whether or not that should be something that folks vote on later on. How many people show up to this deliberative session every year? Who goes to the deliberative session?

Niko Papakonstantis 11:24

It's it's real, it's it's it's sad. Um I the first year Well to I'll step back. When I first started going to deliberative sessions, there'd be several hundred, uh, which doesn't seem like a lot, but you know, I'm going back probably 10, 11, 12 years ago. You'd have several hundred people. You know, we hold ours and Exeter in the auditorium of the high school, uh, because it's probably the largest venue and ADA accessible and all of that. Because we have a, you know, we have uh we have a very you know diverse group of folks that live in Exeter, uh, but we have a a lot of older folks. So uh it's important to have a facility where anybody with mobility issues, you know, can have that access because you're essentially voting at deliberative session. Um it's part of the democratic process in SP2 form of government. So it's crucial. And sadly, sadly, Liz, you know, now if we get a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five people deliberative session, um, and many will come for whatever warrant articles they're interested in, and then by the end they leave. It's sad. All elections, whether it's federal or state, whatnot, all elections are important. But but really, this is the election when when you live in town, you mean you're making your vote is going towards your quality of life and your way of living and your tax dollars. Like you have so much control over a local election. And uh at the second part of it, you know, in March where you actually have the physical election, you might get anywhere between 13 to 20 percent of the voters turn out. And on the higher end, it's usually when there's a controversial article. But but that's sad, you know, um, that that only 13 to 15 percent will come and vote on the budget, you know, or vote on uh capital improvement projects.

Liz Canada 13:04

So you've been on the select board for a few years now, that is, you were there before COVID as well as through COVID. What trends have you seen in terms of costs affecting the town or trends from the state level or the federal level and the impacts on the town?

Niko Papakonstantis 13:22

Great question. Um I'll say that you know, before I was elected to the select board in 2019, I served on the budget recommendations committee for three years. I chaired it for two. And you know, I'll tell anybody that is any that has any interest in running for a select board, um, serve on the budget recommendations committee for a couple of years.

Liz Canada 13:44

Join us.

Niko Papakonstantis 13:45

At least it's a party. It's a great group of people, it's a party. You really learn how the town operates. I mean you serve where your tax dollars are being spent, but yeah. And even if you have no aspirations to run for elected office, if you're interested in serving on a committee, it's great work. Um and it's it's not year-round. You know, there's a couple of months where it's very, as you very well know, it's it's a lot of heavy lifting.

Liz Canada 14:11

We're in October and we are in the heart of it right now.

Niko Papakonstantis 14:13

You are in the heart of it now. So back to your question, I just wanted to preface with you know, I I've seen enough of how the town operated pre-COVID between the three years of budget recommendations committee and the first year on the select board. In 2020, which was my second year, the board nominated me to be chair.

Liz Canada 14:33

Oh my god, you became the chair in 2020.

Niko Papakonstantis 14:37

Less than a week of the year. Trial by fire. I'm in the town manager's office putting together the agenda, and the emergency order came shutting the state down.

Liz Canada 14:46

Yeah.

Niko Papakonstantis 14:48

Holy smokes. Things have changed as I mean, ch things have changed in so many ways. But when when you're looking at the trends, um it's difficult in New Hampshire anyway, because the your your your property taxes are essentially the main source of revenue um that pays for everything. And when I say everything, you know, when you look at your tax bill, only 23 or 24 percent of that tax bill is going for your town services. The rest are going to the school and to the county. So that's that's a small percentage of your tax bill that's actually going to the town. And um, we've seen an incredible labor shortage during COVID and certainly post-COVID. And that's that's just trending the wrong way. Um we're seeing it in in core departments. You know, I look at public safety as kind of like a three-legged stool. We all think of police and fire, but public works is really that third piece of public safety.

Liz Canada 15:42

When public works isn't working, we all feel it. Everyone can feel it.

Niko Papakonstantis 15:46

Everybody. And and police and fire can't do their jobs without public. So it's that it's the those three really important departments. And those are the three departments that we're seeing that trend uh going the wrong way with a labor shortage. For for public safety, it's other communities poaching, and it and it just becomes a bit of money. Can you believe poaching?

Liz Canada 16:09

They're stealing our people?

Niko Papakonstantis 16:10

They're stealing our police officers, our firefighters. Oh my God.

Liz Canada 16:16

Why?

Niko Papakonstantis 16:16

How? What? We are fortunate in this town that we have a really great police chief, same with our deputy police chief and fire chief. It's a great place to work, but some of these other towns are offering bonuses, they're offering signing bonuses, they're offering wages that I frankly don't know where they're getting that money, um which means that they're they're kind of diluting the rest of their general budget. So you have that. And with public works, one of the great things post-COVID was all of the private uh infrastructure projects that came about uh from President Biden's bill that he passed, um, which was a great bill. However, because there were so many private infrastructure projects available, not just in Exeter, but many public works people went and to the private sector, particularly the younger ones, they were making three or four times more money.

Liz Canada 17:09

Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. Government jobs are not known for making big bucks. That's not typically what folks think of when they think about getting a role like that. So it's hard to compete.

Niko Papakonstantis 17:21

You know, you look at a younger generation that they don't look at the local government job as a career. They don't think about health insurance, they don't think about pensions, they don't think about, you know, any of the things they're just looking at um they're looking at salary and also I think they think about work-life balance more than maybe other generations do.

Liz Canada 17:42

What's a work-life balance?

Niko Papakonstantis 17:46

Um that's real. I mean, it's you know, if if you're if you're not living in Exeter and you're working for the public works department and you can get a job um making the same money five or ten minutes away, um you're gonna leave. That's hard. Yeah. Even if it's a dollar, you know, a couple dollars less than what you're making. I mean, it's you're gonna leave. And so that's post-COVID. I mean, I I've seen an increase in that. The big thing though, Liz, is the health insurance.

Liz Canada 18:12

Niko, the health insurance. Okay. There's like a lot of communities that are being impacted by the increased cost of health insurance. And we're talking like 20 to 30 percent increases in health insurance costs alone. Why is this happening, Niko? How how did it get to this point? What does it mean? I have so many questions about this. What is going on with the health insurance costs?

Niko Papakonstantis 18:38

We could talk about this for hours and you know the I've got the hours, Niko.

Liz Canada 18:42

I'm not going anywhere.

Niko Papakonstantis 18:45

I just wish I had some answers. Right. Right. That's the problem's not exclusive to Exeter. It's not exclusive to New Hampshire, New England. For the last 25 years, I've worked with the insurance arm of the Mass Municipal Association, which is essentially an organization much like the New Hampshire Municipal Association. All towns and municipalities belong to it. And they're essentially the lobbying voice for the municipalities. Um, so I've been working with them. Um, they're my only client for 25 years, again, on the insurance arm of things. And this is something that we've been watching for years. And the health, I mean, as we know, I mean, the health system in this country is completely fractured. The cost of health care is increasing, the cost of claims, the claims experience has gone up, medicine is more expensive. It's you know, and it starts at the federal level, right? I mean, it's broken. The system is broken, and in the last nine or ten months, are moving towards, I'll be careful, are moving towards cutting things even more. And when you start making those cuts, particularly to, you know, Medicare and Medicaid, you know, folks don't understand how that trickles down, which which goes back to my tagline um earlier. You know, we feel the consequences in in a couple of different ways. I mean, you know, you just brought it up for our employees. I mean, we're looking at, we're budgeting a 20% increase in the town's health insurance, which is an additional 20% after like it was 17 or 18 last year. Right. It's not sustainable.

Liz Canada 20:24

What a listener needs to understand, and I think a lot of people do, but not everyone, is that when those costs go up, that's your local property taxes. Like that is your own cost that you need to be able to raise in your own community when those things go up. Like that affects you very directly. That's where the money comes from to pay for those things.

Niko Papakonstantis 20:47

And you know, some of your smaller towns, you're looking at a 20% increase. That's a couple of jobs.

Liz Canada 20:53

Niko, you haven't made this decision as the chair of the select board to increase costs for healthcare. You have not said we've decided we're going to increase the cost of health care benefits in Exeter by 20%. That was not a choice that you all made. No, we were told. Right. It happened to us. Yeah. Yeah. Who decides that? Where does it come from?

Niko Papakonstantis 21:19

So the town of Exeter is part of the New Hampshire Health Trust pool. Um most uh states um have nonprofit health trusts that work with municipalities. So for example, my day job, that's the nonprofit that that uh it's actually one of the largest in the country. Um so you know, people the first thing people say is, well, why can't we put this out to bid? And why can't we try to find somebody that's cheaper? And what makes it complicated is that the the health trust um of which we're a member works exclusively with municipalities, number one. Number two, they're nonprofits. So this is not, you know, a uh you know, insurance company going out and reaping profits. You know, all of the money that we pay in the in the in the premium, you know, goes to pay for the claims, um, but then it also goes back to the municipal. There have been years, I don't remember, Liz, but it was maybe three or four, it was during COVID. We actually had a decrease in our health insurance because we, you know, we had a good year. Their uh reserve allowed for them to give back to municipalities, but just in the last couple of years, the the expense has gone up so much. So it affects folks in town because that's their taxpayer dollars, right? But it also affects folks in communities in the state that are a lot more rural. Their facilities are going to start to close because they're not gonna be able to afford to keep open. Um and knock on wood, hopefully, you know, we we keep our hospital. But you know, we we've had we have issues right here with our hospital. And it all comes down to cost and it comes down to money. So as these facilities start to close up and then providers start to retire or close up their shops because they they can't afford to stay in business. So it all has this trickle effect. Yeah, the health insurance for our employees affects your tax dollars, but all of these other cuts that are being made are affecting, you know, where we live and affecting our quality of life and the ability for us to get, you know, adequate health care. And though I have no control over that on the select board, it affects me because you're looking out for your community.

Liz Canada 23:25

I had Christine Stoddard on who talked about Medicaid and the changes to Medicaid, the higher costs for lower income folks that they're gonna have to pay for themselves monthly, and that a lot of people could potentially get kicked off of their health insurance over the next few months. And she talked about how that impact will be felt at the local level, because you know, the budget includes the welfare office, which is a required part of the budget, and that folks, if they don't have health insurance, they're going to need support from emergency rooms. Uh, they might lose their homes if they get behind on their payments, and then that gets absorbed here at the local level. So when the state cuts Medicaid costs or the federal level, we feel that at the local level because we have to take care of people. At the end of the day, they still need to be taken care of. That's right.

Niko Papakonstantis 24:18

You know, many of the decisions we make are how are the taxpayer dollars spent, what projects are we gonna do, we put out uh, you know, fires when situations come up. But the other reason that I wanted to serve and feel so fortunate that I'm able to is, you know, you want to help people. And when folks' benefits are cut and they have to make a decision on where they're gonna live and we're coming and sending them a property tax bill that they probably can't afford anymore because they had to make a dis you know choice. I've got to get medication, I need to see the doctor, we need to eat. I mean, there's you know, dollars get stretched. And when we're faced with no, your health insurance is going up 20 percent, or you negotiate collective bargaining agreements for you know, police, fire, and public works, and they're they're paid what they should be paid. They're paid a fair wage.

Liz Canada 25:05

As they should be. As they should, exactly. Yeah.

Niko Papakonstantis 25:09

The collective bargaining agreements we have with with uh those respective departments are they're very fair. They're fair to the employees, first and foremost, and they're fair to the taxpayers. Um and so we brought up the police and fire substation, and and there are two other big ticketed, not as big as that. But those three things, the health insurance, the collective bargaining agreements, and two or three big projects at debt service on those, is making up 89% of the budget increase we're gonna be asking the voters to absorb. These are not glamorous wants. You know, it's not a new rec facility, it's not a new senior center, it's not all of these things that we'd love to have. These are things that we just, you know, they're out of our control. So how do you go to, you know, somebody who's who's looking at their tax bill and looking at the fact that their their health insurance has been canceled or cut and they have to buy food? It's challenging. And at the end of the days, you know, sometimes you you do come home from a select board meeting going, I I just wish I could do more. Right. But at the local level, we can only do so much. It's funny, Liz, that the state will say, let the local officials figure it out. Yeah. But then when we can't figure it out, they don't want to help out.

Liz Canada 26:23

Um Yeah, what is the how does the state help in these moments, right? Like these 50 communities, I'm saying 50, and I might be wrong. It's quite a few communities around the state who are finding themselves with a big bill. Londonderry is like $2 million, right? One to two million dollars deficit in uh for their invoice. How does the state get involved in this? How do they help? Do you have like a bat phone to get to the state to be like, help? We need some support here.

Niko Papakonstantis 26:54

Not that I know of. It hasn't in seven years I haven't found it. If it is, you know, again, it it goes back to um in New Hampshire. Um, the towns are reliant on the property taxes. And again, only a little less than a quarter of the property taxes. There's some meals and hotel tax um that that the state uh uh provides back to municipalities. There used to be um revenue sharing to some degree in New Hampshire.

Liz Canada 27:23

Th those two words don't really sync up with my past episodes. Revenue and sharing? What does that mean?

Niko Papakonstantis 27:30

So that that um that was suspended, I believe, back in 2010 or 2011 during the Great Recession.

Liz Canada 27:37

What was it? Past tense.

Niko Papakonstantis 27:41

Yeah. Big past I mean, I moved here in I think oh six. And um about a couple years ago, I was doing some research, like how can we get additional revenue? Well, what can we get from the state? And so I started reading about this revenue sharing, and I'm like, where's this spent? I haven't heard anything about this. It's been about 15 years, so that's probably not coming back. The state used the Great Recession as the opportunity to suspend it. And as we all know, we we get out of that okay. And you know, it it's been a while. And they've made no effort to, you know, lift the suspension of that. But really, the for as a municipality, the only additional revenue that is available is through grants. But those are drying up. Um I think it just poses a uh you know a bigger question, Liz, is that, you know, and and I know it's a I won't use the dirty word here in New Hampshire. Um, so I'll use an alternative word. But we need we municipalities need a way to get additional revenue from the state. And um I know that nobody likes that word tax. I'll say it. I'll say it. Nobody likes that word tax.

Liz Canada 28:51

Controversial take, Niko, that you think people in New Hampshire don't like the word tax. I don't know what you're saying.

Niko Papakonstantis 28:58

I didn't grow up in New Hampshire. Uh I grew up in Maine. And um you know, you paid your taxes, you paid your fair share. I mean, my my parents were public educators, they were public servants. And you know, as a little kid, maybe you don't hear these conversations that we now have as adults, but I just remember living in a community. And the town I was in was a little bit bigger than Exeter, but you lived in a community, and as you got older, you continued paying your taxes for as long as you stayed in the community because you were taking care of that younger generation. Older generations had taken care of, you know, the their kids. And that's how I look at community. And so, you know, when you get your tax bill, um and you're hoping that your local representatives are stewarding the taxpayer dollars uh responsibly, and and I think that that is the case here in Exeter, um but your tax dollars are going for your community. And, you know, um I've heard folks complain about having to pay school taxes. Because their kids have either grown up or they don't have kids. Well, these kids in school, I mean, they're going to be our future doctors, they're going to be our future attorneys, our future police officers, firefighters, public works, engineers. We're losing that sense of community. And if having to not utter the word tax is going to stall any way to get additional revenue, um, I'm not sure that's responsible. I'm not saying that we need to go tax everything or impose a state tax. I don't know what the answer is. But I do know that municipalities are not going to be able to sustain themselves without anything, any further help from the state.

Liz Canada 30:39

And we're seeing that in Claremont to an extent, and there was mismanagement. There were other elements that, you know, I talked about with Representative Damon and with Matt Mushin. The story that just came out of all of these communities that are getting a really big invoice of hundreds of thousands, million dollars, multimillion dollars that they have to pay, there's not just a magical money tree in communities to just get and be like, well, we gotta pay more money. Easy peasy, no problem. Like that is gonna fall on the local officials who the community members are gonna go and probably get mad at. How did this happen? Why is this happening? And what I'm hearing you say, and what I think is being said around the state, is like, what is the state gonna do about this? How is the state gonna step in and be leaders to help solve this issue? Because this is more than just an Exeter thing or Londonderry or Claremont. Like all of these communities are going to be feeling this in their property tax bills in the next year.

Niko Papakonstantis 31:40

And you can only ask for so much. You know, um here in Exeter a couple of years ago, we had um we had a uh a siphon project go south, I'm sure. Anyone that lives in the Seacoast region over the last two.

Liz Canada 31:53

You know, we're not talking about any of the fun projects like pickleball. We also have pickleball now.

Niko Papakonstantis 31:58

That's but that's the whole point. You know, you have a you have a siphon issue that affected forty percent of the sewer in Exeter, which is significant.

Liz Canada 32:08

Significant.

Niko Papakonstantis 32:10

And it wasn't that anybody did anything wrong. These things happen, particularly when you live in an in an you know an old town with old infrastructure. Yep. So with the siphon project, we had our first special town meeting. I'll explain what that is. And I think that been 15 years or so a special town meeting is when you need to raise an appropriate funds. It gets back to that SB2 form of government because you can only go to the voters you know during deliberative session in the in the election.

Liz Canada 32:37

Yep.

Niko Papakonstantis 32:38

So if you need to raise an appropriate any money, you have to have what's called a special town meeting. You have to petition a judge and the court to allow that. And you have to hold a public hearing, you have to have a deliberative session, and then you have to have a special election. I won't get into a long story, but we needed several million dollars to ensure 40 percent of the sewer operation in town.

Liz Canada 33:02

Folks, you want the sewer to work in your town. I guarantee 40 percent. You may be like, that's just forty percent. You don't want you don't want 40 percent of your sewer not working in your community. You just don't.

Niko Papakonstantis 33:14

You don't. And and we had a full, you know, we had a full town hall, and folks were not happy. Um, understandably. I mean, that's this is in addition to what they had already passed for that year. But what's great about Exeter is the community comes together, particularly on these projects that aren't, you know, they're not attractive. Like, you know, you you want you're just gonna spend a couple million dollars, you want a pickleball court, or you you want to improve your senior center, or something.

Liz Canada 33:43

Something you can point at and say, look at our cool new thing. Not well, guess what? The butt sewers needed to be fixed 40 percent.

Niko Papakonstantis 33:51

We we could we could uh point at them for several years because um it it took a while. Everything was out in the open. And particularly one community um you know really had to watch this every day for several years. But uh and your heart goes out to them. But but anyway, the point is that to to what you were saying, you know, you have your budget increase, you have all of these you know increases, then you have these other special requests that you have to make. There has to come to a point where the community is gonna say, you know, we're so supportive of you, but we can't do it anymore. We can't do that anymore. And then what do you do? So what you know, what what's the state gonna do when we s when we say we can't, you know, we can't assure 40 percent of our sewer operation? I mean it's scary. And and fortunately, this community stands behind the warrant article. Go back to those warrant articles. You know, um, they stand behind uh the majority of folks here stand behind their public safety, they stand behind their public works, but we can't keep saying the same story. You know, we're gonna this is gonna be the third year in a row we're gonna talk about health insurance. This is the third year in a row we're gonna talk about job shortage, labor shortage rather. Um third year in a row we're gonna talk about competitive wages. Not everybody in town wants our people to be paid a competitive fair wage. And as a select board, we do not, we're aligned. We do not want to lay anybody off, we do not want to cut any essential services. And so you're you know, you look at some of the other communities in New Hampshire that aren't as fortunate as we are. But there's gonna come a time where we're just it's not sustainable.

Liz Canada 35:25

And all of these costs that are being put onto that are being put onto our community are coming from somewhere else. They're coming from outside of our community where then we are told you have to figure it out. Like it is the downshifting of costs is shifting it down on us. It's being pushed down onto our local level, our local leaders who have to make then tough decisions because you're left kind of all alone in doing this. I don't see a lot of state level leaders stepping up and saying we're gonna solve this problem across the state, even though it all of these things that you're talking about are happening across the state. Yes, we might have had the sewer thing happen, but I'm sure we're not the only ones who have to repair our sewers every once in a while. That's gonna happen to everybody. And with all these costs going up, it's just gonna make it more difficult to be able to fix that.

Niko Papakonstantis 36:22

So you know, what can folks in communities do? Start at the local let's work in reverse. You know, we talked about how you know the feds make their cuts, it trickles down to the state. The state says let the local let the locals figure it out, the locals do their best to figure it out and um until they can't, right? So what can folks do? Show up at deliberative session. If you're in SB2 town, if you hang out with SB2 people, go to your deliberative session, and even if you don't live in an SB2, go and vote at your local election. You know, vote responsibly for the folks that are going to govern your town. Start there. Get involved in knowing where your tax dollars at the local level are being spent. Go to select board meetings, go to city council meetings, go to town council meetings, be a voice. From there, then you go to the state. Folks need to stand up, they need to start using their voices because it matters. There have been controversial issues that have come before the select board in Exeter, and we've had a packed room. Yep. Oftentimes that have spilled out into the hallway. You know, we haven't had too many controversial matters. That's good. But even when we had it's so is as an elected official to have a room full of people who may not agree with you, who may yell and shout at you, it allows us to do our jobs better because we're hearing what you want. We're hearing what your concerns are. I call it leading with empathy. And that's where I start with is I want to hear. You know, you you may not have to call me names or yell so loud, but I'm getting your point. Yes. But but hearing from you allows us to lead with empathy. And that's at the local level. Um, obviously showing up to vote at state elections, federal elections, but you know, to to leaders in the in in the state and leaders, you know, nationally, you know, listen to your constituents and lead with empathy.

Liz Canada 38:15

And lead with empathy. Just try empathy, just give it a little try. Dip your toe in the street. It's so rewarding.

Niko Papakonstantis 38:21

It's so rewarding.

Liz Canada 38:23

Niko, we've covered a lot of ground here. This is a lot of local level stuff, and I love it. Well, I've had fun. Niko, thank you so much. Thank you for for having me. Thank you for being on the podcast that asks people who is Liz Canada's spouse on the Exeter Select Board right into the show and see if you can narrow it down from the other four members who are on there.

Niko Papakonstantis 38:45

I'm gonna be interested to hear how that goes.

Liz Canada 38:48

I can't wait to see the answers. Can't wait to see what people say. Just go back to previous episodes, you'll hear her name. Spoiler alert, her. Because we have talked about how the state says, go figure it out. You have to do it on your own. Why can't we have remote meetings? Isn't that our choice? Are meetings our choice? What's going on?

Niko Papakonstantis 39:20

No.

Liz Canada 39:21

Why?

Niko Papakonstantis 39:21

New Hampshire is not a home rule state.

Liz Canada 39:23

Because New Hampshire has issues, name of the podcast... Yikes.