“There is nothing so powerful as truth”

DANIEL WEBSTER

By MICHAEL COUSINEAUNew Hampshire Sunday News

Nancy Young was driving in a military convoy in Iraq when a roadside bomb set up an am-bush, resulting in a fi re fi ght with insurgents hiding out in palm tree groves.

“We took fi re and we re-turned fi re,” the retired Air National Guardsman said Fri-day. “I’d say that’s direct combat.”

S e v e n years later, the Auburn resident said the military should lift the ban on women en-gaging in direct combat roles.

“I think women have proven themselves again and again,” said Young, a legal assistant who works at defense contrac-tor BAE Systems in Nashua. “If a woman is physically and mentally capable of being in a specialty (job) which puts them in harm’s way, they should be allowed to do it.”

This month, the Military Leadership Diversity Commis-sion, authorized by Congress, recommended in a report that the military gradually “remove the restrictions that prevent women from engaging in direct ground combat.”

More than 200 women serve in the New Hampshire Army National Guard, with about 140

New Hampshire Sunday News

©2011 Union Leader Corp., Manchester, N.H.

UnionLeader.com January 30, 2011

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Today’s Letters:Pages B2, Classifi ed 2

Egypt unrest escalatesObama keeps pressure on Mubarak as U.S. protests grow | A6

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REGULAR FEATURES

Today IN NEW HAMPSHIRE’S NEWSPAPERNEW HAMPSHIRE

Astronaut’s legacy

Forty years after his Apollo 14 moon mission, the late Alan Shepard and his accomplishments are still revered by young people. One student, Kealey Cela, from his alma mater, Pinkerton Academy, has set her sights on outer space, too. VPage B1

NEW HAMPSHIRE

911 call shows response to stabbingJurors heard the tape of an emotional 911 call made

after Christopher Vydfol was stabbed at a Halloween party in 2009. Zachary Cassidy, 20, of Londonderry told the court he called 911 after his friend Vydfol stag-gered up the driveway after being stabbed in the chest with a knife during a party at 157 Bedford Road in Merrimack. VPage B7

OUTDOORS

Best in the EastAmong other matters in her First Tracks column,

Paula Tracy investigates why Mount Sunapee is so popular with readers of Ski Magazine, who say it has the best snow in the East . VPage C4

BUSINESS

Lofty goal for little companyTucked inside a Salem industrial park is a business

responsible for ensuring the safety of drinking water throughout a good portion of the civilized world. Some might say it’s a lofty mission, but the two founders of Horizon Technology are achieving their goals. VPage D1

LIFESTYLES

Pet care trendsMany veterinarians are blending traditional and

holistic practices, and some animal lovers are choos-ing organic foods for their pets. They explain their reasons. VPage F6

By GARRY RAYNONew Hampshire Union Leader

MANCHESTER — With the New Hamp-shire Presidential Primary only a year away, there’s been more political “shad-ow boxing’’ but less brawling than seen in 2008.

That’s how some political observers see it. But they say it’s unfair to compare the two cycles because 2008 was an ex-ceptional year, with open presidential races on both sides of the ticket and can-didates on every street corner leading up to the fi rst-in-the-nation primary.

Behind-the-scenes courting of activ-ists and organizers has been going on as usual. And in the past few days, word has leaked about some of the better-known potential candidates — Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich — head-ing to New Hampshire in the next few months.

The relatively slow start is not just a New Hampshire phenomenon either, said University of New Hampshire po-litical science department Chairman

Possibleprimaryrivalries on pause.Waiting game: Presidential political activity off to slower start than in 2008.

By PAUL FEELYNew Hampshire Union Leader

MANCHESTER — Firefi ghters on the Hazardous Materials Response Team haven’t taken a department-provided physical in the past fi ve years, and one alderman thinks that might violate fed-eral regulations.

“It’s not just about watching out for the health of the guys on the hazmat team,” said Ward 4 Alderman Jim Roy, himself a former fi refi ghter. “I think there’s a question of liability. I think it needs to be looked at. It’s spelled out by the EPA that they need to be done, and

Hazmatphysicalsspur debate.Not in five years: Manchester alderman and firefighters disagree over whether doctor exams are optional.

Panel:Allowwomenin battle.N.H. view: Sen. Shaheen and some female Guard members also say time has come to allow infantry role.

By NANCY WESTNew Hampshire Sunday News

A former Manchester woman says attor-ney Thomas J. Tessier got away with stealing $1 million from her in 1982, long before he was disbarred and imprisoned last March

for stealing $2.3 mil-lion from two cousins he represented.

Suzanne LeBlanc Dunham is now try-ing to get at least some of that money back. Dunham, who with her then-husband, Gerald LeBlanc, owned J.J. Moreau and Son hardware store on Elm Street, said she only discovered the theft fi ve

Widow: Lawyer stole $1 million payout

HOT WEEKEND ON GRANITE STATE ICE

Granite Granite ThunderThunderVIconic image: 197th Fires Brigade recalls fi rst Gulf war — Page A10

By LARISSA MULKERNSunday News Correspondent

MOULTONBOROUGH — Carloads of spectators park with headlights facing the frozen Berry Pond as pit crews ready drivers and race cars on the opposite side of the pond.

Anticipation builds as the engines of stock and modifi ed race cars rumble loudly. The cold 30-degree

air smells like gasoline.It’s just another day at the races — the “Daytona of

Ice Racing,” that is.Thirty-eight drivers, including fi ve teenagers in

the “junior” class, raced for trophies and to raise money to fi ght cancer during Saturday’s 27th Annual Latchkey Cup, presented by the Lakes Region Ice Racing Club. Since its inception, the race has raised more than $212,000 for cancer research and patient services at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dart-mouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The center is the only facility in the state that has a pediatric oncology

.Latchkey Cup: Hundreds attend Moultonborough fundraiser to fight cancer.

Racers put on slick show for good cause

By ALLEN LESSELSNew Hampshire Union Leader

CONCORD — The Gov’s got game.So says Ray Champagne, who knows a

thing or two about ice hockey.New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch and

Champagne, a star of the Manchester Blackhawks of old, are among the 350 or so hockey players lacing them up this weekend for the inaugural 1883 Black Ice

Passion, pride meetin pond hockey series

MARK BOLTON/UNION LEADER

Concord’s Mark Ruddy of the Senior Turkey Pond Flyers is pressured by Gov. John Lynch, right, of the Lynch Gang during the 1883 Black Ice Pond Hockey Championship this weekend in Concord.

In her Florida home, former N.H. resident Suzanne LeBlanc Dunham looks at documents from a life insurance company.

COURTESY PHOTO

.Thomas J. Tessier: Already jailed for theft of $2.3 million, he’s accused of bilking an insurance policy beneficiary.

InsideInsideVMoreaus remembered: Store a Manchester landmark for a century — Page A8

VSee Tessier, Page A8

City Hall ........................ A3Dear Abby ......................F9Dr. Gott ........................ F11Editorials ........................B2Harrigan ........................B1Heloise ...........................F9Legal notices .................B5Lifestyles ..................F6-12Lotteries ....................... A2Menu Planner ................F7

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LARISSA MULKERN

Cars line up for the 27th annual Latchkey Cup presented by the Lakes Region Ice Racing Club on Saturday in Moultonborough, where a frozen Berry Pond was converted into a racetrack. Proceeds from the event will be donated to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center.

VSee Combat, Page A10

Kealey Cela stands in front of a portrait of astronaut Alan Shepard.

VSee Pond hockey, Page A9

VSee Latchkey Cup, Page A9

VSee Primary, Page A4

VSee Physicals, Page A4

IT’S A COMMON SAYING around Concord that when you’re in a hole, stop digging.

Republicans have been grab-bing shovels. They’ve fi led a list of tax cut and repeal bills that would reduce state revenues by more than $240 million over the next two years.

The revenue shortfall in the next budget already is any-where between $600 million and $900 million.

It gets to more than $1 bil-lion if even some of the GOP

tax bills pass, if you go with the Offi ce of L e g i s l a t i v e Budget Assis-tant’s current shortfall esti-mate of nearly $900 million.

The bills are not products of any anti-tax fringe players. Sponsors include House Fi-nance Committee Chairman Ken Weyler, Senate President Peter Bragdon, Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Morse, Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley and

House Major-ity Leader D.J. Bettencourt.

There are plans to cut the rooms and meals tax, the tobacco tax and the busi-ness profi ts tax

and to eliminate the gambling tax. Bills also propose a nearly full exemption of “reasonable compensation’’ from business taxes and add years to the time a company could carry a net loss for tax purposes.

There’s also a change that would raise the threshold for paying the business enterprise tax (BET), a $15 million change over two years, according to the Department of Revenue Administration (DRA) esti-mates, as well as an extended BET tax credit.

The largest single change in tax law would be on reasonable compensation, in SB 125. By it-self, it would cut state revenues by nearly $100 million over two years, according to the DRA.

The change would give busi-nesspeople pretty much free rein to take any profi ts as sal-ary. That kind of practice drove Republicans to pass the BET two decades ago.

The compensation bill is identical to one fi led last year during the LLC revolution, but the DRA couldn’t determine its effect back then. The new bill would exempt from tax “all amounts that are fairly attrib-utable to the personal services of the proprietor, partner or member.’’ Once you claimed the deduction, the burden would be on the DRA to prove you’re wrong.

Morse, R-Salem, is skeptical of the $100 million estimate on the bill, which he co-spon-sors. “I have some questions for DRA about how they came up with that,’’ Morse said. How do they go from an “undeter-minable de-crease’’ to $49 million per year? Actual-ly, DRA Com-m i s s i o n e r Kevin Clough-erty thinks it’s $49.8 million. He explained that data systems at the DRA have improved over the past year. Instead of manually re-viewing thousands of returns to determine how tax changes would hit revenues, he said, “the department implemented

new systems that are getting better data that we can provide to the Legislature.’’

The costs of other tax bills would run the gamut. A busi-ness profi ts tax rate cut to 8 percent from 8.5 percent would cost $45 million over two years. The business enterprise tax cut would cost about $12 million. Cut the tobacco tax by 10 cents a pack, lose $16 million to $30 million. Extend the net operat-ing loss carry-forward, $32 mil-lion. Rooms and meals tax cut, between $30 million and $50 million.

Eliminating the gambling tax would trim roughly $5 million, but that one is not so simple. The tax drove out-of-state gamblers away from off-track betting sites and carved out a chunk of Powerball sales and other lottery revenues. Repeal could drive up sales and offset the loss of tax money.

Tobacco changes, too, could boost sales if the tax here was far less than those in neighbor-ing states.

Morse said he’s trying to cre-ate stability and predictability

for business owners.He said they “are becoming

a source of revenue for state government. We’re not here to do that. By saying we will em-phasize stability, we’re saying we’re going to live within our means up here,’’ he said. “Our job is to reduce spending and to live within our means, and we’ll do it.’’

The Senate gets started on the gambling tax repeal in SB 130 with a hearing Tuesday. The House gets into the act on Tuesday when it hears the rooms and meals tax cut in HB 166.

Weyler said he’ll proceed carefully as revenue projec-tions come into focus.

.

Tom Fahey is State House bureau chief for the New Hampshire Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News. E-mail him at tfahey@unionleader.com.

Page A2 • NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS • Jan. 30, 2011

S C

New Hampshire/Politics

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VDome: Read more of Tom Fahey’s column online.

There’s more online at

StateHouseDomeDomeTom Tom Fahey

ABC’s “This Week”: Ronald Reagan’s children, Michael Reagan, Ron Reagan and Patti Davis; Newt Gingrich.

NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Sen. Mitch McConnell; Democratic Na-tional Committee Chairman Tim Kaine.

CBS’ “Face the Nation”: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.

CNN’s “State of the Union”: Edward Walker, a former U.S. ambas-sador to Egypt; Clinton; Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Alan Simpson, co-chairman of the President’s defi cit commission; former U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte.

“Fox News Sunday”: Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio.

WMUR’s “CloseUp”: N.H. GOP Chairman Jack Kimball; U.S. Com-merce Secretary Gary Locke; remembering the Challenger disaster.

What about the revenue shortfall?

Now that the state’s largest teachers unions, NEA-NH, has pulled the plug on its Read Across America event, House and Senate leadership have started a program of their own. Senate President Peter Bragdon and House Speaker William O’Brien an-nounced “Celebrate Reading Day’’ will be held at the State House on March 7.

“Students and legisla-tors alike will be invited to bring their favorite book to Concord for a pep rally for reading,’’ the announcement said.

NEA-NH cited its mem-

bers’ concerns that guns at the State House have been in the news lately, and they don’t want their program to bring children into an envi-ronment where they could confront guns.

O’Brien and others in the GOP say the presence of guns does not pose a threat to safety.

“We’re delighted to be able to invite schoolchildren to the State House to celebrate literacy,’’ O’Brien said. No word on whether NEA’s hallmark Dr. Seuss hats will be available.

Tom Fahey

Readers re-invited to Capitol

CLOUGHERTY

BRAGDON

BRADLEY

CONCORD — Bills scheduled for public hearings at the Leg-islature this week include:

Tuesday, Jan 31In the House:

HB 147: expanding the death penalty to home invasion mur-ders; Representatives Hall, State House, 10 a.m.

HB 162: making all murders punishable by death; Rep’s Hall, State House, 1 p.m.

HB 212: barring executive branch employees from politi-cal campaigning, Legislative Offi ce Building, Rm. 308, 1 p.m.

HB 218: repealing the N.H. Rail Transit Authority, LOB Rm. 203, 1 p.m.

HB 166: reducing the meals and rooms tax rate, LOB Rm. 202, 2 p.m.

SB 1 and HB 326: repealing the “evergreen clause” law regarding public worker con-tracts; LOB, Rm. 307, 3 p.m.

In the Senate:

SB 57: raising interest rates limits on car title loans; LOB Rm 102, 10:15 a.m.

SB 130: repealing the tax on gambling winnings, State House, Rm. 100, 1 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 3In the House:

HB 295: allowing long-term use of antibiotics for Lyme disease treatment, LOB, Rm. 205-207, 9 a.m.

HB 474: on freedom of choice on whether to join a labor union; Reps. Hall, SH, 10:30 a.m.

HB 187: extending carry-for-ward on business enterprise tax

credits; LOB Rm. 202, 1:45 p.m.

In the Senate:

SB 93: expanding the kinds of vaccines pharmacists can administer; LOB Rm. 102, 1:20 p.m.

SB 69: allowing motorcycles to go through red lights after stopping; LOB Rm. 103, 10 a.m.

Friday, Feb. 4

In the House

HB 233: blocking the judicial branch from reviewing educa-tion funding complaints; LOB Rm. 207, 9:45 a.m.

A full listing of public hearings is in the House calendar: www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/caljourns and in the Senate calendar at gencourt.state.nh.us/scaljourns.

Legislative hearings

WASHINGTON (Bloomberg News) — President Barack Obama will send a multitril-lion-dollar budget to Con-gress on Feb. 14, spokesman Kenneth Baer said, setting up a confl ict over spending that may dominate a divided Con-gress for the rest of the year.

The budget for fi scal 2012 is a political document that will put into precise language the administration’s priorities for increasing economic growth and creating jobs. Republicans who campaigned on promises to slash spending took control of the U.S. House of Represen-tatives and reduced the Dem-ocrats’ majority in the Senate.

“The sooner Washington ends its dependence on more spending, the sooner our economy will see real growth,” Sen. Ron Johnson of Wiscon-sin said in Saturday’s weekly Republican radio address.

Obama says he’s ready to trim or eliminate programs, specifi cally mentioning com-munity action grants to local governments, to allow spend-ing increases for his priorities.

“We want to cut with a scal-pel as opposed to a chain saw,” Obama said.

Obama to sendhis budget to Congress Feb. 14

12 animals diein Deerfi eld fi re

DEERFIELD — A dozen animals died in a barn fi re that may have been sparked by a heat lamp Saturday morning, authorities said.

Five pigs, four adult goats and three baby goats perished in the fi re, according to Fire Chief Mark Tibbetts.

A baby goat may have knocked down the heat lamp in the barn, which included stored hay and grain, he said.

“It just took a spark with the hay,” Tibbetts said.

Arriving fi refi ghters found a fully involved barn at 105 Mount Delight Road shortly after 11 a.m. The barn burned to the ground. A nearby chicken coop sustained minor damage, and the chickens inside were saved, he said.

There were no injuries. The barn is owned by Scott and Diane Partridge.

Shipyard to get$16m for construction

The Portsmouth Naval Ship-yard in Kittery, Maine, will re-ceive $16 million in Navy funds for construction and modern-ization work on one of three dry docks used for submarine engineering overhauls, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., announced Friday.

Last November, several senators, including Shaheen, expressed concern that the shipyard has had to rely on funding requests from indi-vidual members of Congress.

In a letter to Jacob Lew, di-rector of the president’s Offi ce of Management and Budget, the senators wrote that without such funds “we will have seri-ous concerns about the ability of the Navy’s facilities to sup-port effi cient shipyard opera-tions and to protect the safety, health and quality of life of the thousands of employees who work there every day.”

City man facesrobbery charge

MANCHESTER — An off-duty Manchester police offi cer caught a robber trying to steal goods from the Sports Author-ity on South Willow Street.

On his way to work, Det. Sgt. John Patti saw three people run out of the store entrance, get into a vehicle and then fl ee the area. Patti was able to iden-tify the license plate before the vehicle disappeared.

At the same time, another male was attempting to leave the store with what police de-scribe as a “signifi cant amount of merchandise,” assaulted a store clerk as he fl ed and ran from the parking lot.

Patti chased the suspect on foot and called headquarters for assistance.

Patti caught 17-year-old William Delisle of 15 Malvern St., Manchester, and took him into custody by the time ad-ditional police arrived. Delisle was charged with robbery and violation of bail conditions.

WILD NH Daycoming April 30

CONCORD — The state Fish and Game Department will hold its annual Discover WILD New Hampshire Day on Saturday, April 30, at its headquarters, 11 Hazen Drive, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admis-sion is free.

Live wildlife, big fi sh, retriev-er dogs and trained falcons will be on hand for this annual family event. Hands-on activi-ties include wildlife crafts, ar-chery and casting, and dozens of environmental, conserva-tion and outdoor organizations will sponsor exhibits.

New this year is the “Won-ders of Watersheds” ex-hibit from the Sylvia O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge. It is co-sponsored by Fish and Game an the Department of Environmental Services.

In Brief

8

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Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011 • NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS • Page A3Politics

A 7 PERCENT decrease in the sewer rate wasn’t sup-posed to be controversial.

But when it came before the Committee on Admin-istration and Information Systems on Tuesday, the item passed by a slim 3-2 margin. Before the meeting ended, Ward 8 Alderman Betsi DeVries notifi ed her fel-low members she wanted to reconsider her vote, and the sewer rate decrease that had

been headed for the full board was tabled.

DeVr-ies said on Thursday that some of her constituents have been waiting for

public sewer service for a long time, and she was concerned this rate decrease could make the wait even longer. But in a conversation with Public Works Director Kevin Shep-pard, she learned the Glen Forrest and Lone Pine Drive neighborhoods were on track to get public sewerage through the ongoing Cohas Brook project.

DeVr-ies’ other concern was the massive, federally-man-dated combined sewer overfl ow (CSO) abatement program, which requires that Manchester separate the storm water from the waste water in the public system. Sheppard told the committee the second phase of the project was sup-posed to begin this year, but because the details are being

renegotiated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it’s been put on hold. While Manchester waits, the city has opted to give resi-dents a break on their sewer rates.

Some aldermen, including Dan O’Neil and Garth Corriveau, who voted against the rate decrease, are concerned be-cause Man-chester still has to pay for the CSO program at some point. If the aldermen vote for a rate de-crease now, they worry residents would get hit with a huge increase later. The city laid out a fi nancial plan for this sewer project, O’Neil said, and it should stick to it.

“We’re going to need that money,” said O’Neil. “We’re setting up the public for a large increase down the road, and I think that’s wrong.”

“I don’t disagree with your comments,” Sheppard said. “A rate reduction will require rate increases in the future, perhaps earlier in the future. With the economy down, people need it now, and hopefully down the road they can handle a rate increase.”

DeVries said she hopes the city will soon get some an-swers from the EPA so alder-men will be more informed in their decision, but the delay hasn’t sat well with Mayor Ted Gatsas, who lobbied for the

decrease.“I’m sure the full Board of

Aldermen will have an oppor-tunity to vote on that,” said Gatsas. “The commission that reviewed it and agreed with the reduction are people we put in that position and that the aldermen voted for, and I would hope we would listen to their recommendations.”

.

THE MANCHESTER Re-publican Committee wants more of its members on the top city boards in 2012. To help achieve that goal, the newly-elected offi cers have launched a recruiting effort that’s focusing on Republi-cans who lost their bid for state offi ce in November and small-business owners with political ambitions, similar to state Sen. Tom DeBlois.

Newly appointed city committee President Jeff Frost said the search for hard-working, conservative candidates was the subject of discussion at a committee meeting last week.

“I’m looking for people with some fi re in their belly,” said Frost.

The com-mittee will soon relaunch its website and plans to employ more social media outreach. It has also scheduled a nonpartisan event on the history of the New Hampshire Primary on Feb. 16 at Saint Anselm College with New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner.

MRC offi cers, elected Jan. 19, also include 1st Vice Chairman David Hurst, who served on the boards of the MRC and the Young Repub-licans; 2nd Vice Chairman

Ronnie Schlender, who was named the Greater Manches-ter Chamber of Commerce’s 2010 Volunteer of the Year; Secretary Aaron Goulette, who has ample political experi-ence on local and national campaigns in New Hamp-shire and elsewhere; and Treasurer Lisa Swank, a Re-publican activist who worked to elect the West Side’s entirely Republican delega-tion, including husband Rep. Matt Swank.

.

IF THERE’S a Democrat out there considering running against Mayor Gatsas, it’s the best kept secret in town. With the exception of Alderman Corriveau’s cryptic reference to running for something on the city ballot this fall, no one has even hinted at a Demo-crat willing to step up.

City Democratic Chairman Mike Brunelle, who usually plays such political moves close to his vest anyway, said voters could expect a candi-date “in the coming months.”

When pressed for a more concrete time frame, he said, “I would say sooner rather than later.”

Democrats are busy work-ing on city and state bud-gets right now, concerned about the possible “massive downshifting to the city of Manchester” and what that would mean for city services such as police, fi re and public schools.

Brunelle was clear about the party’s intention to hold on to the 13-seat majority it has on the Board of Mayor and Alder-men by focusing on their records.

“Democrats on the board have been extremely respon-sive to their constituents, and I think that matters,” said Brunelle.

.

CITY RESIDENTS have

heard plenty about the troubled budget outlook, but on Wednesday, Feb. 9, Gatsas is expected to highlight more than just city fi nancials at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce State of the State/State of the City break-fast forum at the New Hamp-shire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. Gov. John Lynch will also speak at the event, offering an update on the state of New Hamp-shire. Tickets are available at manchester-chamber.org.

.

ATTORNEY EDWARD STEWART JR. of the law fi rm Shaheen and Gordon has been appointed to the Man-chester Transit Authority to fi ll a term that expires in May. LAC Group recruiter and former Manchester City Li-brary staffer Kathleen Schmidt has been nominated to the Arts Commission, to replace Celia Nardo; Planning Board alternate Robert Campbell has been nominated to replace resigning member Christo-pher Thompson; Joan Bennett, president of The Write Con-nection, has been nominated to fi ll Campbell’s seat as a Planning Board alternate; Lyn Gelinas of the Citizens Finan-cial Group has been nominat-ed to fi ll Donna Daneke’s spot as a Planning Board alternate; Robert Dastin has been nomi-nated for another term on the Airport Commission; and interior design consultant and New Hampshire Institute of Art instructor June Trisciani has been nominated to fi ll a vacancy on the Heritage Commission. Louis DeMato has stepped down from his spot on the Planning Board.

.

Read Bth LaMontagne Hall’s coverage of Manchester City Hall during the week in the New Hampshire Union Leader. E-mail her at bhall@unionleader.com.

Proposed sewer rate decrease stopped up in committee

City HallCity HallBethBeth

LaMontagneLaMontagneHallHall

O’NEIL

DEVRIES

GATSAS

THE POLICY DIRECTOR. A long-time top adviser to former candidate for governor John Stephen has landed a key post in Speaker of the House Bill O’Brien’s offi ce.

Greg Moore is now House policy director, a new full-time post that he said pays $75,000 annually.

Moore will offer the leader-ship advice on policy and communications efforts and track the progress of bills.

He is expected to attempt to keep the leadership and House GOP message focused on fi scal issues. It’s appar-ently not coincidental that his hiring comes after several weeks of embarrassing issues faced by the leadership, from the abandoned effort to oust state Democratic Party Ex-ecutive Director Mike Brunelle from the House to Rep. Lars Christiansen’s petition in sup-port of a convicted rapist.

As far back as mid-Decem-ber, after former Democratic state Chairman Kathy Sul-livan wrote an op-ed ripping O’Brien’s creation of a Consti-tutional Review and Statutory Recodifi cation Committee, Moore advised leadership not to respond directly but to in-stead refocus on creating jobs and on balancing the budget without raising taxes.

Moore, a Manchester resident, was Stephen’s policy and communications adviser during the gubernatorial cam-paign.

When Stephen was com-missioner of Health and Human Services, Moore was the department’s director of public affairs and government relations from 2003 to 2007. He has also run his own public relations consulting shop.

.

HURST IN MINNESOTA. Former Manchester City Republican Committee Chair-man Cliff Hurst was in Minne-apolis last weekend attending what he called a “strategy session” for the soon-to-be presidential campaign of former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Hurst in 2008 was state campaign chair for Mike Huckabee. He said he hasn’t committed to Pawlenty, but is interested in him. Hurst noted that Huckabee’s plans appear far from certain at this point.

.

GROWING INFLUENCE. Fresh from its success in help-ing Jack Kimball get elected chairman of the Republican State Committee, the Repub-lican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire is getting more involved at the State House.

The group, which endorsed 107 of the current House members, on Friday launched “The RLCNH Report,” an e-mail to members and sup-porters pointing out bills of interest.

Andrew Hemingway, RLCNH chairman, said, “It’s the fi rst time we have ventured outside of elections. We created this report to keep activists noti-fi ed of when we need them to show up at the State House.”

This week’s “action alert” focuses on House Bill 318. Sponsored by liberty move-ment Rep. Andrew Manuse, R-Derry, it would “allow

property owners to refuse entry to property assessors without forfeiting their due process rights,” according to the report. A public hearing is slated for Feb. 3.

.

OBAMA NAMES HELMS. Former state Health and Human Services Commis-sioner Ned Helms has been appointed to a health-related advisory commission by Presi-dent Barack Obama. Helms was an original backer of Obama’s presidential run.

Helms is now on the Advisory Group on Preven-tion, Health Promotion and Integrative and Public Health, which, according to Modern-Physician.com, was created last year “to provide feedback and policy recommendations on prevention and manage-ment of chronic diseases, integrative health and the pro-motion of healthy lifestyles.”

Helms since 2001 has been director of the New Hamp-shire Institute for Health

Policy and Practice at the Uni-versity of New Hampshire.

.

“THE NEW HAMPSHIRE WAY.” A constitutional amendment question pro-posed by Rep. Al Baldasaro, R-Londonderry, would remove the words “faith and true allegiance to the United States” from the New Hamp-shire oath of offi ce for elected offi cials and would require that they “bear faith and true allegiance to the State of New Hampshire” and “support” the U.S. Constitution as well as the state constitution.

Baldasaro, a U.S. Marine veteran, says the intent of the proposed amendment is certainly not to keep elected offi cials from swearing al-legiance to the United States of America, but rather to ensure U.S. senators and U.S. representatives swear alle-giance to the state and its own constitution as well as to the U.S. Constitution.

He said of U.S. senators and

House members, “Some of the stuff they vote against is not the New Hampshire way.”

Citing “Obamacare,” which was supported by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and the two former Democratic members of the U.S. House, Baldasaro said, “There are certain votes that show they are not paying attention to New Hampshire. So whether they’re Republi-can or Democrat, we want to

make sure that they’re not just taking the oath for the U.S. and they’re taking the oath for New Hampshire also.

“We have a constitution that you have to comply with also,” he said, “not just the U.S. Constitution.”

.

John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News.

GOP turns to Moore to help keep the party focusedGranite Status

John DiStaso

LAST YEAR, this column noted that Superintendent of Schools Thomas Brennan would be taking the Penguin Plunge at Hampton Beach on Sunday, Feb. 6, to ben-efi t Special Olympics New Hampshire.

Last week, Special Olympics athlete Ben Soule challenged members of the Board of Mayor and Alder-men to join Brennan in the plunge.

Soule told the board on Tuesday that Manchester boasts 140 Special Olym-pics athletes and that his

participation has given him confi dence to play sports at the high school level. Seeing that Brennan — who he du-biously noted is 63 years old — is willing to do it, “you at age 60 should be able to take the plunge and frolic in the waves longer than him.”

Mayor Ted Gatsas said there was no way anyone was getting him in the water next weekend, but he and the aldermen broke out their checkbooks and donated to Special Olympics on Soule’s behalf.

Beth Lamontagne Hall

Laying down the gauntlet

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that’s not being adhered to.”Manchester Fire Chief James

Burkush, however, said, “We

are required to offer the physi-cals. It’s up to the individual to take one or not. We can’t force

someone to take a physical. We meet our requirements by of-fering it.”

The issue arose during Thursday’s budget discussion when someone asked about an increase of $80,000 in the Human Resources budget. The money is earmarked for these physicals, was the response. That’s when Roy raised his con-cern that the unit’s certifi ca-tion could be in jeopardy if the physicals aren’t administered each year.

“It’s my understanding that no one has taken the physicals for a while but that there are talks regarding the issue,” said Manchester Human Resources Director Jane Gile. “The in-crease was put there in case something comes out of those discussions.”

Physicals are given to em-ployees when they join the de-partment, not subsequently.

“We haven’t had anyone take us up on a hazmat physical in fi ve years,” said Red Robidas, security manager for the city, who is responsible for employ-ee testing for drug, alcohol and medical issues. “No one has opted to take part in them.”

Ryan Cashin, president of Manchester Professional Fire-fi ghters Association Local 856, has a different view of the situ-ation. “We aren’t in any dan-ger of losing our certifi cation,” he said. “We have gone over it and over it again with lawyers. If the city wants to put money in there for physicals that no one is going to take, that’s their business, but we’re in the mid-dle of a fi scal crisis.”

Roy, who helped establish the city’s Hazardous Materials Re-sponse Team, cites language in Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regula-tions that says such physicals “‘shall be’ administered.

He added: “You need to es-tablish a baseline for the indi-vidual’s health. The chemicals they could be handling as part of this job have different effects on different parts of the body, ones that aren’t always easily spotted. We need to know what condition that person’s liver

was in before they handled the chemicals, then again after, to know what effect it had on them. You need to have a base-line to look at, and you need the testing for that.”

Without a physical, there can be no baseline in the Manches-ter department, he said.

Fire offi cials argue that be-cause New Hampshire is not considered an “OSHA state’’ — meaning OSHA has not approved New Hampshire’s health coverage — it has to only offer the physicals .

“If we were in New Jersey, which is an OSHA state, they would have to take the test every year,’’ Burkush said. “But we aren’t, so offering it covers our requirements to retain our certifi cation.”

Roy disagrees, saying New Hampshire is an EPA state, meaning its occupational safety and response plans are okayed by the Environmental Protec-tion Agency, which uses the same language in its regulation as appears in the OSHA rules.

“It’s something for the law-yers to sort out,” said Roy.

The language both sides dif-fer over appears in Section 1910.120 of OSHA’s regulations for hazardous waste operations and emergency responses, which governs “members of hazmat teams.’’

That language includes a line, “All medical examinations and procedures shall be per-formed by or under the super-vision of a licensed physician, preferably one knowledgeable in occupational medicine, and shall be provided without cost to the employee, without loss of pay, and at a reasonable time and place.”

Firefi ghters cite another sec-tion as proof of their point: “Medical examinations and consultations shall be made available by the employer to each employee covered ...”

“I don’t think there’s a ques-tion of liability here,” said Cash-in. “If I respond to a hazmat incident and handle stuff, and my arm falls off, or I respond to a fi re and my arm falls off, I’m still going to be out on disabil-ity. Why should I have to take a physical to respond to a hazmat situation if I don’t have to take one to run into a burning build-ing? I didn’t know this was even an issue. A lot of the guys get their own physicals done.”

Roy cites the physical stress of being a member of the hazmat team as another reason to con-duct the physicals, aside from possible certifi cation issues.

“This equipment is very cold in the winter, and it’s like work-ing in a rainforest when it’s hot,” said Roy.

Asked how he felt about sending a team into a hazmat situation even though the fi re-fi ghters haven’t taken a physi-cal recently, Burkush reiterated, “We offer the physicals, which is all we are required to do.”

“Every lawyer we have gone over this with has told us it’s not a problem,” said Cashin. “We can still respond, we aren’t in danger of losing certifi cation, and we don’t have to take them up on physicals.”

The issue came up unexpect-edly at City Hall last week.

“This was the fi rst time, to my knowledge, that this has ever been brought up,” said Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas. “We’ve only begun looking at it, but it will be a topic of discus-sion for a while.”

Dante Scala. It is more a na-tional thing.

“The candidates seem to be taking their time getting up to the starting line everywhere,” he said. “They are pausing before they are taking the plunge.”

During the 2008 cycle, he said, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had announced by now, while on the other side Romney had been running for a while, and everyone knew John McCain was a candidate.

One theory, Scala said, is that the lack of a clear front-runner has the fi eld unsettled. “Some of the candidates are looking to other candidates to see if there is going to be room for them in the race,” he said. “Michele Bachmann is watching Sarah Palin, and Sarah Palin is watch-ing Mike Huckabee.”

Others see that Romney got in early in 2008, but it didn’t help him, Scala said. “It’s wait and see, but whoever the Re-publican nominee, they are going to have to raise an awful lot of money, so they only can wait so long,” he said.

Scala said this cycle reminds him of 1992, when the can-didates were late getting into the race. There were a lot of candidates talking about run-ning, including Mario Cuomo, who didn’t, and Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee, who didn’t come to New Hamp-shire until the summer of 1991, he noted. “This may be one of those years,” Scala said.

Political consultant Rich Killion worked for Romney in 2008, but to date is unaffi li-ated in this cycle. He said com-paring this primary to 2008 is not an apt comparison. “Each presidential cycle has its own rhythm,” he said.

The 2008 race was wide open for Democrats and Republi-cans, he said, which meant lots of public activity and a very early start.

Although potential candi-dates have not announced they are running, he said, there has been “a lot of shadow boxing and behind-the-scenes stuff with the activists community. For that kind of activity, it has

not been slow.”He said the presidential can-

didates were respectful of the 2010 state and federal candi-dates. “They were the focus, and they needed to be the focus,” Killion said, and the presidential candidates helped as much as they could with fi nancial support and as sur-rogates to bring visibility and notoriety.

Killion said the delayed start has a potential effect on Re-publicans because President Obama becomes stronger every day the Republican can-

didates don’t defi ne him or cri-tique him, as Democrats did to President Bush in 2003 during the presidential primary.

But he said starting in Feb-ruary and March, activity will pick up around the traditional Lincoln Day dinners. “That will drive a lot of local news interest and drive further interest in the activists community,” he said.

Romney and former presi-dential candidate Giuliani are both returning to the state in the near future, as is former House Speaker Gingrich.

The former New York City

mayor is slated to be the main draw for the Manchester City Republican Committee’s Lin-coln-Reagan Dinner fundraiser March 18 at the Executive Court banquet facility.

Gingrich is scheduled to ap-pear the day before at former Executive Councilor Bernie Streeter’s Wild Irish Breakfast, benefi ting the PLUS Co., at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nashua.

And Romney will be in the state this week for private meet-ings with key state Republican activists. He is scheduled to be the keynote speaker March 5 at the Carroll County Republican Committee Lincoln-Reagan Dinner fundraiser at Bartlett’s Attitash Grand Summit Hotel.

Two lesser known candidates have spent considerable time here already: former Pennsyl-vania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Santorum has visited eight times and Pawlenty six.

Republican presidential can-didates returning to the Granite State will also fi nd a different landscape than in 2008, when

Democrats had control of the State House and three of the four congressional seats.

Republicans now fi rmly con-trol the State House, hold three of the four congressional seats, have a new party chairman, Jack Kimball, who is associated with the Tea Party movement, and a new group of more con-servative activists.

Scala said this presidential primary cycle is shaping up to be really interesting. The last decade was the McCain de-cade, he noted, when he won the primary in 2000 and 2008.

“This is going to be an inter-esting one to watch, with the internal changes in the Repub-lican Party, with Jack Kimball and the Tea Party movement,” Scala said. “It’s going to inter-esting to watch someone like Romney navigate all that.

“The conditions on the ground have changed since ’08; there are different activists out there. It really is going to be an interesting one to watch, al-though it may be late develop-ing.”

From left, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani are among the potential presidential candidates with visits to New Hampshire scheduled.

8

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Page A6 • NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS • Jan. 30, 2011 Nation/World

By LORNA COLQUHOUNSunday News Correspondent

An early morning phone call Saturday brought relief to a Peterborough father who had been anxiously awaiting word from his teenage daugh-ter living in Egypt.

Courtney Graves, 18, has been living in Giza for a little more than a month. She last spoke to her father, Steven, Thursday, as parts of Egypt erupted in violent anti-gov-ernment protests.

Steven Graves said the 4:33 a.m. ring of the telephone was a big relief. He and his daughter had talked about 10 a.m. New Hampshire time on Thursday, just as cell phone and Internet services in Egypt, which were believed to be fu-eling the unrest, were being shut down.

“She called as soon as the cell phones came back on,” Steven Graves said. “She wants to stay; she feels safe.” But, he added, “I am encour-aging her as intensely as pos-sible” to rethink her plan to live in Egypt for two more months before setting out to travel across the Middle East. She plans to return home in June.

Graves fi rst went to Egypt last year, her senior year in high school. She returned there Dec. 29, and is living with the family she stayed with as a student.

When Steven Graves did not hear from his daughter Friday afternoon, he contact-ed the U.S. State Department and U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H. He appeared on CNN

Friday night and began hear-ing from other parents across the country who have chil-dren in Egypt.

“We have started to net-work with these parents,” Steve Graves said.

The early morning con-versation was brief because Courtney Graves did not have many minutes left on her cell phone. “She told us she loves us,” Steven Graves said. “She was unaware of a lot that is going on there.”

The teen has a blog on which she wrote about the early hours of the protests last week, which was picked up by the BBC.

On Wednesday, she wrote she had gone alone to Tah-rir Square (in Cairo) to see the demonstrations. (Midan Tahrir, commonly referred to as Tahrir Square, means “Lib-eration Square.” It’s a large public square near the center of the city.)

“I surfaced from the Metro station into a scene of happy panic,” she wrote. “Riot po-lice were lined up along every street, and it was almost impossible to move at fi rst. From afar, I could hear a roar of human voices coming from one side of the square.”

She said she dodged tear gas fi red into the crowd.

“She is witnessing history,” Steven Graves said.

His daughter is taking the year off after her graduation from Conant High School to travel and is applying to several colleges, including Georgetown. She is passion-ate about human rights, par-ticularly the rights of women, and it did not surprise him that she “wanted to be in the middle of it,” he said.

She hopes to pursue a ca-reer in either journalism or politics.“I love that part of her,” he said Friday afternoon, “but we’re concerned.”

NH family hears from teen in Egypt

COURTESY PHOTO

Courtney Graves posted this photo on her blog earlier this week, as Egypt erupted in anti-government protests.

By ARSHAD MOHAMMEDand MATT SPETALNICK

Reuters

WASHINGTON — The United States told Egyptian Presi-dent Hosni Mubarak Satur-day it was not enough simply to “reshuffl e the deck” with a shake-up of his government and pressed him to make good on his promise of genuine re-form.

As angry protesters defi ed a curfew in Egyptian cities, President Barack Obama and his administration kept up pressure for Mubarak to heed their calls for democratic change and take seriously a U.S. threat to review massive aid to Cairo.

In Cairo, looted stores, burnt out cars and the stench of blaz-ing tires fi lled the streets early on Sunday as Mubarak sought to bargain with angry crowds and security forces struggled to contain looters.

100 killedIn fi ve days of unprecedent-

ed protests that have rocked the Arab world, more than 100 people have been killed, inves-tors and tourists have taken fright, and Mubarak has of-fered a fi rst glimpse of a plan to step down and 80 million Egyptians are caught between hope for democratic reform and fear of chaos.

Obama is performing a deli-cate balancing act, trying to avoid abandoning Mubarak — an important U.S. strategic ally of 30 years — while sup-

porting protesters who seek broader political rights and demand his ouster. But Wash-ington has limited options to infl uence the situation.

“The Egyptian government can’t reshuffl e the deck and then stand pat,” State Depart-ment spokesman P.J. Crowley said in a message on Twitter.com after Mubarak fi red his government but made clear he had no intention of stepping down.

“President Mubarak’s words pledging reform must be fol-lowed by action,” he said, echo-ing Obama’s appeal on Friday for Mubarak to embrace a new political dynamic.

Crowley’s statementCrowley’s comments, part

of an increasingly assertive U.S. stance, came just before Mubarak picked intelligence chief and confi dant Omar Su-leiman as vice president. It is a post Mubarak had never fi lled in three decades of rule, and many interpreted the move as edging toward an eventual handover of power.

Obama huddled on Saturday for an hour with his national security team on the crisis in Egypt, a linchpin of U.S. Mid-dle East strategy.

White House focusAfterward, the White House

said its focus remained on “calling for restraint, support-ing universal rights and sup-porting concrete steps that advance political reform.”

The U.S. administration was

caught off guard by the politi-cal upheaval that has rocked the Middle East in recent days, from Egypt to Tunisia to Leba-non to Yemen.

As U.S. offi cials weighed the latest developments in Egypt, protests emerged in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, where about 150 people marched from the Egyptian Embassy to the White House and stood outside the gates chanting, “Hey Obama, don’t you know, Hosni Mubarak has to go.”

In New York, nearly 1,500 people rallied outside the United Nations headquarters, chanting “People want regime change.”

‘Brick by brick’Several hundred protesters

gathered outside the Egyptian consulate in Chicago carrying signs, singing the Egyptian anthem and chanting slogans such as “Brick by brick, wall by wall, we will see Mubarak fall.”

Call for elections A top Republican called for

Mubarak to hold elections.“Mr. Mubarak should listen

to the demands of the Egyptian people for freedom and imme-diately schedule legitimate, democratic, internationally recognized elections,” said Il-eana Ros-Lehtinen, head of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

“The people of Egypt no lon-ger accept the status quo. They are looking to their govern-ment for a meaningful process to foster real reform,”

Crowley said unrest in Egypt’s cities continued de-spite Mubarak having ordered the army to the streets.

Obama pressures Mubarak as U.S. protests grow.Protesters: They defied curfew in Egyptian cities and took to the streets in New York, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities.

By JON HURDLEReuters

PHILADELPHIA — A tiny non-profi t organization operating a 12-year national campaign

from a basement to get more noncommercial radio stations approved, may soon see its dream come true.

On Jan. 4, the nonprofi t Prometheus and other groups

seeking to diversify media ownership, scored a victory when President Barack Obama signed into law the Local Com-munity Radio Act. It directs the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the national airwaves, to allow more low-power stations ac-cess to the FM radio dial.

Once implemented, the law is expected to result in as many 2,000 new stations, beginning in about 2013.

That would more than double the approximately 800 low-power stations currently in operation, compared with around 13,000 commercial stations nationwide. About a third of commercial stations are owned by half a dozen cor-porations, led by Clear Channel Communications, Inc, with al-most 900.

An increase in the number of community stations could mean more coverage of local issues such as school board meetings, high school football games, health, education, local music and literacy campaigns. It also might allow more in-depth discussions rather than the sound bites on most com-mercial radio, said Brandy Doyle, policy director for Pro-

metheus.“It makes a lot more room

on a medium (FM radio) that a lot of people still use,” said Pro-metheus founder Pete Tridish.

In the basement of Calvary United Methodist Church in West Philadelphia, Pro-metheus’ offi ces are hung with banners from its demonstra-tions in support of noncom-mercial radio. They represent the more than a decade the group fought for the law.

Since about half the exist-ing low-power FM stations are owned by churches, some of the new material is likely to be religious.

Backers of the new law spanned the religious and po-litical spectrum, including the Christian Coalition, a conser-vative group, and the U.S. Con-ference of Catholic Bishops, as well as liberal groups includ-ing MoveOn.org and Common Cause.

Whatever the effect of the new law, mainstream stations are not likely to change their programming, and clearly will not be losing advertisers to new noncommercial broadcasters, said Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of the National Association of Broadcasters.

.New law: It directs the FCC to allow more low-power stations access to the FM radio dial.

New U.S. law could foster community radio boom

Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011 • NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS • Page A7

page 7SN0701A0130 CMYK

World/Nation

Mom who killedteen kids in hospital

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Re-uters) — A Tampa woman who admitted murdering her two teenage children was taken to a local hospital on Saturday for evaluation, police said.

Tampa police said Julia Schenecker, 50, admitted to killing her 16-year old daugh-ter Calyx and 13-year old son Beau on Thursday night. Police found the bodies of the two children at their home on Fri-day. Both had been shot.

Police had gone to the home after getting a call from Schenecker’s mother in Texas saying she was concerned about her daughter and grand-children.

“The suspect (Julia Sche-necker) confessed to killing her two children. She described the crimes in detail,” Tampa Police spokesman Laura McEl-roy said in a statement.

Schenecker was arrested and charged with two counts of fi rst degree murder.

Her husband, Parker Schenecker, 48, is a colonel in the U.S. Army stationed at Central Command headquar-ters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. He was out of the country on duty when he was told of the killings.

Ohio bust nets 2,800 pounds of marijuana

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Au-thorities in Columbus, Ohio,seized about 2,800 pounds of marijuana from Mexico with a street value of $3.5 million, as well as almost $1 million in cash in two raids, police said on Saturday.

The marijuana was seized after a six-month investiga-tion and was to be distributed throughout central Ohio, said Columbus Police spokesman Sergeant Rich Weiner.

In the fi rst raid, on Jan. 26, police witnessed large quantities of marijuana being transferred from a South Columbus warehouse to a van, which police intercepted along with two smugglers, Hector Martinez, 36, of Columbus and Luis Miranda, 24, of Phoe-nix, Ariz. They were arrested and charged with possession of marijuana. In total, ap-proximately 2,055 pounds of marijuana were collected, said Sergeant Rich Weiner.

Police quickly learned that Luis Miranda’s brother, Arnal-do Miranda, 25, was involved in the smuggling and inter-cepted him with $946,000 in cash at a residence he rented.

In the second raid on Friday, the investigation led to the seizure of an additional 800 pounds of marijuana at a home in Columbus.

All three men were arraigned on felony drug charges and are being held at Franklin County jail. Bail for each is set at $500,085 and no court date has been set.

Comcast completesNBC Universal merger

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Com-cast Corp. has completed its takeover of NBC Universal, creating a $30 billion media behemoth that controls not just how television shows and and movies are made but how they are delivered to people’shomes.

In a statement Saturday, Comcast said the transaction closed the previous day. To close the deal, Comcast, the No. 1 provider of video and residential Internet service in the United States, acquired a 51 percent stake in NBC Uni-versal from General Electric Co.

Executives at Comcast spent more than 13 months working on getting the deal through a rigorous U.S. regulatory review process with the Federal Com-munications Commission and Justice Department.

Regulators, who approved the deal on Jan. 18 with condi-tions, were concerned that an all powerful Comcast might stifl e competition from new online video competitors in-cluding Hulu, in which it now owns a stake.

Among the conditions to which Comcast agreed: relin-quishing management rights of its minority stake in Hulu.

North Dakota policesay four bodies found

CHICAGO (Reuters) — Police in Minot, N.D. were question-ing a person on Saturday in connection with the deaths of four people at two locations.

“A person of interest is being questioned but has not been arrested or charged,” said Winston Black, a Minot police sergeant.

Police found the body of

a woman at a residence and three additional bodies in a trailer park just before 2 p.m. local time on Friday. Black said the victims have been identi-fi ed, but the names have not been released.

The cause of death also was not released.

“The community should not have anything to worry about,”Black said. “They should be all

safe.”Minot is located in the

northern part of the state, about 100 miles north of Bismarck.

Suicide bomber killsKandahar deputy gov.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Re-uters) — A motorcycle suicide

bomber killed the deputy governor of Afghanistan’s Kan-dahar province on Saturday, a blow to U.S.-led forces trying to bolster governance and fi ght a robust insurgency in the Taliban’s heartland.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since U.S.-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001 with casualties on all sides at record levels and militant attacks increasing in number and spreading to almost every part

of the country.Deputy Governor Abdul

Latif Ashna was killed as he left his home to travel to work in Kandahar city, capital of Kan-dahar province, the governor’sspokesman Zalmay Ayoubi said.

At least fi ve other civilians who were wounded in the blast had been taken to hospital. No further details were immedi-ately available about the attack or about the condition of the wounded.

In Brief

years ago while cleaning out a box of old business documents in her attic.

Tessier was the couple’s close friend and trusted attorney, Dunham said, when he stole a $1 million life insurance pay-ment after Gerald LeBlanc died of meningitis on Oct. 31, 1982.

“If he got away with it with me, knowing Tom, I just can’t imagine he wouldn’t have done it to someone else,” Dunham said. “Why me? Because it was easy. I completely trusted him.”

Tessier’s public defender denies Dunham’s allegations. But a federal prosecutor asked Dunham to detail her story to the judge at Tessier’s sentenc-ing hearing last March on the unrelated $2.3 million thefts that took place between 2002 and 2006.

Attorney Steven Latici of Gil-manton has fi led a claim on Dunham’s behalf that is pend-ing before the N.H. Bar Asso-ciation Public Protection Fund seeking at least partial resti-tution. The fund reimburses people who have lost money or property due to theft or misap-propriation by their attorney.

“Attorney Tessier stole and cashed two checks in the amount of $500,000 each that were paid out on a life insur-ance policy to my late husband by Great American Life Insur-ance,” Dunham said in her claim to the PPF committee.

Dunham told the New Hampshire Sunday News that for months after Gerald LeB-lanc died, Tessier was adamant that the insurance company had refused payment on the $1 million policy. Gerald had sent the company a letter three days before his death saying he wanted to cancel it for the value it had accrued. But the letter wasn’t received until after his death, she said.

“Tessier was one of the fi rst people I called when Gerry died because of our friend-ship,” Dunham said. “He said: ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.’”

Dunham said Gerald LeBlanc had also purchased a $700,000 life insurance policy from the

same company just prior to his death. That claim was paid to her, Dunham said, and she used a portion of it to pay off the business’ debts to Bank East and to her mother-in-law.

The last time Dunham con-fronted Tessier in his now-

defunct fi rm, Christy and Tessier in Manchester , she was so stunned by his reaction that she didn’t con-tact him again.

“Tom said: ‘If you are here

because of what I think, you can turn around and get the hell out,’” Dunham said. He told her that last time again that the insurance company wasn’t going to pay the claim.

“I said, ‘You’re never taking care of anything for me again.’ That was it,” Dunham said.

Time passesDunham moved on, even-

tually sold the hardware store and remarried under the be-lief Great American never paid the $1 million claim. Then in March 2006, she and her hus-band, Robert Dunham, who owns an embroidery business in Conway, wanted to clear out some old business records after they moved to Florida.

Dunham found a sealed en-velope with a letter dated Dec. 28, 1982, from the insurance company to Tessier stating the $1 million claim had been paid. The letter contained a photocopy of two checks made out for $500,000 each, one to J.J. Moreau, the other to Bank East.

“I opened it up and I about died,” Dunham said.

She immediately called her brother, Peter Favreau, Man-chester’s former police chief. He suggested she call the At-torney General’s Offi ce, which she did.

Dunham said she also com-plained to the U.S. Attorney’s Offi ce and the Supreme Court Attorney Discipline Offi ce. She had also unsuccessfully tried to hire an attorney to fi ght Tessier, but all said they had a confl ict.

Tessier fi nally admitted the claim had been paid in a letter dated Oct. 27, 2008, Dunham said, in Tessier’s response to her complaint to the Attorney Discipline Offi ce.

As Tessier remembered it, Gerald LeBlanc borrowed $1 million from the bank to save his business, he told the ADO.

“My memory is that the lend-ing bank required a $1 million insurance policy to protect its interest. Gerry died during this time period and I recall that there was a delay in payment while the insurance company thoroughly investigated the cause of death. The insurance

company fi nally made pay-ment, and the insurance pro-ceeds were given to the bank. I remember that Ms. Dunham (then Mrs. LeBlanc) wanted a portion of the money but it was impossible in light of the outstanding balance due the bank,” Tessier wrote.

No fi ndingThe ADO closed Dunham’s

complaint without making a fi nding because it was already in the process of disbarring Tes-sier on the $2.3 million theft.

On Thursday, Peter Ander-son, who was a vice president of Bank East when Gerald LeB-lanc died, said the bank would never have accepted a life in-surance payment naming it as benefi ciary because the policy could have been for a larger amount than the debt owed.

Anderson said he had known Gerald LeBlanc because he served on the bank’s board of directors. The fi rst he heard about the missing $1 million policy was from Suzanne LeB-lanc Dunham, he said.

“I was fl abbergasted when I heard that,” Anderson said.

Public defender Bjorn Lange, who represented Tessier at his sentencing, argued against Dunham’s testimony being considered by the judge last March in U.S. District Court in Concord.

“Our position has been that that’s just not true,” Lange said. “We dispute the Dunham alle-gations.”

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Kinsella investigated Dunham’s claims, and the gov-ernment paid for her trip to New Hampshire to testify that day. Her testimony was intend-ed to show Tessier’s $2.3 million theft from his cousins, Thad-deus Jakobiec, who is blind and disabled, and Thaddeus’ brother, Dr. Frederick Jakobiec, an eye surgeon, wasn’t the fi rst time Tessier stole money. Lange wanted Judge Joseph N. LaPlante to view Tessier’s $2.3 million theft as an aberration in an otherwise honest career.

Tessier had been a well-re-spected Manchester lawyer and well-known city water commis-sioner for many years.

Kinsella said it was too late to seek federal indictments against Tessier in Dunham’s case.

“By the time the allegations were made known to the U.S. Attorney’s Offi ce, the statute of limitations had run out on the offenses for which (Tessier) could have been prosecuted,” Kinsella said. The statute of lim-itations was fi ve years from the date of the offenses, he said.

At the hearing, Kinsella said it was also too late to obtain the documents needed to prove the charges because the pertinent records had been destroyed.

Kinsella told Judge LaPlante

that when asked by the ADO, “(Tessier) acknowledged that the proceeds from the insur-ance policy had in fact been paid and he used them for the benefi t of the corporation.”

Kinsella told LaPlante he was also going to offer testimony from an offi cer at the hardware company who had reviewed the records back to 1982 and would say he knew for sure there were no life insurance proceeds and no money paid to the company by anyone.

Judge believed herAlthough Judge LaPlante said

he wouldn’t use Dunham’s tes-timony in calculating Tessier’s sentence, he told her he be-lieved her testimony, according to a transcript of the hearing.

“I want you to understand, that doesn’t mean your words have fallen on deaf ears today or that I doubt your testimony in the slightest. I don’t. I credit your testimony,” LaPlante told Dunham.

LaPlante sentenced Tessier to 51 months in federal prison at Devens Federal Medical Center in Ayer, Mass., in con-nection with stealing the $2.3 million. Tessier must serve some additional time in state prison. He is expected to be eli-gible for parole after serving a total of fi ve years.

Even if the Public Protec-tion Fund decides to reimburse Dunham, it would be for far less than her loss. There was a $150,000 cap on awards per lawyer when she fi led her claim, and the Jakobiec brothers have also fi led claims against Tes-sier. Victims of the same lawyer would receive only a percent-age of the $150,000 cap, based on how much they lost.

Tessier’s brother, Michael Tessier, 56, a retired Manches-ter police captain and former executive director of the New Horizons homeless shelter, was indicted in November, accused in connection with $155,000 in thefts from the same relatives that landed his brother in fed-eral prison.

Michael Tessier told the New Hampshire Sunday News last August that he is innocent and was acting at the direction of his attorney brother.

Assistant Cheshire County Attorney John Gasaway, who is prosecuting Michael Tessier, said that investigation is not completed. He declined com-ment on Dunham’s allegations. “As far as I know, there is no criminal involvement on my part,” Michael Tessier said in August.

Michael said he was just doing what Thomas told him after Michael became trustee of a trust fund in 2002 for his cousin, Thaddeus Jakobiec of Manchester. Michael said Thomas Tessier told him that Thaddeus’ brother, Frederick , wanted Michael to have money for caring for Thaddeus.

Michael Tessier’s trial is scheduled for July.

Dunham said she now be-lieves she fought as well as she could after discovering the $1 million policy had been paid, but it did consume her for a long time. “I was easy prey. Tom knew I needed him. I was in shock. I had just lost the person I loved more than any-thing,” Dunham said.

There were times she could have used the money to help her children, Dunham said.

“I can’t believe somebody would do that to his best friend.”

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By JOHN RIGAZIO, ROCHESTERRetired businessman, book author, political columnist

and a Republican candidate in the 2004 NH Presidential Primaries

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Reduction of an employee’s portion of Social Security, called the “payroll tax holiday”: Currently, each employee (other than group II and fi refi ghters) pays 6.2

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Page A8 • NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS • Jan. 30, 2011 From Page One

By NANCY WESTNew Hampshire Sunday News

Long before the big-box stores came to town, Manches-ter shoppers combed the three huge buildings that comprised J.J. Moreau and Son Inc. hard-ware and department store at 1127 Elm St.

Canadian tinsmith Joseph Jean Moreau fi rst set up shop on North Main Street in the McGregorville section of the West Side in 1890 before his son, Arthur E. Moreau, joined the business and moved it to the Elm Street location in 1906, according to Aurore Eaton, executive director of the Man-chester Historic Association.

“I remember going in there as a child. You went there for everything from lamps to hard-ware and light bulbs,” Eaton said.

Everyone knew the names of all the clerks, who often dished out advice on home repairs.

“It was a real go-to place. Later on, we had big depart-ment stores, but before the big stores, it was Moreau’s,” Eaton said. “It was a Franco-Ameri-can institution, for sure.”

Founder J.J. Moreau died in 1920, and his son, Arthur E. Moreau, who would later

become mayor, took over the business. Arthur E. Moreau served as Republican mayor of Manchester from 1926 to 1931. He was also instrumental in forming Amoskeag Industries, Eaton said, which bought the assets of the Amoskeag Man-ufacturing Co . in 1936 and brought diversifi ed industries to the city to provide employ-ment.

After a major fi re extensively damaged the building in 1969, Suzanne LeBlanc Dunham said, her husband, Gerald LeBlanc, the great-grandson of founder J.J. Moreau, borrowed from his inheritance and bought and re-built the business.

“(Gerald) was an extraor-dinary person. Thousands of people went in and out of the store, and he remembered all of their names,” Dunham said.

In 1982, Gerald LeBlanc died of meningitis at age 40. Dunham sold the store three years later to employee Roland Gamelin.

The store moved to the Sun-beam Mall, the former Cote Brothers Bakery, at 87 Elm St. It was sold to J. P. Heart Inc., a Bedford company owned by Marc Jolicoeur and family, Eaton said.

A victim of recession, J.J. Moreau and Son closed on Nov. 9, 1991, Eaton said.

Moreau’s motto was “the store that gives you more,” Eaton said. “And it did.”

J.J. Moreau and Son ‘was a real go-to place’ .Hardware business: A fixture in Manchester for more than a century.

FILE PHOTO

Gerald LeBlanc, great-grandson of J.J. Moreau and Son’s founder, is seen in the Manchester landmark store in this 1976 photo.

TESSIER in a photo

from 1987

TessierTessier Continued From Page A1Continued From Page A1

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room.Lakes Region Ice Racing

Club members chose the fi ght against cancer as their cause in 1984. Members say everyone has either been affected by the illness or knows someone who has.

“I think everybody is touched by cancer, in a bad way. Any-thing we can do helps,” said member and driver Rick Mar-tel, 45, of Moultonborough.

The Latchkey Cup raises money for a serious cause, but drivers and spectators alike say ice racing is a lot of fun. Ice rac-ing engages entire families, ac-cording to some drivers, and for others it’s a pastime that has been handed down to sons and daughters alike. What’s not to like about speed?

“You get to go fast,” said Cody Ryder, 16, of Center Os-sipee, who is now in his third year of racing. Exactly how fast these cars can run around the icy oval track is unclear; Ryder said the cars don’t have speed-ometers, radios or any ame-nities. “You have to strip out all the interiors and take out all the extra wiring you don’t need,” he said. The cars are equipped with safety features, including roll bars or roll cages, and the drivers wear helmets and are secured with fi ve-point harnesses. Ryder’s own car is a hollowed out Honda Prelude that he bought specifi cally for ice racing. He said he picked up racing from his brother. Most Sundays, he’s ice racing at the icing club’s events.

Martel got his daughter, Jack-ie, 13, involved in ice racing for the joy of it. He talked about the camaraderie, teamwork, and competitiveness of the sport.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “We’re all a bunch of good friends here. We help each other out. It keeps us out of trouble. We’re good friends during the week and are competitors on the weekend,” he said.

Jack Cook, an experienced driver and club member since 1979, drew his granddaughter, Alicia Taylor, 15, into the sport. “I’m always nervous at fi rst, but it’s fun when I’m out there,” said

Alicia. She’s in her third year of racing. Together, the Cook and Taylor households have fi ve ice racing cars. Alicia’s father, Matt Taylor, brother Chris and nephew all race, said Cook.

“I started doing this 32 years ago,” said Cook. “It’s a bad habit.’’

Drivers invest time and money into the sport.

“I probably spend 25 hours a week working on four different cars,” said Martel.

Cook declined to fess up his investment. “Don’t want to say; the wife might fi nd out,” he said.

The sport overall has a low injury rate, said Cook. Mishaps are rare, but these drivers ac-knowledge they do occasionally occur. “You can get hurt shov-eling your walkway, though. We take all the precautions we can, but there’s always the chance for a freak accident,” Cook said.

“I can’t remember the last time someone had to go to the

doctor, though,” Martel said.Several cars slid off the track

during Saturday’s event, with no injuries reported. Tow trucks stood by and quickly towed the cars out of the snowbanks and back to the pits. Berry Pond has a 15-inch layer of ice, and on Saturday a light snowfall made things slippery on the track. Cook described the conditions as “rough,” with pits on the ice. After a few laps, the track can get slushy, he said.

The race cars are colorful, but spectators’ visibility on the track is at times obscured by ice dust kicked up by chained race car tires. The fi ve classes include stock, modifi ed, 4-cyl-inder front wheel drive, 4-cylin-der rear wheel drive, and Junior (teens 13 to 15). A scheduled highlight for the fi nal race of the

day featured a face-off between special professional guest driv-ers Kirk Alexander, Luke Royea and Brad Leighton.

Organizers anticipated that more than 500 spectators would turn out for the Latch-key Cup event. They included Tom Davis, 39, of Campton, his son Erin, 15, daughter Jessica, 17, and her boyfriend, Michael Dow, 19.

“We love racing,” said Davis. “We follow NASCAR and snow-mobile racing. If it’s racing, we love it.”

Spectators Saturday included Lissa Silk, Miss Winnipesaukee, from Dover. Silk, a University of New Hampshire student, is a contestant for Miss New Hampshire. As such, she chose the fi ght against cancer as her public service platform.

“Each contestant gets to promote something they strongly believe in. I had three family members pass away from breast cancer, so I’ve been actively promoting this cause,” said Silk.

This is the fi rst time she’s ever seen an ice race, but she’s already caught the racing bug.

“I want to get out there,” she said with a smile.

.

For race results, go to lakesregionicerac-ingclub.tripod.com.

Pond Hockey Championship at White Park.

“What a weekend,” said Bruce Gillies, who grew up in Concord and played football and hockey in the mid-1980s at the University of New Hamp-shire . “You can’t beat it. We all skated here as kids. This is pretty special.”

The Black Ice event, a cele-bration of the lengthy and rich hockey heritage in the state and city, is the kick-off of a three-week stretch of outdoor hockey tournaments in New Hampshire. The semifi nals and fi nals start this morning at 9 a.m. and will wrap up by noon.

More than 150 teams, nearly double last season’s total, are signed up for the second New England Hockey Pond Classic, which runs from Friday to Sun-day next weekend on Meredith Bay in Lake Winnipesaukee.

And the Manchester Mon-archs Pond Hockey Classic, a one-day event on Dorrs Pond in Manchester, debuts on Feb. 12.

It all started here on Friday.Heck, it all really started not

far up the road from White Park almost 130 years ago. It was 1883 when, it is believed, the sport made its debut in this country at St. Paul’s School in Concord.

Turkey Pond at St. Paul’s became renowned for its black ice, the best around for skating, and shortly after the turn of the century the legendary Hobey Baker, soon to become one of the biggest names in amateur hockey, arrived at SPS.

A fi nely crafted replica of Baker’s stick will be awarded to the winner of each of fi ve divi-sions today.

Photographs of Baker and hockey at St. Paul’s and across the city fi lled a large makeshift hockey locker room on White Street between the park and the University of New Hamp-shire Law School.

Gillies had just gotten off the ice with his teammates, includ-ing Lee “Lebo’’ Blossom, who came out of Concord and went on to star at Boston College . They changed up in one corner of the room.

Champagne and Lynch and the rest of the “Lynch Gang” claimed a far corner of the room between their two games on Friday.

Champagne, who arrived in Manchester from Canada in 1964, turns 66 next month. He had a couple of goals in the team’s fi rst game, a loss, and offered an assessment of the governor’s game.

“I think he plays heads-up hockey,” Champagne said. “He knows where the play is going to be. He’s got a good eye for the game.”

Lynch, a 1974 graduate of UNH, reminisced about playing hockey on the ponds around Durham with his fra-ternity brothers, including uni-versity hockey players such as Gordie Clark, Rick Olmstead, Cliff Cox and Jamie Hislop.

“We’d go down early and play all day,” Lynch said. “There’s nothing like playing outside on the ponds. . . . This is really meant to be fun. And it’s about the camaraderie in the locker room.”

Soon the Lynch Gang was back on the ice and the gover-nor, who scored a goal in the opener, added a couple more.

On the pond, pucks thud-ded off boards on the six rinks made of 2-by-4s, skates cut through the ice and an an-nouncer occasionally issued reminders that checking and goaltending were not allowed in the four-on-four games.

The reminders were some-times heeded, sometimes not, in games that got a little, well, spirited, at times.

Jack Edwards’ Teeth, a team that included former UNH standouts Mick Mounsey, Tim Walsh and Corey-Joe Ficek , battled Team 82 on one rink.

Tom Champagne, a Concord High captain in 1948 and one of the few men still living who played for the city’s famed Sacred Heart Hockey Club, watched as his son, Tom, also a former Concord High captain, played Lynch’s team.

Ray Champagne told Tom Champagne Sr. once that their families might have been relat-ed back in Canada, but they’re not sure of the connection.

The hockey brought back plenty of memories for Tom Champagne Sr.

“We played on a lot of ponds, too,” he said. “Long Pond, Jordan’s Pond, Turkey Pond. Everyone just seemed to know where to go.”

Thanks to Chris Brown and a gang of volunteers and spon-sors, White Park was the place to go this weekend.

Plans for the Black Ice championships grew out of a discussion after a tournament game in Meredith last winter, Brown said.

“We said, ‘Why not Con-cord?’” said Brown, the president and chief operating offi cer of New Hampshire Distributors and a former Concord High player.

Committees and a nonprofi t were formed, and sponsors and volunteers jumped on board, all with a mission to enhance outdoor skating in the city and eventually provide a new skate house at White Park. Brown thinks proceeds could reach $25,000 this year.

Fifty teams — with names such as Pond Jovi, Against Medical Advice and Scared Hitless — signed up, and Brown has already heard from people planning to play next year. He thinks the tourna-ment could grow to at least 75 teams by then.

Jen Joscelyn, Concord High Class of 1993, looks forward to expansion.

She helped hustle together a team called “Babes of Glory,” one of three in the women’s division.

“Hopefully, next year we’ll have six teams,” Joscelyn said and then laughed. “If it gets more established, maybe we can get our own locker room. Right now it’s co-ed. Thank God for long underwear.”

Pond hockeyPond hockey Continued From Page A1Continued From Page A1

Latchkey CupLatchkey Cup Continued From Page A1Continued From Page A1

Jack Cook, left, of Moultonborough,

has been racing with the Lakes Region

Ice Racing Club for the past 32 years.

His granddaughter, Alicia Taylor,

15, also from Moultonborough,

picked up the racing bug three years ago.

LARISSA MULKERN PHOTOS

Thirty-eight drivers raced in the Lakes Region Ice Racing Club’s 27th annual Latchkey Cup on a frozen Berry Pond on Saturday in Moultonborough. Once the cars pick up speed, above, their chain-clad tires create clouds of ice dust.

VImages from the ice: Look online for a gallery of photos from the pond hockey championship.

There’s more online at

more serving in the Air National Guard, according to Capt. Robert Burnham, a spokesman for the New Hampshire National Guard.

Women account for about one of every eight New Hampshire Guards-men.

Nearly 50 women guardsmen from units out of New Hampshire are de-ployed in one of a half-dozen coun-tries, including Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, Burnham said.

Female soldiers serve as medics and military police and in administrative roles. “I know there are several female soldiers that are machine gunners on convoy escort teams,” Burnham said.

Women, however, can’t serve in the infantry or operate mortars, which fi re shells at enemies, Burnham said.

The issue may end up in Congress. Only one of four members of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation has made up her mind on whether to lift the ban on women serving in direct combat roles.

“I agree with the conclusions of this study and think we should move to allow qualifi ed women to serve in combat,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Sha-heen, D-N.H.

“Women are already doing danger-ous work in Iraq and Afghanistan and are often attached to combat units there. Women soldiers have seen combat, and women soldiers have been killed. It’s time that these brave Americans are allowed to serve in combat and given the same career

opportunities as their male counter-parts,” Shaheen said.

Like Shaheen, U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which deals with military issues.

Ayotte said she looks “forward to ex-amining this issue more closely.”

Her husband, Joe, has fl own com-bat missions in Iraq and remains a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard. The senator also recently visit-ed Afghanistan, where she saw military men and women working together.

“From my time in Afghanistan, I’ve already seen that women are serving in harm’s way, and that is certainly a factor I will take into consideration moving forward,” Ayotte said.

“Female Marines were among those escorting our delegation to a market-place in Nawa, and I learned that they engage in a range of dangerous opera-tions,” she said. “And females fl y and engage in combat missions in the Air Force. The generals who briefed us uniformly praised the service of both women and men serving in Afghani-stan.”

U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H., said: “Female service members serve our nation heroically and selfl essly on many different fronts, including on the multidimensional battlefi elds of Afghanistan and Iraq. Based on the recommendations of our military leaders, we should further examine lifting the ban.”

And U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta, R-N.H.,

said he was proud of the men and women serving in uniform, “especially those serving heroically in Afghanistan and Iraq. Because combat there often occurs in urban neighborhoods and on isolated rural roads instead of the battlefi eld, sadly women are included in the list of those who have made the ultimate sacrifi ce for their country.

“If legislation is introduced to change the current policy and allow women to serve in combat units, I will look at it the way I do all legisla-tion: I will examine it, weigh the pros

and cons, and vote to do what serves the best interest of the people of New Hampshire.”

Several female soldiers interviewed agreed with the commission’s recom-mendation.

“If we are able to do the job, we should be allowed the same opportu-nities,” said Spc. Kayla White of Man-chester, a member of the 197th Fires Brigade.

About 740 New Hampshire Guards-men from the brigade, which is head-quartered in Manchester, are serving

in Kuwait, providing security for con-voys going in and out of Iraq.

“Whether or not you are fi t for a po-sition should be based on the person, not the gender,” said White, a videog-rapher for the brigade’s public affairs offi ce.

Sgt. Elizabeth Hayes of Concord also opposes the ban.

“Of all the reasons I’ve heard for women not serving in combat roles, none of them are valid,” said Hayes, who works as an IT specialist for the 197th .

Men shouldn’t worry about protect-ing female comrades, she said.

“The idea of chivalry could be taken care of during basic training. You can train a soldier to think and act exactly how you want them,” Hayes said. “A female soldier who can hold her own and complete the mission is just an-other member of the team doing her part. She shouldn’t be treated any dif-ferently.”

Comments from Hayes and White were relayed through a military public affairs offi ce in Kuwait.

An unscientifi c survey on union-leader.com showed 53 percent of re-spondents favored keeping the ban in place.

“A lot of civilians can’t get over the fact of letting women serve in a com-bat role. I think it’s hard for them to accept it,” Young said before the sur-vey was posted online. “I think that’s why Congress, the Pentagon, whom-ever is reluctant to change the ban.”

The following is part of a reg-ular New Hampshire Sunday News series.

By SHAWNE K. WICKHAMNew Hampshire Sunday News

It’s an iconic image: A bus-load of soldiers heading off to war passes through streets lined with waving, cheering folks. Someone holds aloft a large American fl ag.

And one soldier has pushed his head and shoulder through an open bus window to give a thumbs-up to the crowd.

It was late fall in 1990 and Doug Stenberg was that soldier. His New Hampshire National Guard unit, the Hillsborough-based 744th Transportation Company, had been activated in support of the fi rst Persian Gulf war against Iraq.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Gulf War, the photo — published in Life magazine in March 1991 — was recently posted on Granite Thunder, the offi cial Facebook page for the 197th Fires Bri-gade. The brigade, deployed in Kuwait, includes Stenberg’s former unit, now the 744th For-ward Support Company.

Stenberg, who lives in North Hampton, remembers he was watching the TV news that fall about the activation of National Guard units across the country in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait that August. “And the phone rang. That’s when they told me I was going.”

He was 37 years old and had

two young sons. A Hillsborough native, Stenberg had served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He joined the National Guard in 1986.

The 1990 activation order was the fi rst for a New Hamp-shire National Guard unit since the Vietnam War. One hundred fi fty members of the 744th were sent to Saudi Arabia to provide support for troop convoys.

But with Iraqi Scud missiles a constant threat, Stenberg became the commander’s ad-viser on nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. He studied weather forecasts, wind speed and direction, and decontami-nation tactics.

It was a heavy load for an E-5

sergeant, Stenberg said. “I was not allowed to leave the opera-tions tent. If something came down, depending on the cir-cumstances, I had to be there to do what had to be done. ...”

Jim Cole, who has been a photographer with the Associ-ated Press for 31 years, took the picture of the 744th’s departure from its Hillsborough armory that November day in 1990.

Cole recalls arriving early to set up. “I was amazed,” he said. “It seemed like the whole town of Hillsborough turned out and lined the streets.”

He remembers the soldier who stuck his head out of the bus window. And he remem-bers going through the nega-

tives after processing his fi lm.“As soon as I saw the frame, I

knew it was it.”

Another tourWhile the 1991 war was brief,

it wasn’t Stenberg’s last trip to the desert. His unit again was activated in late 2003 for the second war with Iraq.

And this time, Stenberg’s ci-vilian job as a welding foreman for the state of New Hampshire proved invaluable.

It turned out the Army base had a welding shop known as Skunk Werks. Improvised explosive devices had been devastating the coalition’s con-voys, and the shop was working feverishly to weld protective

steel onto the trucks that pro-tected those convoys.

That’s where Stenberg and his fellow guardsman, Spc. Scott LaClair of Claremont, ended up.

“Our trucks had no armor on them when we got to Iraq for almost nine months,” Stenberg recalled.

He said he did everything he could to make sure that every soldier “could go home the same way he went over there.”

“I’ve had a lot of soldiers ... come back and thank me,” he said.

At one point, a group of Latvi-an soldiers, coalition partners, worked by his side to up-armor their own trucks. They tried to give him gifts to thank him, he said. “I wouldn’t take them,” he said. “I was there to protect soldiers, and I didn’t care who they were.”

Helping a childThe American soldiers

worked with local Iraqis in the welding shop. One was a teen-ager named Ziad, who told Stenberg about his 9-year-old sister, Zaharra, who was having trouble breathing and eating.

Ziad reminded Stenberg of his own son, who was about the same age. So he and LaClair brought the girl’s medical re-cords to an Air Force trauma physician, who looked at the girl’s X-rays and diagnosed a tumor in her sinus cavity.

The New Hampshire men successfully pushed for Ameri-can doctors to perform surgery

on the girl. Over the following weeks, Stenberg and LaClair continued to bring the child and her family to doctors on base to monitor her progress.

Just after Thanksgiving last year, Stenberg got a surprise: Ziad and Zaharra, who is now 16, contacted him using a Web camera. “She’s a real pretty young lady,” he said.

Of everything he’s done in the military, Stenberg said, he’sproudest of what he did for that little Iraqi girl.

“It is a great feeling to know that we came all this way for a war and ended up helping somebody ... somebody who had no idea that the Americans did care about them,” he wrote of his experience.

Photographer Cole said that if his 1990 photo of the 744th’sdeparture seems iconic today, it’s in part because of the town that turned out that day to say goodbye. “And I think it was these people, proud to go.”

With the memory of that day reawakened, Cole last week got in touch with Stenberg; the two plan to get together next month.

As for Stenberg, he is current-ly laid off, waiting to be rehired for his seasonal job driving a tractor-trailer truck for a pav-ing company. He retired from the Guard in 2006.

He thinks often about his old unit and his friends who are back in Kuwait with the 197th Fires Brigade. His message to them: “I just wish them all well — and c’mon home.”

Photo of NH soldiers going to war helps keep bonds Page A10 • NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS • Jan. 30, 2011

page 7SN1001A0130 CMYK

From Page One

Doug Stenberg waves to the crowd from the bus window as he departs the Hillsborough armory in November 1990 with the N.H. National Guard’s 744th Transportation Company. The unit had been activated for the first Persian Gulf war. The photo, which was printed in Life magazine in 1991, has been posted on Granite Thunder, the Facebook page for today’s 197th Fires Brigade, which has been deployed in Kuwait and includes Stenberg’s former unit, now the 744th Forward Support Company.

THOMAS ROY/UNION LEADER

Nancy Young, a retired Air National Guardsman, holds the Air Force Combat Medal given for her service in Iraq in 2004. Young, who lives in Auburn, says the military should lift the ban on women engaging in direct combat roles. “I think women have proven themselves again and again,” she says.

CombatCombat Continued From Page A1Continued From Page A1

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WINE OF THE DAY

January 30th

TODAY ONLY.SAVE MORE!

LandmarkChardonnay Overlook

900To see the most current schedule of Wine Week events–January 24-30, visit NHWineWeek.com

Available at select New Hampshire Liquor and Wine Outlets. While supplies last. Visit LiquorandWineOutlets.com for store availability.

OFF

$750 mL

Reg Price ................................$29.99Sale Price ...............................$22.99Wine of the Day Price .......$20.99

Connect with us! LiquorandWineOutlets.com

Always Drink Responsibly