Reaction mixed to Sununu’s State School move

LACONIA — The latest development over the fate of the former Laconia State School property is drawing mixed reaction from two local leaders.

Laconia Mayor Andrew Hosmer sees it as a shortsighted attempt to short-circuit a comprehensive process that has been showing promise to bring economic development to the largely unused 250-acre site.

However, Peter Spanos, a former state representative who continues to serve on the panel working to market the property and prepare it for redevelopment, sees the development as just the latest part of a process that has been filled with twists and turns.

A bill attached to the governor’s 2022-23 budget would give the governor and the Executive Council the unrestricted ability to dispose of the property, whether by sale, lease, or another form of disposition.

For Hosmer, the seven-member commission has been working diligently for two years to prepare the property to the point where it can be attractively offered to private developers for a variety of uses, including commercial ventures and middle-income housing, thereby relieving the state of the expense of maintaining the property, and putting the land on the city’s tax rolls.

“What burns me,” Hosmer said, “is that the city has been used and abused by the state and then it walks away.”

He said he planned to ask the City Council to take a stand on the issue, and call on the governor to let the commission finish its work.

“This is premature,” he said of the legislative maneuver.

Spanos though said he sees the move as neither as “a positive or negative” in the ongoing efforts to sell the State School property.

“This commission has always seen its duty to defer to the executive and legislative branches,” he said.

He said he had no idea what may have prompted including the State School property in the Trailer bill, explaining that he is now disconnected from Statehouse politics since leaving the legislature last year.

“It would be imprudent for me to comment about what is going on in Concord,” he said.

He said, however, whatever the end result he predicted it would be “a happy and positive outcome that will please everybody.”

The state came up empty when it tried to find a buyer for the property in 2017.

Hosmer said since then the state has spent $3 million to $4 million just to mow the grass on the property and provide basic security for the buildings.

“Putting a shingle on Route 106 that says ‘For Sale’ is not the best idea,” he said.

But Spanos said that the land is much more attractive to developers than many people think, especially in today’s real estate market.