Fire flap one of city’s top stories of 2018

Editors Note: In a three-part series, The Laconia Daily Sun will review some of the top stories of 2018.

LACONIA — A dispute between the fire department and a councilman, more delays in a project that could help transform downtown and the continuing effort to repurpose state-owned land in the city.

These were some of the top stories of 2018.

City Councilor Bob Hamel touched off a firestorm on July 9.

With a single comment during a City Council meeting, Hamel infuriated members of the firefighting community, the family of a late local resident and relatives of a firefighter who lost his life in a diving accident. He also insulted Fire Chief Ken Erickson and had negative words about Massachusetts.

Firefighters union president Jason Griffin and Hamel were having a heated discussion during a public comment period at the meeting when the comments were made. There was friction between the council and the department about overtime money for firefighters and a failed proposal to privatize the emergency medical service.

“You guys need to calm down, you really do,” Hamel said. “You’re out of control over there and that comes from the top down, from a chief who says he does not answer to the council. It’s a Massachusetts attitude and it needs to stop.

“I know you guys think you can walk on water, but there was a man in this town a long time ago who said he could walk on water and he tried it up on Weirs dock and he didn’t.”

Firefighters said they thought Hamel was referring to Fire Lt. Mark Miller, who died March 11, 2004, in a dive training accident at The Weirs.

“That’s out of line,” Griffin said. “That needs to stop. A dead fireman, that’s how you’re going to talk to me?”

Hamel walked up to firefighters in the council chambers and said he liked Miller. He said he was referring to Calvin “Red” Dunn, a colorful local man who once said he could walk on water and tried to do so without success at The Weirs. Dunn’s family was not pleased with the remarks, either.

Hamel later said he meant no disrespect with the remark but that it was intended to point up the danger of an inflated sense of self. He also said that, in retrospect, he could see how the remark was open to misinterpretation.

Erickson, the fire chief, ended up retiring at the end of September at age 59. Kirk Beattie, who has been with the department since 1997, was named the new chief and vowed to mend fences between the department and the City Council.

The friction leading up to Hamel's comments began when the city sought requests for proposals to have an outside company run the ambulance service. That came after Lakes Region General Hospital decided to end its financial support for the system, which is run by the city's fire department.

Brewster Ambulance Service of Weymouth, Massachusetts, provided a proposal City Manager Scott Myers said was “responsive to the needs of the city and comprehensive in terms of detail and qualifications.”

Brewster offered to take over the ambulance service at no cost to the city, freeing up firefighters from a growing number of medical calls, potentially letting them get to things they haven’t had time for and possibly saving the city money.

However, while the city kept the proposal out of public view for six weeks, opposition built, particularly among firefighters who didn't want to lose responsibility for running the ambulance service and feared there could be layoffs.

Finally, Mark Brewster, president and chief executive officer of the ambulance company, said he was under what turned out to be a false impression that the city had already decided to privatize the service. He withdrew his proposal rather than compete with firefighters. Many off-duty firefighters work for the private ambulance services.

Colonial Theatre

A project to restore the 104-year-old Colonial Theatre and breathe new life into downtown Laconia was originally slated to begin Jan. 1, 2017.

City officials now hope the $17 million project may finally get under way some time in 2019.

The problem is money.

Economic development officials have not been able to find a way to complete the financing without federal New Markets tax credits.

Those credits will not be issued again until 2019.

The hope is that the project, to be financed mostly with federal money, will attract more people, business and investment in a downtown area where there is more than 100,000 square feet of commercial space for sale or lease.

Once home to vaudeville shows, the theater became a cinema after World War I. In the 1980s, it was divided into a five-screen multiplex, which closed in 2001.

Another issue affecting downtown is long-term parking. Some business owners say there are not enough spots for employees to use all day. A municipal parking garage leaks into businesses on the ground floor, some beams have had to be shored up with wood and the third floor is off limits because of structural issues.

Late in the year, Patrick Wood, an attorney who is chairman of the city’s Downtown TIF Advisory Board, spoke at a City Council meeting about an idea for saving a historic structure and helping with parking.

He suggested studying the concept of selling City Hall, moving municipal offices to Holy Trinity School and placing City Council chambers in the St. Joseph Church, which St. Andre Bessette Parish intends to sell.

Wood said he knew of someone interested in buying City Hall. If the deal went through, city workers would park at the church complex, freeing up surface parking outside City Hall, he said.

Mayor Ed Engler said the whole thing was quite far fetched.

"The chances of the city buying that property and turning it into City Hall and a City Council chambers are less than 1 percent. It’s beyond my wildest imagination,” he said.

“There are all kinds of issues, not the least of which is holding City Council meetings in a church. Just think about that. It’s beyond comprehension, and from a practical standpoint, why in the world would the city sink millions of dollars into an old school building to convert it into the City Hall? Sorry, that makes no sense to me whatever from an economic standpoint.”

State School

After a year of planning the future of the Laconia State School land, members of a state panel have come up with a tentative proposal for the 200-acres of prime property at Meredith Center Road and North Main Street.

A so-called “hybrid option” envisions a major amateur sports complex, an agricultural facility involving locally sourced products, 200 homes, 120 apartment units, 10,000 square feet of retail, 10,000 square feet of office space, a 100,000-square-foot health care facility and a 150-room hotel.

Much study will need to be done in the new year. Consultants are to be sought for a market analysis looking at the potential for athletic and agricultural facilities.

The history of the site will be studied as well. Such a study would look into the possibility that there could be human remains below ground.

The school did not have a dedicated cemetery until 1941. A report by the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources said that before the cemetery was opened, residents were buried in unmarked graves on school grounds, but no paper trail has emerged as to where these unmarked graves may be located. An archeologist is on hand when any digging is done on the site.

In the new year, a committee is to come up with a plan for how best to memorialize the developmentally disabled people who were once residents of the school and the staff who worked there.

Also to be examined is the potential for underground pollution at the site. Test wells and test pits have been dug to assess the site.

Tomorrow: Labor shortage, short-term rental controversy and Sicario the German Shepherd