On Tuesday, February 15, at 11:30 in LOB Room 301-303, the House Municipal & County Government Committee will hear testimony on HB 1268, amending RSA 47:17, XV to alter the language allowing city councils to enact bylaws and regulations which may seem for the well-being of the city. As written, the bill replaces that language to read “the bylaws and regulations for the purpose of addressing locations that present a clear and present danger to the city; but no bylaw or ordinance shall be repugnant to the constitution or laws of the state; and such bylaws and ordinances shall take effect upon their adoption and be in force for a period not to exceed 10 days, without the sanction or confirmation of any other authority whatever.” 

We anticipate that an amendment is forthcoming. For that reason, local officials interested in this bill are encouraged to attend the hearing in LOB Room 301-303 on Tuesday. We anticipate that the committee will want to hear about the kinds of local issues that are solved pursuant to the current statute at the local level, and the consequences if the state legislature is burdened with providing solutions to these local concerns.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to recommend SB 344 for interim study. SB 344 makes a modest change to public meetings law under RSA 91-A:2: it removes the requirement that a quorum be physically present at the meeting location. Importantly, it does not allow for public meetings to be fully virtual. As one committee member correctly noted during the executive session, this bill still requires that all public meetings have a physical location, so members of the public will still have the same ability to attend the meeting in person if they wish to do so. The important added benefit of passing SB 344 is that members of the public will also be able to attend remotely, as will members of the board. 

This bill is a response to the many local officials—and their constituents—looking for more flexibility in the use of remote meeting participation. It is not an effort on the part of local governments to have purely remote meetings (again, the bill would not allow them to) or to avoid facing their constituents. While COVID-19 may have created the initial need for more remote meetings nearly two years ago, it is not the reason this change in law is so important. Public body members are parents, employees, and caretakers; they get sick, they travel out of state for work, and they have difficulty commuting due to inclement weather. The same is true of members of the public who may not be able to attend in person but still wish to listen or participate. SB 344 ensures that public bodies can meet even if a quorum can’t make it to the meeting place in person. 

We have been hearing from local officials since the expiration of the state of emergency in June 2021 that more flexibility is needed for remote attendance at public meetings, and SB 344 can solve that problem. A vote for interim study is effectively a vote to kill the bill. We ask all members interested in having more flexibility for public meetings to contact their senators as soon as possible and ask them to reject the committee recommendation and vote Ought to Pass on SB 344.

On Tuesday, February 15, at 10:30 in LOB Room 301-303, the House Municipal & County Government Committee will hear testimony on HB 1119, allowing municipalities to regulate the distribution of single-use plastic bags and paper bags to customers. The bill would amend the municipal ordinance statute, RSA 31:39, to include a new provision related to single-use plastic bags and paper bags. This would give municipalities the option of adopting local regulations and using the existing enforcement mechanism created by RSA 31:39-c and RSA 31:39-d to enforce the regulations. 

The legislature has considered single-use item regulation in several forms over the past several years. Largely, bills related to this type of regulation have focused on single-use plastic bags, Styrofoam takeout containers, straws, and a variety of other, manufactured single-use items. Much of the testimony, historically, has focused on alternative products and recycling rates, environmental considerations, and aesthetics. For municipalities, the concern with single-use plastics centers not just on quantity of waste headed to landfills but also the mechanics of recycling. Prior years have seen recycling experts testify to the high rates of plastic bags being placed in home recycling bins and the issues that recycling centers have with those plastic bags getting stuck in and jamming sorting machines. The cost of unjamming the machines and repairing them, as well as “contaminated” loads, lowers the return that municipalities see on recyclable materials. 

Members interested in the single-use issue should consider attending the hearing on Tuesday. Prior years have seen the committee discuss alternative options to the one presented in the bill as written; in-person attendance is the best opportunity to weigh in on any options brought to the committee’s attention during the hearing.

On Tuesday, February 15, at 2:00 p.m., the Municipal and County Government Committee will hear HB 1365 in LOB Room 301-303. HB 1365 would allow municipalities the local option to adopt separate tax rates for residential and commercial/industrial properties. As written, the bill raises questions as to how this division of tax rates might work on the practical level both when assessing property and when setting the tax rate. 

The bill proposes a higher tax rate for commercial than residential properties. What we know from states that have adopted this tax scheme is that the intended tax burden shifts from residential properties to commercial/industrial properties. While this can have the effect of lowering residential property bills, there are other consequences as well.  These higher taxes are often passed through to the tenants of the commercial/industrial property, making it more expensive to operate a business than in another town that does not adopt the higher rate. This can place a commercial/industrial building at a disadvantage in towns that adopt this provision and act as a disincentive for adoption. Even if the immediate effects are not felt, over time, this type of legislation could serve to shift commercial/industrial users from one town to another and/or shift residential development from one town to another. It may be wise for the committee to consider the economic impact of this legislation on a municipality in its deliberations. 

We encourage our members to contact the Municipal & County Government Committee to express their opinions on HB 1365. 

NHMA’s biennial legislative policy process is getting underway. As a first step, we are recruiting volunteers to serve on our three legislative policy committees. These committees will review legislative policy proposals submitted by local officials and make recommendations on those policies, which will go to the NHMA Legislative Policy Conference in September. 

If you are a municipal official in an NHMA member municipality and are interested in serving on one of the policy committees, please contact the Government Affairs staff at 603-224-7447 or governmentaffairs@nhmunicipal.org. 

Each of the committees deals with a different set of municipal issues. The committees and their subject areas are as follows: 

• Finance and Revenue – budgeting, revenue, tax exemptions, current use, assessing, tax collection, retirement issues, education funding. 

• General Administration and Governance – elections, Right-to-Know Law, labor, town meeting, charters, welfare, public safety. 

• Infrastructure, Development, and Land Use – solid/hazardous waste, transportation, land use, technology, environmental regulation, housing, utilities, code enforcement, economic development. 

When you contact us, please indicate your first and second choices for a committee assignment. We will do our best to accommodate everyone’s first choice, but we do need to achieve approximately equal membership among the committees. We hope to have 15-20 members on each committee. 

There will be an organizational meeting for all committees on Friday, April 1. After that, each committee will meet separately as many times as necessary to review the policy proposals assigned to it—typically three to five meetings, all held on either a Monday or Friday, between early April and the end of May.