Youth services programming focused on safety and mental health received the resounding support of Haverhill city councilors and the mayor Tuesday after concern over future funding was in question. Eridania Neives and Leydi Diaz Breton, representatives of Haverhill High School’s Girls Empowered Means Success program, and Pat Corr of the Bradford Swim Club gave testimony before the Council on how small grants from the city have made a big impact on their youth programs.
When Haverhill city councilors first called out for youth mental health assistance, following the COVID-19 pandemic, they envisioned money would come from the National Opioid settlement fund and fees the city collects from its four cannabis retailers. By August of 2022 when the city made its first $500,000 distribution, federal American Rescue Plan Act money was available. In 2023, Haverhill distributed $750,000—$500,000 from federal aid and $250,000 from cannabis fees and a national opioids settlement.
by GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org, InDepthNH.org
April 29, 2025
By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — If you are a property taxpayer in New Hampshire, the latest National Education Association annual report on school statistics across the country will not be a surprise. New Hampshire is a kind of reverse lottery: property taxpayers pay the highest percentage of public school costs of any other state in the country and New Hampshire state government contributes the least state aid to public education of any state. Property taxpayers pay 63 percent of the cost of public education, while the state contributes 28.8 percent, leaving a little over 8 percent for the federal government to contribute, the 45th lowest for states.
Next Monday is the first day Haverhill mayoral, City Council and School Committee candidates may take out nomination papers, but there are already signs of what those races will look like. Haverhill Mayor Melinda E. Barrett plans to launch her campaign for re-election Wednesday, May 14, with a reception at Casa Blanca Cantina Haverhill in downtown Haverhill, while Ward 1 City Councilor Ralph T. Basiliere is getting a head start, having a fundraiser Thursday, May 1, from 6-8 p.m., at Maria’s Galleria Banquet Room, downtown. Two incumbent, at-large School Committee members—Richard J. Rosa and Paul A. Magliocchetti—have already told WHAV they won’t seek re-election to those seats.
Team Haverhill is organizing a planting day this week to install several dozen plants and shrubs in the new Edible Avenue Project in Riverside Park off Lincoln Avenue. Volunteers are asked to gather Thursday, May 1, at 1 p.m. at the new sidewalk spur behind the old Building 19 store in Rivers Edge Plaza, 298 Lincoln Ave., Haverhill. Ann Jacobson, chair of the Riverside Art in the Park and Edible Avenue Project for Team Haverhill, said the group will be planting black chokeberry and blueberry bushes, daylilies and beach plum plants among others.
