It was about 6:30 last Wednesday evening, and Merrimack town manager Paul Micali was busy. He only had 30 minutes until the town’s deliberative session began.
Micali darted around the gym at James Mastricola Elementary School, checking mics and laying out handouts on warrant articles related to land purchases and the municipal budget for voters to grab.
Despite the busyness, he was grateful these were the tasks that were occupying him.
“Merrimack's getting back to normalcy,” he said.
Micali’s town — and his job — were turned upside down last Christmas Eve, when the Washington Post reported on a leaked draft of a plan by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to build a detention center in the town.
Micali, like most people, learned about the plan when the Washington Post reported on it. He said his workload increased twofold as a result, as people turned to him for information.
“I was dealing with that between 30 and 36 hours a week,” he said, on top of his normal, full-time responsibilities. “Answering emails, answering questions, answering phone calls.”
Micali and other local and state officials spent weeks pressing federal immigration authorities for more information on the proposed detention facility, to little avail.
Large protests were held. A state official lost her job after it was revealed no one in her department sent information about the facility up the bureaucratic ladder.
When a plan finally materialized in February, it came in the form of documents sent to Gov. Ayotte by the Department of Homeland Security — which houses ICE — that said the detention facility would generate sales and income tax revenue for the region, despite the state having neither form of tax.
Residents said it became a dominant conversation around town.
“If you looked at Facebook or talked to anyone, people were very much opposed in general,” said resident Karen Contos, who was sitting with her husband Greg and waiting for the meeting to begin Wednesday evening.
The reasons for opposition varied. Some raised moral and humanitarian concerns about housing people in a converted industrial warehouse, others worried about rising property taxes or were frustrated the town had no input on the plan.
And then, on Feb. 24, Governor Kelly Ayotte announced that DHS was scrapping the plan, after she had a meeting with now-former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Residents and elected officials across the political spectrum let out a sigh of relief. Micali said he finally had the time to focus on the tasks of managing a town that usually occupied his winters.
“I can actually get back to business,” he said.
But would such an uncertain and stressful few months have a lingering effect on the deliberative session? Merrimack Town Council Chair Finlay Rothhaus didn’t think so.
“I don't know that anybody will even mention [the facility] tonight,” he said, a few minutes before the session was called to order. “I'm hoping it's that far in the rearview mirror.”
At 7 o’clock sharp, the meeting formally began, with residents standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. There were far more empty folding chairs in the gym than voters, a stark contrast to the crowded protests held just around the corner weeks earlier.
“I wish people were as enthusiastic about all Merrimack issues as they were about that one,” said the town’s media coordinator Nick Lavalle.
Karen Contos echoed the sentiment, saying she wished more people would have come that night and “be part of the community.”
While a group of resident organizers that was created in response to the proposed facility, known as No ICE NH, plans to bring their organizing strategies to other towns in similar situations, in Merrimack that Wednesday night, the meeting sounded like any of the other deliberative sessions held across the state last week.
Town council chairman Rothhaus’ prediction seemingly came true: the ICE facility did not come up.
