THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2011
VOL. 20 NO. 165
BERLIN, N.H.
Report promotes developing Androscoggin corridor BY BARBARA TETREAULT THE BERLIN DAILY SUN
ANDROSCOGGIN VALLEY – A new report encourages $26.6 million in projects along the Androscoggin River, from its headwaters in Errol to Merrymeeting Bay where it empties into the Gulf of Maine. The report, ‘Connecting People to the Outdoors in New England,’ grew out of The New England Governors Conference in July 2010. The governors endorsed promoting seven interstate corridors or “interstate pathways” in New England as a way to spur economic growth and connect people to the outdoors. Three of the seven - the Androscoggin River, the Connecticut River, and the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, travel through Coos County. The report, which was commissioned this spring by the National Park Service, seeks to maximize scarce resources by working in collaboration and partnership with various private and public orga-
nizations to support and expand existing efforts. “These visions were borne of public and private actions to restore the nation’s waters and renew its pathways, to connect people to the outdoors for both recreation and resource stewardship, to honor the nation’s outdoor heritage, to revitalize local economies and create jobs especially for youth, and to create a more sustainable future,” the report states. For the Androscoggin River, the report envisions a continuous network of water, biking, hiking, and pedestrian trails along the length of the 178- mile long river. The report estimates project costs, which it said are intended to come from multiple public and private sources. It projects over $11 million to support on-going land acquisition efforts in Coos County $6.3 million for land in the Androscoggin headwaters and $5.5 million to purchase the remaining 15,000 acres of Dillon land in
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New law mandates warnings before fines for minor labor violations BY ERIK EISELE THE CONWAY DAILY SUN
CONWAY — A new law that requires the state to warn rather than fine employers with minor labor department violations represents a relief for business owners, including several local employers who got caught under the old system. “We ended up getting fined like $40,000 or $50,000,” said Bill Bennett, of Maestro’s restaurant in North Conway, which underwent a labor department audit several years ago. “It took him a couple months,” Bennett said. “He found all kinds of violations, all kinds of silly things.” Some of the restaurant’s paperwork was missing, and a child whose mother worked at the restaurant was too young to be helping out. They were also paying the wrong minimum wage to busboys. “Every day that bus person came in was a fine,” Bennett said. There were no evidence anyone was being paid under the table, or of unsafe working conditions, or that the restaurant had hired illegal immigrants, but still the business faced tens of thousands of dollars in fines. “Our hearts dropped,” Bennett said. “I just wanted to give him the keys to the restaurant.” “These are honest mistakes,” he said. The restaurant wound up meeting with the department and got the fines down to several thousand dollars, but it was still a stressful situation for Bennett.
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That same frustration raised the ire of Mark Guerringue, publisher of the Conway Daily Sun. In 2008, two years after the paper was named Employer of the Year by the local chamber of commerce, the paper underwent a similar audit by the state. Over several days the labor inspector found 210 violations and levied a fine of $21,000. “I basically compared him to the Gestapo,” Guerringue said. One of the violations was in how the paper pays its employees. “The Sun pays on a twice-a-month basis,” Guerringue said in a column that ran after the incident, “and has been doing so for 20 years without incident or question. Those infractions counted for 50 or so violations, one for every employee.” “Another big chunk of violations resulted from us not having a form on file with the signatures of all employees acknowledging they know their rate of pay or salary,” he said in the column. “Apparently it’s not enough that our payroll service details every penny of pay in every paycheck. Again, probably a good reason for that regulation, just not sure why.” “It’s like a speeding ticket for going 2 mph over the speed limit,” he said. The paper went to the same type of hearing as Maestro’s, where the $21,000 fine was reduced to $800. That seemed arbitrary to Guerringue. “It’s a one-sided negotiation,” he said. “It really is revenue enhancement, a scam.”
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He wrote several columns railing against the system and how the whole experience felt like a shakedown. Good employers were being punished unnecessarily, he said. “That’s when Jeb Bradley picked up the cause.” “The vast amount of business owners are not out to screw their employees,” Bradley, state senator and former U.S. Congressman, said. Businesses around the state were being found to have “very minor and technical paperwork violations,” he said, but regulators “were throwing the book at them.” Bradley spoke to Guerringue, Bennett and others about their experiences, but at the time changes just weren’t in the cards. “It was 2010,” Bradley said, and Democrats were in control. “We were in the minority and the the bill died.” 2011 was a different story, however: Bradley was one of more than a dozen sponsors of Senate Bill 86, which was signed by the governor and passed into law earlier this year. The bill’s title: An act requiring the Department of Labor to warn employers of certain violations prior to imposing a fine. The law carves out exceptions for serious violations, like failing to pay an employee on time or hiring illegal immigrants, but otherwise employers will get a warning first, before any fines are levied. That makes sense to Bradley. “99.9 percent of employers want to sleep at night,” he said, not worry
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