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Acworth NH Broadband Committee Broadband Committee Gregg Thibodeau 860-338-3227 Rob Vogel 603-863-7839 Announcements Acworth Broadband Project Final Announcement Hi folks… well we’ve done it! Acworth is on the telecommunications map with more options for high-speed broadband than ever before. NH Broadband (aka NHEC) has successfully installed over 211 Acworth residences with fiber optic broadband service! Two service levels are offered. 100mbps/100mbps at $49.99 and 1gbps/1gbps at $89.99. NH Broadband’s contact information is below if you are interested in their service. I understand that issues continue with Consolidated’s DSL service. My sympathies go out to those that are still struggling with inadequate or unreliable internet service especially where they have no other options. Starlink might be a good option for those that do not have any better wired (copper or fiber) or wireless (cell) solutions available. https://www.starlink.com/ I’m also very pleased to report that our town did not have to shell out a dime and we have no long-term bond to manage! This was not the case with many of our surrounding towns. Also, anyone that pre-registered had the installation basic cost waived (Note: Some other costs still applied). I was made aware of 10 installation issues (via Facebook or direct communication to me) from 17 July through 30 September. The last reported issue was 12 August. All 10 issues have been closed or resolved. My role and the project team’s role are now complete. This will be my last formal announcement. I would like to thank Seth Wheeler and Michael Licata from NHEC for their support throughout this effort. I would also like to thank Brandon Peyton for his knowledge and help in assessing the network architecture in the early option analysis effort. Thank you, Charlotte Comeau for assisting with the grant work. Lastly, I would like to thank all the folks that supported this effort through the entire process. Your encouragement and “cheerleading” helped make this entire effort worthwhile. Onto the next challenge! Happy internet browsing! NH Broadband Contact Information https://nhbroadband.com/residential-services/ If you have any questions for NH Broadband please contact them using their online form. Go to https://nhbroadband.com/ Click the "Support >" link Fill out the "Have a Question" form at the bottom of the screen. Be sure to include your name, e-mail and in the message body state the problem or question and also your physical address. This will send your issue/question directly to someone that can respond. Someone will acknowledge receipt of your question and work with you to resolve any issue. Gregg Thibodeau Acworth Broadband Committee Lead E-mail acworthbroadband@gmail.com Web Page https://www.acworthnh.net/broadband-committee FAQ’s https://www.acworthnh.net/broadband-committee-faqs NHEC Broadband https://nhbroadband.com/ Articles March, 2022 BROADBAND UPDATE DECEMBER, 2021 BROADBAND UPDATE SEPTEMBER, 2021 BROADBAND UPDATE JULY 30, 2021 BROADBAND UPDATE JUNE 17, 2021 BROADBAND UPDATE Acworth Broadband Committee Goals, Concept and Initial Plan - 1/4/2021 Draft Acworth Broadband Plan 1/26/2021 Acworth Broadband Project Closeout Report Show NHEC your interest in Broadband service Click here FAQs Click here Committee Goals Define options, costs and benefits of establishing broadband in Acworth Obtain approval of Planning Board, Board of Selectman and Town (via 2 town meetings, 2 mandatory public hearings and one warrant article) ** Solicit and obtain proposals from vendors (2 primary, NHEC, Consolidated) ** Obtain bonds (if required) ** Contract with Vendor (if required) ** Oversee production rollout ** Pending approvals and dependent on the option we proceed with

Acworth NH Current Use Current Use Abatement Processes and Deadline Assessing Credits, Exemptions, & Abatement Forms Current Use MS-1 Summary Inventory of Valuation Tax Credit Criteria Tax Exemption Criteria Current Use Guide Current Use Application Land Use Change Tax Application Notice of Change in Current Use Current Use Booklet April 15 Last day to file application for “Current Use” for the upcoming tax year. Contact Information Selectmen's Office 603-835-6879 Address: 13 Town Hall Rd. PO Box 37 Acworth, NH 03601

Acworth NH Board of Selectmen Board of Selectmen Contact: Charlotte Comeau Town Administrator Address: Town of Acworth, POB 37, Acworth, NH 03601 Phone: 603-835-6879 Email: townoff@sover.net Hours: Monday, Tuesday & Thursday 8AM-1PM; Wednesday 10AM-4PM Meeting Times: 6:30PM on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Monday of each month at the Town Hall. By state statute RSA 41:8 , the Selectmen as the governing body is to "manage the prudential affairs of the town" according to the will of the legislative body (town meeting). In general, under New Hampshire law, the policy making authority of a town rests with the town meeting. The Selectmen must also comply with state mandates such as the current certification process and mandatory revaluations. No board, commission or official can do anything unless it is so specified in the RSAs. The Selectmen are the executive, managerial, administrative body that does whatever is necessary to carry out the votes enacted at town meeting. Any action must be taken by the Board acting as a board - that is, voted on by a majority of the Selectmen at a public meeting. Some of the duties of the Selectmen are: Makes appointments to town Boards and Committees Signs manifest for the payment of town bills Signs manifest for payroll Signs warrants for property taxes Grants licenses and permits Establishes fees for permits Manages and regulates use of all town property Regulates town highway Employs town staff The Selectmen are named as the assessors of property, but they engage the services of certified assessors to keep property values up to date. The Board is also responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Zoning Ordinance and for granting or denying Building Permit applications. Selectmen Rules of Procedure Minutes Additional Resources Asbestos: Environmental Fact Sheet Building Permit Application Building Permit Application Process Building Permit Fees Building & Fire Codes Fact Sheet Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Class VI Road Building Policy Class VI Road Use and Maintenance Policy Class VI Road Improvement Permit App. Class VI Waiver Demolition Permit Application Driveway Permit Application and Procedures Driveway Regulations Excavation Regulations Floodplain Management Ordinance Intent to Cut Master Plan - 1979 - 2019 Master Plan - 2008 Addendum NRSPR Regulations Pistol Permit Application Right of Interment Scenic Roads Map Site Review Field Sheet (NRSPR Application) Solid Waste Ordinance Subdivision Regulations w/2019 5-year update Telecommunications Facilities Ordinance Telecommunications Ordinance Application Town Facility Rental Application Typical Rural Driveway Schematic Winter Weather Policy and Priorities Winter Weather Ordinance

Services Registration Always start with the Town Clerk when registering a vehicle. The Clerk prepares the registration and the applicant pays a personal property tax based on the value of the vehicle. All vehicles that travel over the road are required to be registered. This includes cars, trucks, tractors, trailers, motorcycles, RV’s, street rods, construction equipment, farm tractors etc. E-Reg This is a convenient service which is an Internet based web-service called E-Reg. This allows you to request renewal of your vehicle registrations, dog licenses and vital record requests on-line. Many find this service very convenient. To request renewal of your registration, dog license or to request a vital record certificate using E-Reg, click on the applicable link below, and follow the step-by-step instructions. You may also get an estimate of the cost by clicking the orange button below. Dog Licenses State of New Hampshire RSA 466.1 requires that every owner or keeper of a dog four months old or older shall annually cause it to be registered, numbered, described, and licensed for one year in the city or town in which the dog is kept. Regardless of when the license is obtained, the license shall be effective from May 1st of each year to April 30th of the subsequent year. Dog licenses are available at the Town Clerk’s office. In order to avoid fines, please remember to register your dogs by April 30th. Marriage License If you plan on getting married in New Hampshire, you may apply at any Town or City Clerk's office. The license is valid in any New Hampshire city or town only. There are two forms to be completed; the application worksheet and the license must be completed in person and signed by both parties. Please allow 30 mintues processing time and plan your trip to the office accordingly . Vital Records NH vital records are considered to be private and NH Statute restricts access to these records to only those individuals who have a "direct and tangible interest" in the record (RSA 5-C-16 ) . Certain older records are exempt from these access restrictions. In order to obtain certified copies of Vital Records, you must complete an application to the New Hampshire Department of State’s Division of Vital Records Administration (DVRA ) and pay a search fee. Elections Residents of Acworth who will be 18 years of age or older on election day and are citizens of the United States, may register to vote at the Town Clerk’s office up to 10 days before any election during office hours or contact the Supervisors of the Check list, Betty Gowan (603)-835-6531 or Marianne Nevelson (603) 835-6896. You may also register at the town hall on election day.

Acworth NH Tax Credit Criteria Tax Credit Criteria Abatement Processes and Deadline Assessing Credits, Exemptions, & Abatement Forms Current Use MS-1 Summary Inventory of Valuation Tax Credit Criteria Tax Exemption Criteria Tax Credits are deductions from the tax due. The following tax credit options are available in Acworth. Applications are available in the Assessing Office or on the forms page of the Assessing website. Bring your DD214 and all other qualifying documents along with your application (PA-29) form. Optional Veterans' Tax Credit RSA 72:28 - $300 Service-Connected Total Disability RSA 72:35 - $1,400 Surviving Spouse RSA 72:29-a - $1,400 Contact Information Selectmen's Office 603-835-6879 Address: 13 Town Hall Rd. PO Box 37 Acworth, NH 03601

How to Obtain Copies of Voter Checklist The Supervisors are required to provide copies of the Checklist to those who request it. Supervisors are urged to address all pending items prior to providing copies of the Checklist. However, the the Right-to-Know law requires that a public record that is immediately available be provided immediately. A person making a request for a copy of the Checklist should not be denied because there are pending changes, but they should be informed that the Checklist is not current. A request received by mail should not be unreasonably delayed while corrections are made. The Supervisors may only provide Checklist information for their own town or city. The Supervisors shall charge a fee for each copy of the public checklist for the town plus any shipping fees if applicable. The information on the Checklist that Supervisors of the Checklist may provide upon payment, include the voter's name, street address, mailing address, town or city, voter history for an election (including whether or not they voted absentee), and party affiliation, if any, of every registered voter in the town or city. Date (or any date range) of a voter's registration is not public information. The Supervisors of the Checklist may provide public Checklist information on paper, or electronically. **It is a crime to knowingly use the Checklist information for commercial or purposes such as selling or offering for sale any property or service unrelated to an election or political campaign. *To request a copy of the Voter Checklist to purchase, you can either print the form that we have provided for you in an attachment below, or come into the office and get a form to fill out and sign. *The Voter Checklist is a public record and therefore is open to view in our office during regular business hours. Forms Voter Checklist Request Form Electronic Records Release Voter Right to Know

BOS Minutes - 2017 Board of Selectmen Minutes - 2017 January 9, 2017 January 17, 2017 January 30, 2017 February 6, 2017 February 27, 2017 March 6, 2017 March 20, 2017 April 3, 2017 April 17, 2017 May 1, 2017 May 15, 2017 May 18, 2017 May 29, 2017 June 5, 2017 June 19, 2017 July 2, 2017 July 17, 2017 July 31, 2017 August 7, 2017 August 16, 2017 August 21, 2017 September 5, 2017 September 18, 2017 October 2, 2017 October 16, 2017 October 30, 2017 November 6, 2017 November 20, 2017 December 4, 2017 December 11, 2017 December 18, 2017 2026 Minutes 2022 Minutes 2021 Minutes 2025 Minutes 2020 Minutes 2024 Minutes 2023 Minutes 2019 Minutes 2018 Minutes For older minutes call 603-835-6879

Acworth NH Emergency Health Jennifer Bland, Health Officer, Term Expires 3/21/2026 Phone: 603-835-2130 Cell phone: 860-601-2223 The goal of the Public Health Officer is to maintain and improve the health and well-being of all Acworth residents. The Health Officer operates under the authority and guidelines laid out by NH RSAs, primarily RSAs 128, 147 and 595. The Health Officer: Enforces the New Hampshire public health rules and laws, as well as local ordinances and regulations Serve as a liaison between state officials and the local community on issues concerning local public health The Health Officer’s responsibilities include: Inspect daycare/foster homes Inspect septic systems to certify failure Provide information on public health-related topics Investigate complaints regarding local public health concerns Help in minimizing the impact of adverse events on our population such as natural disasters, biological terrorism, chemical terrorism or naturally occurring communicable disease outbreaks

Town of Acworth History History Acworth’s First 200 Years Helen H. Frink Acworth was granted in 1766 to original proprietors as lots and ranges; there were twelve ranges running east to west, each range divided into eighteen lots numbered south to north. As settlement began in 1767, each lot contained about 110 acres. This system of lots and ranges is indexed in the old Acworth history sold at the town library and town clerk's office. Landowners interested in what was located where they now live may be able to trace their home back to this old system through that history, published in 1867. Old stonewalls also delineated these lots, and they and ancient cellar holes are the most obvious features that remind us everywhere that others lived here long before us. Acworth’s earliest settlers, many originally from Connecticut, settled near the high land at the center of town because it provided a good vantage point for defense, and because the air at lower altitudes was suspected of carrying disease. Acworth's historic Church on the Hill demonstrates the powerful force of religion in that early community. Until 1819 everyone in any New Hampshire town was expected to contribute to the minister's tax and to share the same religious beliefs, so that the religious community of Congregationalists and the town itself were one and the same. Therefore Acworth’s first meetinghouse, built in 1784, served both for church services and town meetings. But religious unity was short-lived. In 1809 Baptists built a church on the Lynn Hill Road and moved it to the present site of the Acworth school in 1844. Quakers petitioned for exemption from the Acworth minister's tax to attend meeting in Quaker City in Unity, where their 1820 meeting house could be handily reached from Acworth’s Black North Road. In 1844 Methodists erected their church on the common about where the flagpole and memorial boulder are now. Acworth’s original meetinghouse needed major repair by the time New Hampshire passed a law in 1819 essentially separating church and state. After much debate the meetinghouse was dismantled and its salvaged building materials used to erect the present town hall in 1821. Around the same time, two rows of horse sheds were built behind the town hall and church. The single row of sheds visible today is one of only nine such structures remaining in the state. The magnificent new Church on the Hill, also built in 1821, never served as a town meetinghouse. It was built to seat 800 congregants, its pews rented to finance the building. These churches fulfilled a social function at least as important as their religious role. Churches provided music, singing, and intellectual stimulation, as well as a chance to sit down and rest. Men worked with other men, particularly in Acworth's numerous water-powered mills. There they also enjoyed the sociability of farmers bringing corn and wheat and rye to be ground, or hauling logs to be cut into lumber or turned into chair stock or barrels or shoe pegs. Women generally worked at home with young children until Sunday. No wonder they were eager to take a bath on Saturday night, put on their best clothes, forgo cooking any hot meals on the Sabbath, and spend the day sitting down in the company of other women. They extended their church community to organizations like the Female Charitable Society founded in 1816. While we may think of women of the 1800s and early 1900s as more religious than men, we should also consider the importance of the church as a social institution. In early days, Acworth was famous for raising flax used to manufacture linen, though most households depended on subsistence farming. Leather from the hides of oxen and milk cattle supplied the Acworth Boot and Shoe Company through the 1860s and 1870s. Farmers fenced livestock out of an enclosure protecting fields and gardens. Hogs roamed freely until they were slaughtered in the fall. Stray livestock that wandered into a neighbor’s enclosure could be corralled in the stone town pound, built behind the horse sheds in 1806. Owners were directed to claim ownership, pay charges, and take them away. To this day we vote annually to designate our selectmen as pound keepers, as well as fence viewers and measurers of wood. Around 1830 sheep and wool production gained ascendancy, as valuable Merino sheep were introduced into New England, and Acworth’s water-powered mills carded, spun, wove and pulled wool. The dozen mills powered by the Cold River also ground grain, and sawed lumber, shingles, lath, and later manufactured butter tubs and syrup pails. These mills drew millhands and their families from the earlier hilltop settlement around the town common downhill into the South Acworth river valley. We can see this settlement pattern not only in Keyes Hollow in Lempster, in East and South Acworth, but also where the Grout Hill and Gates Mountain Roads meet across 123A. There stands a cluster of small houses built too close together to be surrounded by fields. Barns in such mill settlements weren't the huge barns that sheltered hay and dairy cattle, but smaller stables for one milk cow and a driving horse. Each of these little communities needed a school, and usually a store and a church, or a place for community gatherings. In 1854 the Methodist church was moved to its present location on the Beryl Mountain Road near the river, where it later became the Grange Hall. The Baptist church made the same journey into South Acworth, rebuilt on Main Street, as it was then called, in 1867. Besides the mill, the church, and the school, most of these little settlements included a meeting place for sociability. We still have the South Acworth Village Store with its old Union Hall upstairs, built in 1865. Preserving the store and the post office as a gathering place has been a major achievement by some awfully hard-working volunteers. Later the Grange Hall, formerly the Methodist Church, filled this gathering function in South Acworth. East Acworth had a huge old hotel, livery stable and barn owned by the Buss family who ran the mill across the road. Besides dances held in the ell of the old house, there were church services there. In Acworth Center the gathering place became Eagle Hall, upstairs in the old two-story schoolhouse that burned down in 1929, replaced by the present school that opened in 1930. In 1850, Acworth had thirteen school districts to serve 474 children. Several of these schoolhouses are still standing: the Grout Hill School built in 1847, the Derry Hill school, and the former East Acworth schoolhouse on Underwood Drive. Since children all had to walk to school, the schoolhouses needed to be within two miles of every family's house. The key factor here was darkness, and the distance children could walk on a snowy late winter afternoon. Schools included children as young as four, and went through the eighth grade. Many residents ended their schooling there because it was too difficult to travel to a local high school. Electricity and school bus transportation have changed education patterns, and also made it possible for families with young children to live much further from schoolhouses. Nevertheless, these changes have eroded the cohesion of small communities, as has the necessary establishment of regional school districts such as Fall Mountain, in 1967. Acworth's population reached a high point of 1,526 residents in 1810. That didn't necessarily mean more households, because families were so much larger. In fact about a third of those residents were school-age children. Today only about 15% of the town's population is comprised of school-age children. Population declined steadily after 1810, first because soil proved too poor for continuous farming, and second because the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the development of railroads around 1850 took the profit out of farmers' cash crops, first flax, later wool, butter and cheese, and then aple sugar. The farm families who migrated westward left behind cellar holes, old wells, apple trees, lilacs, and Concord grape vines. Most moved to New York State or further west, for example Illinois. The Civil War caused more rapid decline because young men in the Union Army saw better land and better opportunities in the south and west. Because of the sheep boom between 1830 and 1850, the Acworth they left behind was almost entirely cleared land, as shown in old photos. Acworth’s farms raised literally tons of wool, for Army uniforms, blankets, and saddle blankets, some of it woven at the woolen mill in South Acworth. In the 1870s and 1880s, steam locomotives burned huge piles of cordwood, which was very inefficient, since the trains had to haul some of this heavy fuel supply on board. But Acworth farmers spent winters logging and hauling firewood over to North Walpole to meet the trains. In the 1860s two-thirds to three-fourths of New Hampshire was cleared land, mostly sheep pasture. Today two-thirds to three-fourths of New Hampshire is forest. Many of Acworth’s old stonewalls, built mostly between 1790 and 1820, were later toppled by fallen trees or frost heaves. Others were cleared to make way for farming equipment; As soon as the scythe and hand-held rake gave way to horse-drawn equipment around time of Civil War, stone walls became an impediment, because the horse and mowing machine turned in an arc that left the corner of each field unmowed. Mowing by tractor brought no better use of these unmown corners, so old walls were removed. And after floods, highway repair crews piled in rock from old stonewalls and then shoveled in gravel to fill the breach, causing stretches of walls along some hillsides to disappear. The mining of beryl, mica, feldspar, and quartz also reshaped some of Acworth’s landscape during the first half of the twentieth century, and provided employment as farming and mills declined. The low point of Acworth's population came in 1960, when the census counted just 371 residents. In the hippie years of the 1960s and 1970s, people began moving back to the land, so that in 1970 the population was around 460. These were younger people, some of them childless, and some trying out different communal lifestyles. The desire to live sustainably and to earn a living from traditional crafts also draws people to Acworth. Some Acworth residents seek to get away from faster-paced city life, traffic, pollution, and noise. But for most of the town's history, the emphasis instead was on coming together. Originally everyone's driveway was town-maintained, because roads were intended to connect farms and families. The town organized thirty-two highway districts in 1810; most covered a very small area. Men figured the cost of necessary construction and repair, assessed highway tax on each household, and then worked out their highway tax. The wealthier residents, widows, and the elderly paid in cash. Most men worked with team of oxen or horses and a dump cart shoveling, raking, and spreading gravel. The system changed gradually as old backwoods farms were given up or burned down, and these roads were "thrown up" by the town, meaning there was no longer any tax-supported maintenance. Today these abandoned roads are still public rights of way. Several, such as the Stebbins Road, the John Symonds Road, the Keyes Hollow Road and the Dodge Hollow Road are much appreciated by cross-country skiers, snowmobilers, and horseback riders. Most of these old roads followed rivers and streams, which is why the October 2005 floods did such terrible road damage. The reasons are both geological and historical. First, even a small stream carves out a valley, such as Honey Brook alongside route 123A going out to Marlow. Most townspeople considered that a pretty insignificant stream until October, 2005, when it destroyed the state highway. The same holds true for Thayer Brook that runs alongside the Forest Road from South Acworth to Alstead. Because the streams carved a fairly flat, broad valley, they made road building easier. Second, the larger rivers, particularly the Connecticut, had always been the highways, first for Native Americans, then for early white settlers. Hotels or taverns sprang up near these rivers, served the highways that followed the rivers, and then the railroads that followed in the 1850s. Stretches of Route 12 in Charlestown where we see the Connecticut River, Route 12, and the railroad through North Walpole represent all these forms of transportation: the River the oldest, the railroad the newest, and the state highway right in between. Regardless of human settlements and the way they shape the landscape, Nature comes back every few decades to remind us that we are not the absolute rulers of the universe. During a huge flood in November 3 through 5th of 1927 the Cold River flowed over the road by Leon Newton's farm, and Crane Brook flooded down Crane Brook Road. The state allocated over $5,000 to repair this highway district in the west part of town alone. Glenn Bascom harnessed four of his horses and he and his neighbors filled in the washouts with stones from old stonewalls, and then hauled in gravel to spread over the damaged areas. The bridges in South Acworth and in East Acworth washed out and had to be rebuilt as well. Another flood, this time in the spring, struck Acworth between March 12-19th, 1936, when several feet of heavy snow melting over still frozen ground contributed to the flooding. Roads were so impassable that the school bus, the mail carrier, and the stage, by now a motorized vehicle, were unable to get through. Much of the Cold River Road in East Acworth and 123A into South Acworth remained under water for days. Men used dynamite to blast huge icebergs out of the Cold River near the Newton farm and further downriver in an attempt to break up the huge ice dams that flooded low-lying fields and roads. This rainstorm destroyed traces of the foundations and dams of many of the water-powered mills. There was still a cement-topped mill dam in South Acworth that washed out and had to be repaired. By then it belonged to the town, which needed to pay for its repair as well as around $4,000 in road damage. Some of the work was funded by the Works Progress Administration, the WPA, which was one of President Roosevelt's make-work programs to counteract the massive unemployment caused by the Great Depression. Locally, the WPA was called the Working People of Acworth. Oddly enough, some of the factors that helped put an end to the Great Depression were further disasters: the 1938 hurricane that began on September 21st, the Marlow fire of 1941, and finally the Second World War. If there is a message here, it may be that these natural disasters can provide a creative opportunity for change. Today Acworth’s residents continue to work together to adapt the land to present needs, and to tie the community together.