Tagged: Manchester

The City of Manchester has filed suit Monday over the plan that redraws house districts. The lawsuit has been brewing for months.

In a statement, Manchester Mayor Republican Ted Gatsas called the redistricting plan unacceptable. The suit claims the new map would deprive city residents of two to three state representatives. Earlier this year the house passed a plan that combines two Manchester wards with the town of Litchfield.

Speaker of the House Bill O’Brien defended the proposal, calling the lawsuit unrealistic, and a waste of taxpayers’ resources.

North Country representatives overwhelmingly voted in favor of House Bill 1405 which would allow jurisdictions such as Manchester to ask for a moratorium on refugee resettlement.

As NHPR reported: “Under the bill New Hampshire towns could ask for a one-year moratorium on new refugee resettlements, which opponents say the state doesn’t have the authority to do.”

Eight North Country reps favored the bill, four opposed it and four others were excused from voting.

The bill passed 190 – 109 and now goes to the Senate.

The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted today to pass a bill that would allow the city of Manchester to ask for a moratorium on refugee resettlement.

The bill is a seen as a victory for Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas, who has been calling for a moratorium since last July.

Manchester Representative Phil Greazzo, a Republican, says the resettlement agency is not doing a good job helping refugees integrate, and the city’s social services are overwhelmed.

Yawa Agbenowossi came to the United States from Togo, in West Africa, as a young child. She discovered the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester when she was in middle school. 

YAWA: Well, before I found the club, I just never took anything into consideration. I was never worried about the future. I found the club by a friend introducing it to me actually. She said that “you can come to the Boys and Girls Club” and soon enough I was coming there every day. They couldn’t keep me away from the club. That’s when I started to change.

Slam poetry is all about finding a voice – combining the written word with a spoken performance to create new forms.

A group of New Hampshire slam poets have found a voice and a home in Manchester.

NHPR’s Brady Carlson talked with some of the members of Slam Free or Die.

Slam poets say they typically get just three minutes to perform – so they have to make the words count.

(Sam clip)

That poem is called “This is how I get.” It’s by Sam Teitel, a bearded Slam Free or Diehard with a tattoo of the word “Yeats” on his arm. Sam used to drive hours from his college campus to perform at the open mic nights, and to talk with – and learn from – the other poets afterward.

Members of Occupy New Hampshire returned to Manchester Saturday to demonstrate outside of the Republican Presidential Debate at St. Anselm's College and spread their message of economic inequality.

Nearly five months after Occupy New Hampshire’s last tents were torn down in Veteran’s Park, the ninety-nine percenters returned to Manchester to demonstrate against what they perceive to be growing economic inequality across the nation.

This time around, though, protesters hope to garner the attention of the national media, who have descended on New Hampshire for the first in the nation primary.

According to Occupy organizer, Michael Grosse, they’re already succeeding:

New Hampshire’s Immigration Story includes the stories of many refugees, people who come to the United States because they can't stay in their native countries, due to violence or famine.

Many of those refugees are resettled in Manchester, but the city’s mayor, Ted Gatsas, says that needs to change. He wants a moratorium on new placements to avoid straining city services.

This week All Things Considered host Brady Carlson talked with Carolyn Benedict-Drew, the president and CEO of the International Institute of New England, which resettles refugees in New Hampshire. She says Manchester can accommodate more refugees even in a tough economy and with tight city budgets.

Texas governor Rick Perry is stumping in the state today.  The Republican presidential hopeful urged workers at a manufacturing plant in Manchester to put pressure on congress to change. 

Rick Perry has been targeting the Washington establishment in recent days.  He issued a plan to cut the salaries of senators and congressmen in half.  Asked how he would get congress to go along, he said the public would need to browbeat them into agreement.

Perry said the counties around DC are some of the wealthiest in the country.

“That’s because all those lobbyists, contractors and overpaid czars haven’t suffered one bit while you all have been fighting the fight out here with this recession that’s been going on.”