David Huot: Lakeshore Redevelopment Planning Commission can only make recommendations

To The Daily Sun,

This past Monday evening, Rep. Gregg Hough, (R-Laconia), touted a bill, HB 1032, to the Laconia mayor and City Council which he claimed would offer the city its best chance to have input on the sale of the Laconia State School property. He complained that the Lakeshore Redevelopment Planning Commission has not advanced the sale of the property. He said the Planning Commission has been in existence since 2017 and since then “the needle hasn’t moved. It hasn’t gone anywhere,” he said.

This is nonsense. The Commission’s authority extends only to studying the property, and making recommendations to governor and council, which alone has authority to actually sell the property, even under Rep. Hough’s bill. Those recommendations, according to the law establishing the commission, are to be made “in consultation with the planning board and the city council in the city of Laconia.”

Incidentally the seven members of the commission are Chair George Ball, Bob Cheney, George Hurt, Rusty McLear, Peter Spanos, Chris Shumway and Gino Baroni.

David Huot

Laconia