CONCORD: At the halfway point of the 2023 fiscal year, New Hampshire’s state revenues are about $200 million ahead of estimates and $40 million more than a year ago. December revenues were $59.8 million more than budget writers estimated needed to produce a balanced budget, led by old standbys, business, hospitality and real estate transfer taxes and lottery transfers recordsetting jackpots and sports betting. Business tax collections in December totaled $193.3 million, a surplus of $36.6 million and $5 million more than a year ago. For the month, the rooms and meals tax produced $22 million, which is $5.2 million more than estimates and $1.3 million more than a year ago.
PLYMOUTH: The cost of electricity for New Hampshire Electric Cooperative members will go down 20 percent in February, the organization announced. The cost of electricity will go from about 17 cents per kilowatt hour to around 13.8 cents, which will save a typical household around $15 per month. That’s less than rates offered by all of the regulated utilities. Eversource’s new 20-cent rate was approved last week, Liberty’s 22-cent rate is still pending approval, and Unitil’s 26-cent rate that took effect in December will be in place through July. The Electric Cooperative serves 86,000 people in 118 towns, mostly in central New Hampshire.
KEENE: Dr. Don Caruso, president and CEO of Cheshire Medical Center since 2015, plans to retire in May, hospital officials announced. Caruso, 64, has been with Cheshire Medical for more than three decades, serving as chair of family medicine, associate medical director and chief medical officer. He has been a family medicine physician with the hospital since 1992.
PORTSMOUTH: Portsmouth’s Historic District Commission has narrowly voted to approve a major, long-debated redevelopment project along North Mill Pond. The Commission voted 4-3 on Jan. 4 to grant a certificate of approval for the project. It includes a five-story, 124-room hotel and a four-story, mixed-use building, which will feature a penthouse, 32 market-rate apartments on the upper floors and commercial uses on the ground floor. The project, which is being developed by XSS Hotels and Procon, calls for demolishing three existing buildings along Maplewood and Raynes avenues and replacing them with the two new buildings.
CONCORD: The attorney general’s office has signed on in support of the Federal Communications Commission’s proposal to help cut down on unwanted text messages by requiring mobile wireless providers to block texts from invalid, unassigned or unused numbers, and from numbers on a “do not originate” list. Attorney General John Formella said the move comes “in response to increasing enforcement and regulation of voice service providers to stop illegal robocalls. Bad actors appear to be shifting tactics to scam text messages.”
CONCORD: A Concord auto dealership has agreed to pay a $1.25 million settlement to resolve allegations of unfair and deceptive acts or practices against consumers, the New Hampshire attorney general’s office said. A Merrimack County Superior Court judge approved the settlement, which recognizes that there was no admission of wrongdoing. The dealership also agreed to pay nearly $50,000 in legal costs incurred by the attorney general’s office. All of the money will go into a state consumer protection escrow account.
The office’s Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau investigated consumer complaints alleging that employees at DMO Auto Acquisitions, doing business as Dan O’Brien Kia in Concord, persuaded consumers into purchasing vehicles they could not afford using deceptive sales practices; falsely inflated consumer income information on loan applications; and forged the signature of a customer on loan paperwork.
MANCHESTER: There are 4,353 Dairy Queens in America, but only one can finish 2022 as the top-earning DQ location in the country: Manchester. The location on Second Street in Manchester finished 2022 as the highestearning store in all of America. The eatery secured the top spot on Dec. 31, topping $4 million in sales as the year closed out.
