New mayor sees continued growth in city's future

LACONIA — Mayor Mike Bordes has been in office since January, and he’s got big plans for the City of Laconia.

Six weeks after his inauguration, where Bordes said he’d create a subcommittee on homelessness, he's reached that goal, he told The Laconia Daily Sun Wednesday afternoon. The purpose: productive discussions which lead to the development of a product — recommendations to bring before the city council. 

The process will likely begin in the summer, and run for at least a year. 

“I’m vetting people, I want to make sure we have the right people on this to move forward. I don’t want to get where we were previously where we’re just spinning our tires in mud — I actually want them to come up with solutions and ways to address this,” Bordes said. “I’m also putting some homeless people on the committee, as well, so we can get both sides involved.”

Coming up with a final product to present to councilors would make the process a success in his mind. He’d like input from downtown business owners, plus others who have experience working on solutions to be involved on the committee, too. 

Bordes won a tight election last fall over Bruce Cheney, a former city councilor and police chief.

When he ran for office, he said, homelessness was a top issue brought up by voters and residents. Input on the issue should be broad and solutions-oriented, he said, and working to address concerns is part of why people voted for him in the first place.

“I think it’s going to be about working together to find the best course forward,” Bordes said.

Bordes occupies a unique position. He also serves as one of Belknap County’s representatives to the Statehouse, as does Ward 5 Councilor Steven Bogert.

“I think the state should be heavily involved in this issue. Because it’s not just Laconia, it’s everywhere,” he said.

And attracting larger businesses to the city, “creating careers not jobs,” is another of Bordes’ stated priorities. He said Wednesday Laconia is a great place to live, with access to lakes and other recreation, and the community sticks together through the winter, when tourism calms down. 

“By luring these bigger businesses to Laconia — even if they came from Massachusetts, like they just recently did in Salem — we have a lot more to offer,” he said. “We’re really becoming a year-round destination. And, I think, by bringing bigger businesses into the area, we can keep it that way.”

Incentivizing businesses to set up shop in Laconia, through zoning or favorable tax conditions, may be necessary to achieve that goal, he said. And creating well-paying jobs is imperative, as younger Granite Staters increasingly move elsewhere in search of opportunity. Continuing the development and revitalization of downtown also plays into the dynamic, he said, but development comes with challenges of its own.

City leaders hope the deal for the former Laconia State School property on Parade Road, under contract with Pillsbury Realty Development LLC, could close this summer. That development is expected to usher in more than 2,000 units of housing, retail space including a Market Basket location, and recreational and municipal facilities. But the burden on city infrastructure could be proportionally impactful.

Bordes said he’s looking at federal and other resources that may help ease the city into that development, in particular.

“It’s the roads, it's the gas lines, it's the sewer — look at our sewer rates, they’re skyrocketing, sewer and water,” Bordes said. “With the State School happening, that’s going to be a huge burden on our infrastructure that we have to address.”

And at Concord Hospital-Laconia, which has been the subject of concern and discussion among councilors and the public, Bordes said he’d recently met with CEO Robert Steigmeyer, who assured him the hospital is here to stay.

They’re making an investment of between $21 million and $31 million over the next year, Bordes relayed, and are already funneling patients from other areas in its network to the Laconia campus to receive specialty treatment for certain issues, including pancreatic cancer. Steigmeyer told Bordes he wants to work together with the city.

“Very positive — a lot of people are scared that the hospital is going to shut down or cut services,” he said. “That’s not a fact.

“If they’re going to invest that type of money, they’re not going to pick up and leave.”

The hospital is the city’s largest employer, and provides medical care to much of the Lakes Region.

“I don’t think they’re going anywhere.”

The news is well-received reassurance, as the city continues to grow. And Bordes said he thinks it's poised to continue on its path of growth, both in terms of development and population. But issues like the city’s tax cap — a legal restriction on the amount the city’s budget can increase year over year — make projects difficult to pencil.

“When we have over $20 million of roadwork that needs to be done, and we only have $1 million to spend, that’s kind of difficult to balance,” he said, though he does not support removing the tax cap. 

“It’s tough to balance the needs and to keep it under the tax cap, it’s really a struggle,” he said.

Bordes said city staff and councilors have been good to work with across the board, and that if they continue to collaborate, the city will reap the rewards.  

“I just want to see it thrive. I want to see our downtown be that place that, let’s just say people from Plymouth, are like, ‘We’re going to go to Laconia tonight and we’re going to have a great time. They’ve got the social district going on, they’ve got all of these great venues we can go to along the way,’” Bordes said. “I want to see the Colonial become a destination, not just 32 shows a year, I want to see 100 shows a year. I want to see this place really thrive while we await the building of the State School property, which is really going to bring more people into the area.”