By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Eliminating the county delegation from a legislator’s list of responsibilities and giving that authority to county commissioners was the subject of a bill that got little support on Thursday.
House bill 483 https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/billinfo.aspx?id=576&inflect=2 was sponsored by state Rep. Ross Berry, R-Manchester.
Berry said he was involved as a member of the Republican party in the recent redistricting process and that got him thinking about the role of the county delegation.
Berlin Mayor Paul Grenier, who served on the Coos County Commission for 20 years until deciding not to run last time, said: “It’s a bad, bad, bad idea. That is shamefully bad.”
Grenier said when he started on the commission in 2002, there were 12 House members in Coos County, but because of population decrease there are now nine.
Even so, the commissioners need the oversight provided by the state House members who also serve as their county’s delegation.
“I certainly would not support that type of legislation. It’s dangerously shortsighted,” Grenier said.
Berry said he was concerned that there is so much outmigration in Coos County that in another 20 years, their delegation would be too small.
“Looking down the road, there will be some issues,” Berry told the House Municipal and County Government Committee.
Berry said when he started talking with other counties and House members he found a lot of legislators don’t want to do the county delegation work and often have to call around to their members to make sure there is a quorum to vote.
“Why are we doing this?” Berry said.
Rep. Timothy Horrigan, D-Durham, a long-time member of the Strafford County delegation said the bill is not needed.
He said he likes the oversight role and gets a little more compensation for it.
The county commissioners have their role and “I think it is good to keep those separate,” Horrigan said.
Horrigan pointed to problems last year with the Belknap County delegation and its oversight of the county-owned Gunstock recreation area but said that was largely due to a chairman of the delegation who has since been voted out of office.
“I would not support any change to the structure of county government,” Horrigan said.
The state has three levels of government: local, county and state. Local levels have selectmen or city councilors, county levels have three-member county commissioners and the state has the legislature and governor.
But state legislators elected have another duty that some don’t even know they have been elected to: oversight and executive authority over the county budget.
Al Posnack, Chairman of Citizens for Belknap, said he is open to a discussion on HB 483, assigning the county delegation duties of the county’s state representatives to the County Commission.
“However, this bill could impact other statutes — such as the enabling legislation for county management of the Gunstock Area Commission – and therefore must be carefully vetted to avoid unintended consequences,” Posnack said.
HB 357, making most elected positions in Belknap County four-year terms instead of two-year, was also heard Thursday. Those would include the county treasurer, county sheriff, county register of deeds, and county attorney in Belknap county.
That came as a surprise to the voters, Posnack said, having not been raised during the recent election. “We also wonder why this only applies to Belknap County and not other New Hampshire counties,” Posnack said.
“We urge our newly-elected state representatives to explain their logic to the public, and allow the voters to have input on such a momentous change,” Posnack said.
