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After nearly a decade of grim statistics, New Hampshire’s getting some very good news in the fight against opioid death and addiction.

The latest data show opioid deaths and overdoses have dropped dramatically, with overdose deaths and emergency responses falling to their lowest levels in a decade in the state’s two largest cities.

No one died from opioid-related overdoses in Nashua last month, and Manchester saw three overdose deaths, continuing a trend that health officials say could mark a genuine shift in the long-running epidemic.

“October suspected opioid ODs were well below recent averages and continue to trend in a very encouraging direction,” said Chris Stawasz, Northeast regional director of government affairs for Global Medical Response, Inc.

Stawasz, who began tracking opioid overdose statistics in Manchester and Nashua for a decade, said 2025 is shaping up to be the best year yet in the fight against opioids. AMR medics responded to just 35 suspected opioid overdoses in the two cities in October — 17 in Manchester and 18 in Nashua.

“The combined (two) city total of 35 was the lowest total number of suspected opioid ODs in one month since AMR began tracking them 10 years ago,” Stawasz said. “The 17 suspected opioid ODs in Manchester were by far the lowest one-month total since AMR began tracking them 10 years ago.”

Gov. Kelly Ayotte said the drop in overdoses shows progress, but warned the fight is not over.

“I am encouraged to see a decline in opioid overdoses, but there is more work to do to fight the drug crisis in our state. We’ll continue to give a hand up to Granite Staters recovering from addiction by funding our Doorways and Recovery Friendly Workplace programs and strengthen our efforts to fight trafficking of deadly poison like fentanyl into our communities.”

Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais, who was just reelected to a second term in part based on his work confronting the city’s drug problems, credited a community effort for the success.

“Manchester’s progress shows that when we come together with focus and determination, we can make real, lasting change. These numbers represent more than just data points; they represent lives being changed and saved. I want to thank our ROAR Team, Health Department, AMR, and all our community partners and outreach workers for their efforts to make a difference in the lives of others.”

Manchester is currently at 321 overdoses for the year and is projected to finish 2025 with about 385, nearly 27 percent below last year’s total. The city has recorded 33 opioid-related deaths so far this year and is on pace for about 40, down from 47 in 2024.

“Manchester is continuing to trend toward ending 2025 with a record-low number of annual suspected opioid ODs and is currently 27 percent below last year in total annual suspected opioid ODs. Suspected opioid OD deaths in Manchester are currently 16 percent lower than in 2024 and very close to a record low,” Stawasz said.

In 2015, at the height of the crisis, Manchester saw 728 overdoses and 88 deaths.

Nashua is also improving, though more gradually; zero overdose deaths in October, 18 overdoses, and 140 for the year so far. The city is projected to finish 2025 with 168 overdoses and 25 deaths. Nashua had 184 overdoses and 20 deaths in 2024, meaning fatalities have already surpassed last year despite a 9 percent decline in total overdoses.

In 2015, Nashua recorded 256 overdoses and 26 deaths.

Experts say one major factor behind falling death rates is widespread access to Narcan, the overdose-reversing medication. Narcan is available without a prescription at most New Hampshire pharmacies and distributed at no cost through public health programs and harm-reduction agencies.

“With Narcan now widely available, it is likely that some opioid overdoses are now occurring without 911 intervention, and are not being reported due to rapid reversal,” Stawasz said.

People can also get Narcan at the state’s nine Doorway locations, which provide addiction treatment referrals, medical support, peer counseling, housing help, and job training. Anyone seeking help can visit a Doorway site or call 2-1-1.

The New Hampshire ACLU is throwing down the race card in its support of convicted cop killer Michael Addison as he appeals his death sentence.

Addison, who murdered Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs in 2006, is preparing for a hearing in front of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, arguing that when the state repealed the death penalty in 2019, his sentence should have been changed, too.

The ACLU and a group of anti-death-penalty legal scholars are going further, arguing in an amicus brief that Addison’s race played a key role in the jury’s decision to put him on death row.

“[T]his Court should consider the legion of social science research explaining the ways that race likely contributed to the death sentence of a poor, Black man who did not ‘purposefully kill’ the victim,” wrote senior ACLU attorney Henry Klementowicz.

Klementowicz points out that Addison was sentenced to death the same year John Brooks, a White multimillionaire, got a life sentence for the far more deliberate murder of handyman Jack Reid.

“As the history of the death penalty and social science could have easily predicted, Mr. Brooks (sentenced to life) was rich and white while Mr. Addison (condemned to die) was poor and Black,” Klementowicz wrote.

The ACLU is known for its far-left politics, as evidenced by its promotion of the “Defund the Police” movement in 2020, for example. It has also abandoned its adamant defense of free speech, now arguing that “First Amendment protections are disproportionately enjoyed by people of power and privilege,” as former ACLU Racial Justice Director Dennis Parker put it.

In the Addison case, the New Hampshire Supreme Court is being asked to consider whether the killer’s death sentence is proportional to other similar crimes now that the death penalty has been repealed. Klementowicz argues that Addison’s death sentence wasn’t even proportional to other murders in 2008.

Addison and his partner in crime, Antoine Bell-Rodgers, had pulled off three violent armed robberies in the days before Briggs was murdered. On Oct. 16, 2006, Briggs and fellow Manchester Police Officer John Breckenridge responded to a report of a fight at the home of Bell-Rodgers and Addison.

The two men allegedly tried to leave when they saw the officers, but Briggs ordered the pair to stop. Bell-Rodgers did stop, but Addison kept walking away. Briggs ordered him again to stop, and that was when Addison turned around and shot Briggs in the head. Briggs, at that point, had not unholstered his pistol. Addison fled the state and was later caught in Dorchester, Mass.

Klementowicz argues the Briggs murder was the result of a single gunshot fired as Addison was trying to evade arrest, and the trial jury even found that Addison did not plan to kill anyone when he shot Briggs.

“The jury found that the state failed to prove that Mr. Addison ‘purposely killed’ the officer but did find proof that he ‘purposely inflicted serious bodily injury which resulted in death,’” Klementowicz wrote.

In contrast, Brooks had been actively trying to kill Reid for years before the 2005 murder in Deerfield. He hired men in 2003 to kill Reid, and after multiple failed attempts, they finally succeeded with Brooks’ participation.

“When those he hired to kill finally attacked the victim with a sledgehammer, Brooks was not only present, but himself delivered the final blows that killed the victim,” Klementowicz wrote.

Brooks went on trial for capital murder and could have received the death penalty, but his jury instead voted for life without parole.

Addison’s lawyers, Jonathan Cohen and Michael Wiseman, also filed their Supreme Court brief last week, arguing that keeping Addison on death row would impose an aberrational and arbitrary sentence on just one man. Addison is the only New Hampshire citizen currently awaiting the death penalty, and thanks to the repeal, he’s likely the last Granite Stater to ever go on death row.

“The time has come. The legislature’s repeal of the death penalty ensures that juries cannot, and will not, impose a sentence of death in any murder case—whether the case is materially identical to Mr. Addison’s or is far more aggravated. The repeal necessarily means, therefore, that only Mr. Addison can and will be subject to the death penalty, no matter how many similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant, yield capital murder convictions,” the lawyers wrote. “Thus, Mr. Addison’s death sentence has necessarily become aberrational and arbitrary—and it will become increasingly aberrational and arbitrary as time passes.”

But politics may have overtaken their argument. Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who prosecuted the Addison case, is calling for New Hampshire to bring back capital punishment.

Talking to reporters last month, Ayotte said capital punishment “is important” when it comes to protecting law enforcement, “sometimes from very dangerous and career criminals.”

“That’s what we had in the case of Michael Addison, and that’s why I sought the death penalty as attorney general. That is one issue where I would like to see the death penalty restored.”

If Addison is executed, New Hampshire would become the first and only state to execute an inmate after repealing its death penalty, according to Klementowicz.

New Hampshire’s sole death row inmate, Michael “Stix” Addison, is asking the state Supreme Court to lift his sentence for murdering Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs. 

Attorneys for Addison, 45, have been trying for years to avoid the pending execution. Last week, they filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking a review of Addison’s sentence in the wake of the 2019 law banning the death penalty. 

“With its legislative repeal of the death penalty on May 23, 2019, New Hampshire concluded that the death penalty is an excessive and disproportionate punishment for any crime or defendant,” the petition states. “This profound shift in community values against the death penalty provides ‘special and important reasons for’ this Court’s exercise of original jurisdiction to conduct renewed comparative proportionality review.”

The Supreme Court has twice weighed in on Addison’s fate since his 2008 conviction. In a 2013 ruling, the state’s highest court affirmed his capital murder conviction. In 2015, justices performed a sentence proportionality review and found his death penalty was “neither excessive nor disproportionate.”

However, both of those rulings came before the state passed a 2019 law eliminating the death penalty. That law included a carve-out to keep the death penalty in place for anyone already awaiting execution. Then, as now, Addison was the only person in the state on death row.

His legal team said the death penalty repeal law and exemption make his sentence unjust.

“New Hampshire’s super-majoritarian repeal of the death penalty has ensured that no one who is convicted of the same crime as Mr. Addison with a background like his will be sentenced to death. Even a defendant of far greater moral culpability than Mr. Addison will not be subject to execution. Accordingly, Mr. Addison’s sentence is now arbitrary, aberrational, and thus disproportionate, and it should be invalidated based on renewed comparative proportionality review,” the petition states. 

Addison’s lawyers argue that he is the victim of undue political influence. Gov. Kelly Ayotte pushed for Addison’s death penalty when she was attorney general, and she testified against the repeal of the bill in 2019 before the exception was added.

“If we repeal the death penalty, make no mistake, Michael Addison will not get the penalty for having murdered Officer Briggs,” Ayotte testified at the time. 

Addison’s lawyers argue politics should stay out of the question when it comes to Addison’s life.

“Such political accommodations or concerns cannot and should not impact this Court’s solemn duty to revisit proportionality review in light of the unquestionable expression of community standards that no person should ever again be subject to execution in New Hampshire,” the petition states.

Fallen Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs.

Addison and his partner in crime, Antoine Bell-Rodgers, had pulled off three violent armed robberies in the days before Briggs was murdered. On Oct. 16, 2006, Briggs and fellow Manchester Police Officer John Breckenridge responded to a report of a fight at the home of Bell-Rodgers and Addison. 

The two men allegedly tried to leave when they saw the officers, but Briggs ordered the pair to stop. Bell-Rodgers did stop, but Addison kept walking away. Briggs again ordered him to stop. Addison turned around and shot Briggs in the head. Briggs hadn’t even unholstered his pistol.

Addison fled the state and was later caught in Dorchester, Mass.

Bell-Rodgers is currently serving 60 years to life for his role in the crime.

Three years before the murder, Briggs responded to a shooting scene in Manchester where Addison was the victim, providing first aid that may have saved his future killer’s life.

One of Donald Trump’s first political successes was his embrace of the opioid addiction issue in New Hampshire during the 2016 campaign. Long overlooked, the scourge of addiction was hitting working-class Americans hard, with the Granite State suffering more than 300 drug overdose deaths in 2015.

In 2018, the data analysts at WalletHub ranked New Hampshire as having the third-highest drug use rate in the U.S.

But a decade after Trump came down the golden escalator and helped raise the profile of the opioid issue, New Hampshire’s fortunes have reversed. The latest WalletHub report, released Wednesday, ranks New Hampshire 11th best overall in terms of its drug problem. The report looks at factors like recovery availability, law enforcement efforts, and rates of addiction. Hawaii, Utah, and Nebraska were in the top three for states doing well, while New Mexico, West Virginia, and Nevada have the most dire drug addiction problems according to the report. 

“I think we’re doing significantly better,” said Chris Stawasz, regional director with ambulance company American Medical Response.

Only one New England state, Connecticut, has a lower rate of drug abuse than New Hampshire. Massachusetts and Maine rank 26th and 27th, respectively; Rhode Island comes in at 28th, and Vermont is last in the region at number 32.

Stawasz, who has been collecting and publishing overdose data from the cities of Manchester and Nashua for years, said data from this year is already showing a major improvement.

“Nashua and Manchester are at half of where we were a year ago, and statewide it’s down as well,” Stawasz said. 

Part of the credit goes to state government, where Gov. Chris Sununu led a bipartisan effort to make treatment more readily available to Granite Staters. Mental health and confronting addiction have been among a handful of issues where, despite some differences in approach, support for solutions has been strong on both sides of the aisle.

As a result, New Hampshire ranks 48th among states with adults whose drug-treatment needs are unmet, WalletHub reports.

In Manchester, which has been ground zero for the Granite State’s battle with addiction, Mayor Jay Ruais — who has struggled with his own addiction issues — says the battle has been hard fought. But, he told NHJournal, the results are undeniable as the number of fentanyl overdoses and deaths continues to decline.

“Trend lines have been extraordinarily clear,” Ruais said. 

Stawasz will release numbers for the first quarter of 2025 within the next few days, but he said Manchester and Nashua have seen at least a 50 percent reduction from the first quarter of 2024. The projections for the total 2025 number of overdoses and deaths could be their lowest in at least a decade. 

Getting from the worst of the opioid crisis to the recovery being seen today takes a combination of different people and agencies working on different aspects of the problem, Stawasz said.

“I can’t point to one specific item. There’s a lot of effort going into the recovery, prevention, and law enforcement.”

Focusing police agencies on busting fentanyl dealers and stopping the traffic of drugs coming up from Massachusetts has been a big part of the recent success, Stawasz said. Ruais said police are a major component of Manchester’s success in combating the epidemic, along with the city’s Rapid Overdose Assessment and Response (ROAR) Team, assembled to deal with different aspects of addiction.

“This is an entirely collaborative effort,” Ruais said. 

Now, the ROAR team can redouble efforts and hopefully get ahead before there is a next wave, Ruais said. The city can start looking more at prevention, targeting efforts to schools and youth in the city to keep them away from drugs. 

“We can further reduce these numbers so that a person never gets into an addiction,” he said. 

While every death is tragic, the fact that there was only one fatal opioid overdose in the city of Manchester last month is good news for a city that has long struggled to address the drug crisis. It’s the latest data point in a positive trend in the Queen City since Mayor Jay Ruais took office in January 2024.

“If these results continue, Manchester is on pace to realize the lowest numbers in suspected overdoses and deaths since the beginning of the opioid epidemic more than 10 years ago,” Ruais said Wednesday. “This is an incredible accomplishment. We’re saving lives, and getting people in need help.”

The one death out of the 33 suspected opioid overdoses last month brings the total fatalities up to seven for the year, compared to 47 deaths out of 527 suspected overdoses the year before.

Chris Stawasz with Global Medical Response, Inc., says Manchester is on pace for 357 opioid overdoses and 28 deaths in 2025. Global Medical Response tracks overdoses and fatalities in Manchester and Nashua, two cities hard hit by the opioid crisis in the last decade. Both cities are seeing a turnaround, according to Stawasz.

“March continued the trend of significantly lower overall opioid overdose totals in both communities, 14 percent below the rolling 12-month average,” Stawasz said.

However, while Nashua had far fewer suspected overdoses (16), five of those were fatal, a significantly higher single-month number than is typical. Nashua has already seen 12 deaths and could see as many as 49 if Stawasz’s projections hold for the rest of the year.

In Manchester, where 79 people died in 2022 out of 701 overdoses, Ruais says the lower death toll is welcome evidence that the city’s holistic approach is working. Since winning election, the Republican mayor has focused on empowering police, getting people in crisis access to medical care, and pursuing an effective strategy to get homeless people housed.

The opioid epidemic has been most acute among the city’s homeless population, and 25 of the March suspected overdose victims in Manchester were homeless. Stawasz said three of the overdoses took place in shelters.

Ruais has changed Manchester’s direction in dealing with homelessness, too. His emphasis is to build a collaborative network with city, state, and nonprofit organizations to get people off the streets and into shelters, address why they ended up homeless, and get them into permanent housing. 

This week, Manchester announced its partnership with HarborCare, the Veterans Administration, and city landlords has resulted in housing for 40 homeless veterans thus far.

“The level of success we’ve reached in finding sustainable housing for our homeless veterans since our initiative kicked off last September has exceeded my highest hopes,” Ruais said.

Manchester’s Public Health Director, Anna Thomas, said Manchester is thankful for the help it has received from the Centers for Disease Control, as well as the combined efforts come from a community of health providers, city officials like Director of Overdose Prevention Andrew Warner, the Manchester Police Department, and ambulance company American Medical Response. 

“All life is precious and every one saved is worth fighting for,” Thomas said.

The crisis isn’t over, Stawasz cautioned. Data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner indicates the drugs xylazine and carfentanil are showing up in the street fentanyl being used by addicts. Xylazine is worrisome, Stawasz said, and it does not respond to Narcan.

“Increasingly now mixed with illicit fentanyl, xylazine’s powerful sedative properties complicate EMS providers’ treatment of suspected opioid overdoses. It is undetectable to medics and Narcan does not reverse its effect,” Stawasz said. “When present, it requires a significant additional and prolonged effort to maintain an effective respiratory status on a victim.”

The city of Manchester suffered the fewest opioid overdose fatalities in February since 2020, part of a statewide trend of fewer deaths and fewer ODs.

Mayor Jay Ruais (R-Manchester) is celebrating the good news but, along with fellow Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, says there is still more work to do.

“The significant decline in fatal opioid overdoses across the state and here in Manchester is the positive news we have been working so hard toward,” Ruais said.

Manchester recorded just three opioid overdose fatalities in February, the lowest one-month tally since November 2020. Chris Stawasz, with ambulance company Global Medical Response, Inc., said Manchester’s fatalities are now 12 percent lower than the previous 12-month rolling average.

And Manchester isn’t the only bright spot for a state that’s struggled to address the opioid epidemic for years. The state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s latest report shows a 35 percent drop in opioid overdose deaths from 2023 to 2024.

Ayotte said the numbers show New Hampshire is on the right track.

“Thanks to our state’s coordinated approach to fighting the drug crisis, New Hampshire is a model for the nation in bringing down fatal overdose deaths,” Ayotte said.

New Hampshire has focused on making recovery programs more accessible, getting life-saving naloxone to people who need it, and making sure people with substance abuse can get medical care and employment. 

In Manchester, Ruais has focused on getting people experiencing homelessness into housing instead of temporary shelters where overdoses run rampant. This week, the city’s Board of Aldermen voted to spend $201,000 to pay for a mobile crisis unit and case manager to reach out to people in the grip of addiction. At the same time, the city will spend $250,000 from its Affordable Housing Trust fund to create up to 30 transitional housing beds to get people off the streets.

“We are making real progress addressing homelessness and reducing drug overdoses, so now is not the time to take our eye off the ball,” Ruais said.

Ayotte wants to see more done to stop drugs before they hit the streets.

Last month, she held a joint press conference with the mayor of Lawrence, Mass. — a notorious hub for illegal drugs in the region — to announce a joint effort to stem the flow of fentanyl and other opioids.

“We will build on this progress and continue to be vigilant by strengthening our drug interdiction efforts through Operation Granite Shield and Northern Shield while supporting those in recovery with investments in our Community Mental Health Centers and Recovery Friendly Workplaces,” Ayotte said.

On Tuesday, Acting U.S. Attorney Jay McCormack announced the arrest of three illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic, charged with selling cocaine in Nashua. The arrests were carried out by the Drug Enforcement Agency with the help of the Nashua police.

Elizardo Escaria Delison, 32, Belisario Luis Delison, 49, and Rayddy Delison De Aza, 28, were each charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possession with the intent to distribute controlled substances.

 Their arrests were part of Operation Take Back America, an initiative that, in part, targets overseas drug cartels operating in the United States. 

For all the positive signs, Stawasz cautions people to be ready in case things start going south again.

“Please keep in mind that due to the nature of the opioid epidemic and its clear history of unpredictability, it is always possible that the trend of lower numbers could quickly change,” Stawasz said.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office gave its blessing Monday to the takeover of Manchester’s Catholic Medical Center by for-profit HCA Healthcare, Inc.

Attorney General John Formella announced his office reached an agreement with HCA and CMC to make sure the new ownership will continue CMC’s mission to provide healthcare and serve the community. 

“This settlement represents a thoughtful approach that both addresses the insurmountable financial challenges CMC is facing and ensures that the healthcare needs of New Hampshire residents continue to be met,” Formella said.

The deal has been in the works for years as CMC sought financial salvation. The nonprofit hospital has been losing up to $3 million a year. The Attorney General’s Office review was the last step in finalizing the deal with HCA.

“CMC’s decision to sell the hospital is largely the result of financial distress that has brought CMC to the brink of bankruptcy,” Formella reported in his role as the state’s Director of Charitable Trusts. “On top of large losses over the last several years, CMC has projected losses of $41.5 million for its 2024 fiscal year, and its debt totals around $160 million. In April 2024, CMC laid off 142 employees attempting to reduce its losses, but providers and patients continue to leave the hospital, reducing revenues at a greater rate than any reduction in expenses.”

The purchase, which the report notes is “not an affiliation or partnership,” will provide financial stability the hospital has long sought.

In a statement, the Diocese of Manchester said maintaining the hospital’s Catholic identity “was essential to the CMC Board of Trustees and Bishop Peter Libasci in deciding a future course of action for the hospital. CMC was created in a close relationship with the Diocese of Manchester including that the Bishop of Manchester approves certain activities of the hospital and the assets of CMC transfer to the Diocese upon the sale of CMC. Going forward, these assets will be held and used exclusively by a foundation that will continue the legacy of CMC’s commitment to provide Catholic health care in the community.”

As part of the deal, HCA first got Vatican approval to take over CMC by signing an agreement to operate within the Catholic Church’s ethical standards for medical care.  

Formella’s agreement with HCA will see that the key funding is in place for hospital expansion and as well as continuing charity care for the Manchester community. 

“As part of HCA Healthcare, CMC and our new colleagues will have access to much-needed resources that will pave the way for financial stability and continued growth. We are committed to making significant capital investments and enhancing key service lines that will benefit not only Manchester patients but patients across New Hampshire with expanded choice and ensure they have the highest-quality care available close to home,”  said Dr. William Lunn, president of HCA Healthcare’s Capital Division.

HCA will contribute $2 million over the next three years to local community health initiatives like Healthcare for the Homeless and Poisson Dental Clinic. 

“With HCA Healthcare, CMC’s legacy of excellence will not only endure but flourish — expanding access to care, enhancing services, and remaining deeply rooted in our Catholic mission,” Alex Walker, president and CEO of CMC said.

Mayor Jay Ruais called Monday’s announcement a pivotal moment for the city.

“CMC’s partnership with HCA Healthcare ensures immediate access to the financial and operational resources necessary to sustain its more than 130-year legacy of providing high-quality Catholic healthcare to our region,” Ruais said. “I am pleased that vital and beloved community programs, such as Healthcare for the Homeless and Poisson Dental, will also continue to serve our community for years to come.”

HCA is a Tennessee-based for-profit company that operates 180 hospitals throughout the U.S., including three in New Hampshire. Critics oppose HCA’s acquisition of CMC, pointing to its actions at Frisbee Memorial Hospital, where the company shut down the labor and delivery department after promising to keep it open. 

HCA’s proposed deal with CMC was hounded last year by nurses from HCA’s North Carolina Mission Hospital in Asheville who said HCA operated in an unsafe manner that put their lives and the lives of patients at risk. The nurses came to New Hampshire to stage protests, publish newspaper ads, and talk to the media, all in an effort to stop the sale.

“The community needs to know what happened to our hospital, because the same thing will happen to their hospital,” Kelly Coward, a nurse and union representative at Mission Hospital in Asheville, told NHPR last year.

Those nurses, all members of the National Nurse United union, stopped their protest a day before the Oct. 23 attorney general’s public hearing at CMC. The union kept silent through the fall and had no statement Monday about the deal’s approval. 

On Oct. 22, National Nurse United announced it had reached a contract deal with HCA for 17 hospitals in 6 states, including the Mission Hospital in Asheville. 

Former state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, who represented Manchester for decades, backs the HCA deal.

“CMC must be saved, and we must make sure that all contingencies are met,” D’Allesandro told NHJournal Monday. “I am a strong supporter and will continue to work on behalf of all the citizens of Manchester to have quality medical care continue to be provided.”

Bishop Libasci says he’s pleased with the result.

“We may look forward now to a strong, vigorous, Catholic hospital on Manchester’s West Side and Catholic healthcare throughout the state of New Hampshire,” Libasci said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this article erroneously reported that the Diocese of Manchester owns CMC. NHJournal regrets the error.

Manchester has been operating without an independent auditor for years, despite a city charter requirement, and Mayor Jay Ruais said that needs to change.

“It’s been six years since the city had a charter-required independent auditor,” Ruais told NHJournal. 

The position has been vacant since Kevin Buckley, the last independent city auditor, retired in 2018 during Mayor Joyce Craig’s administration. After Buckley left, the job was never filled, leaving a gap in Manchester’s fiscal oversight system.

“I want to make sure we’re providing the oversight,” Ruais said.

Manchester does get an annual audit from the Melanson Marcum firm, but that’s a process that is supposed to be managed by the auditor under the city charter. The auditor’s position is assigned to work in the City Solicitor’s Office per charter rules.

The auditor is also tasked with regular analysis of all city departments as well as the operations of the ski area, golf course, civic center, MTA, MCTV, and baseball stadium to make sure the finances are transparent, and that the services provided using taxpayer funds are done efficiently.

The auditor is also to perform any particular investigations or research into aspects of city government as requested by committees and the Board of Aldermen.

“The city auditor can examine individual contracts and departments as needed,” Ruais said. 

Ruais doesn’t know why Craig left the position open, but he said Manchester voters and business owners deserve to have a city auditor on staff making sure their taxes are being used correctly, and that their city is running as it should.  

“I don’t know why Mayor Craig never hired for the role, but it’s certainly a priority for me. And with increased inflation and taxpayers fighting different headwinds, it is the kind of accountability we need to provide,” he said.

The city tried to hire a new auditor twice since Buckley’s retirement, but two different hiring committees came up short finding a candidate to take the job. 

Ruais wants to include $135,000 in the upcoming city budget starting July 1, 2025 to cover the $90,000 salary and benefits for the auditor’s position. The proposal so far won approval with the Committee on Community Improvement. Under his proposal, the first year for the position would be paid for with American Rescue Plan Act funds, with the city taking over the costs starting the following year.

In 2023, the Illinois-based nonprofit Truth In Accounting gave Manchester a “D” for its city budgeting practices, reporting the city didn’t disclose the level of debt taxpayers were carrying.

“We really believe that our representative forms of government are being harmed because citizens are making decisions on tax policy, spending policy, and who they even vote for based on misleading or wrong financial information,” said Sheila Weinberg, co-founder and president of Truth in Accounting.

“We have worked for years to recast government’s financial reports to show a truer picture of their financial condition, bringing business accounting to these financial statements instead of the political math that is used by the governments,” she said.

Joyce Craig injected opioids into the governor’s race but may end up in reputation rehab after her GOP opponent’s counterattack.

On Monday, Democrat Craig launched a new attack ad targeting Republican Kelly Ayotte over the opioid issue. It’s the first time Craig has raised it in the general election, though she hit her primary opponent, Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, hard over her ties to Purdue Pharma.

But as Warmington pointed out at the time, Craig has her own connections to New Hampshire’s drug crisis that benefitted her financially.

Craig’s anti-Ayotte ad accuses the former New Hampshire attorney general of letting “the companies responsible for this crisis… off the hook” by “refusing to prosecute a leading opioid maker behind the crisis.” It also claims Ayotte “cashed in” by “joining the board of a major opioid distributor.”

The Ayotte campaign notes that as attorney general, Ayotte did prosecute one of America’s largest drug companies, and the state eventually participated in a multi-billion-dollar settlement from Purdue Pharma. And as a U.S. senator, Ayotte helped deliver $1 billion in funding to tackle the opioid crisis. 

As for that “major opioid distributor,” the company referenced in the Craig attack ad is Blink Health, an app that helps consumers find low-cost generic prescription medications of all kinds, similar to GoodRx.

Rather than argue, however, the Ayotte campaign picked up where Warmington left off during the Democratic primary. It hit Craig on the money her family has collected from her husband’s high-dollar defense of some of New Hampshire’s worst drug criminals.

The Ayotte ad also slams Craig’s term as mayor of Manchester as the number of opioid-related overdose deaths hit record highs.

“Joyce Craig let the Manchester drug crisis explode and made a fortune off her family’s work, defending criminals, traffickers, drug dealers, gangs. Craig cashed in off all of them,” the ad claims.

At issue is the work her husband Michael’s law firm, Craig & Gatzoulis, has done representing drug dealers and related criminals in New Hampshire courts.

“If you are charged with large-scale trafficking or simple possession of a controlled substance, the attorneys at Craig & Gatzoulis will draw on their experience as prosecutors to help you fight the charges,” according to the firm’s website.

Michael Craig and his partner Arthur Gatzoulis have represented a rogues gallery of defendants, like Coleman Marcus, who was convicted of selling fentanyl and heroin in 2018; Aweis Khamis, who was convicted of gun charges in 2019 for shooting up a Manchester diner; and accused Manchester rapist Harold Frost, who was busted in 2008.

Warmington pointed out during the primary that “as mayor, Craig signed a form every single year, notarized and under oath, that she had a personal financial interest in the law firm that her husband is participating in.

“I don’t know what that financial interest is,” Warmington said in the WMUR debate last month, “but she had a personal financial interest profiting off the trafficking of drugs in her city.”

Warmington also said Craig was on the attack because she couldn’t defend her record as Manchester mayor, “with overdose deaths up 52 percent per capita.”

Craig would not respond to requests for comment about her new ad or the opioid issue.

Dropping a new ad with a new attack on a topic that hasn’t been part of the campaign is an unusual move, political professionals say, particularly when the issue isn’t a natural fit with the race’s previous narrative. Ayotte’s time as a prosecutor is widely viewed as an asset, and a “weak on crime” attack now, without a major new development in the race, is viewed by some as a sign the Craig campaign is struggling.

Manchester is trying to stop the tide of used drug syringes washing over the city with a new ordinance aimed at reigning in the groups handing them out.

Mayor Jay Ruais said Manchester is now the first municipality in the state to assert oversight of Syringe Service Programs (SSPs), thanks to an ordinance passed this week.

“On a fundamental, basic level, we can’t allow the unregulated flow of needles into our city,” Ruais told NHJournal. 

Used syringes littering city streets and parks has become an increasing problem since 2017, when the state legislature passed a bill allowing SSPs to operate with little to no oversight. In the last seven years as Manchester’s opioid epidemic and homeless crisis raged, the city didn’t even know how many groups were handing out syringes in the city.

“Before this ordinance, there wasn’t any insight into how many of these programs were operating. There was no transparency or accountability,” Ruais said.

That lack of accountability and transparency contributed to making the city’s drug problem worse, Ruias said. It also put police, firefighters, and EMTs who encountered used needles during their jobs in danger. The situation is also a danger for every resident who might encounter the used syringes just about anywhere.

The tale of Manchester slipping into a crises of crime, addiction and homelessness on former Mayor Joyce Craig’s six-year watch has become part of the campaign for governor. While she’s denied the claim that she left Manchester in a mess, the fact is little was done to get control of the SSPs during her tenure.

Though the city passed an ordinance three years ago banning needle handouts from city parks, nothing else was done to manage the problem. In the meantime, syringes kept getting passed out by the SSPs, and the used syringes kept ending up in parks, city streets, outside schools, and all over.

“We hear concerns from families when they see them in parks or in the streets,” Ruais said. “It’s been a problem that’s been brought up to us on a far too frequent basis.”

The new ordinance requires all SSPs to register with the city, to provide data on their programs —  such as how many needles are passed out — and to take back at least some used syringes in an effort to keep them off the streets. The programs must also hand out information on disease prevention and drug treatment to the people seeking the syringes. The ordinances also codify location restrictions such as city parks, school zones, and state-licensed daycares. 

The original ordinance would have required the SSPs to engage in a one-for-one exchange, meaning they had to collect one used syringe for every new one handed out. But after talking to some of the groups handing out the syringes, Ruais backed a change that does not tie the programs to the one-for-one rate.

“We mandate that an exchange takes place, but not a one-for-one,” Ruais said.

The aim of these programs is to help stop the spread of infectious diseases. Ruais insisted the city is not trying to get in the way of that important effort. A strict one for one exchange may have hindered people from getting help. Ruais also wanted to give Manchester the flexibility to make changes as the city gets more data from the programs about the handouts.

“It’s a good first step,” he said. “Now we’re going to get the data back and see what it tells us.”