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When news broke that a Jamaican citizen had been arrested for illegally voting in New Hampshire — in three different elections — the first question many Granite Staters had was “How is that possible?”

And the answer, say voting law experts, is that New Hampshire’s law at the time made it possible. But not anymore.

Naseef Bryan, 34, was arrested and charged this week on three felony counts of wrongful voting. At the time he started voting in Manchester, Bryan was engaged in multiple lawsuits with the federal government in an attempt to force his way into becoming a citizen.

The lawsuits indicate that Bryan knew he was not a citizen when he registered to vote in the November 2023 municipal election and could therefore not legally vote. But if he knew he wasn’t a citizen, why didn’t the New Hampshire election authorities know it, too?

According to a representative for the city clerk’s office, Manchester election officials followed the law when Bryan registered. He was asked to prove his identity, his current address or domicile, and his status as a U.S. citizen.

For the first two, Bryan presented a New Hampshire driver’s license as photo ID and his car registration to prove he lived in the city. As for his citizenship, New Hampshire law allowed voters to sign an affidavit in front of a poll worker attesting that he or she is an American citizen.

Unless the affidavit is challenged, the citizenship claim is neither questioned nor confirmed, and the vote is counted. Or at least it was.

Bryan could not register to vote today, thanks to the law signed by Gov. Chris Sununu last year. HB1569 requires people registering to vote for the first time to prove their citizenship status. Democrats and liberal groups attacked the law, calling it “unconstitutional” and “a clear attack on one of our most fundamental rights.”

Democrats in the state House and Senate overwhelmingly voted against the proof-of-citizenship requirement.

“Make no mistake: this law will disenfranchise eligible voters with no evidence or data to back up any reason as to why,” Devon Chaffee, executive director of the ACLU-NH, said at the time.

Then came the Bryan case.

“For years, Democrats told us that a signature on a piece of paper was all that was needed for proof of citizenship for voting, and for years, we told them the system was wide open for abuse,” said Rep. Ross Berry (R-Weare), chair of the House Election Law Committee. “Turns out we were right, and thankfully, we have already closed that loophole over their objections.”

The new Granite State requirements are similar to those in the federal SAVE Act, a law Democrats like U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander claimed — falsely — would disenfranchise married women. 

“These women would not be able to use their birth certificates to prove their citizenship under the SAVE Act. And, if they do not have a passport, which roughly 44.5 percent of Granite Staters do not, they would not be able to register to vote at all under the SAVE Act,” Goodlander said in a statement.

However, the New Hampshire law only affects new voter registrations, and married women who are already registered to vote won’t be turned away from the polls if they have taken their husband’s last name. 

Affidavit ballots have also been used for same-day registration when would-be voters show up without either proof of identity, address, or both. Under the old rules, they could fill out an affidavit and cast their vote. They then had one week to provide proof of identity, thus allowing their vote to be added to the total count.

In 2024, 27 voters who registered at the polls without an identification earlier this month were provided with affidavit ballots, the largest number ever in a single election. Of those 27, only three sent in their proof of identity, according to the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office.

It’s not yet clear from the available records how Bryan was caught. Speculation surrounds the fact that he’s a litigious and outspoken gadfly in the New Hampshire legal system, seeking the sort of attention that could catch the eye of election law enforcement.

It would only take a quick internet search to find his many lawsuits against various government agencies, including his legal battles with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Robynne Alexander, the real estate developer who offered the state a too-good-to-be-true $21.5 million for the Laconia State School property, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal count of wire fraud in the United States District Court in Concord.

Alexander’s business model of offering eye-popping returns to her investors, as much as 80 percent, was actually part of a scheme to stay ahead of her creditors as her real estate empire crumbled, according to court records.

Alexander now faces up to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced at a later date. She’s already agreed to pay more than $3 million in restitution to her dozens of victims. Many of them gave Alexander their entire retirement savings, thinking she would help them make their fortunes.

Alexander presented herself as a California real estate success story when she moved to New England and taught classes as Real Estate Investor Goddess. Alexander showed people how to make big money on large-scale developments, such as apartment complexes, resorts, and even entire village complexes. In reality, she was a small-time player who flipped a few houses before she started teaching.

But someone did learn something in her classes; Alexander learned which of her students to rope in as investors for her various real estate schemes. She launched several different LLCs starting in 2018 using money from her former students, according to court records.

Under her Raxx‑LeMay, LLC., Alexander got investors to back the purchase and redevelopment of two commercial properties in Manchester. But even with her students, Alexander could only come up with $700,000 of the necessary $2 million for the purchase. Instead of giving the money back with interest to her investors, as was the agreement, Alexander bought the properties with investor money from other projects and high-interest loans. In a classic Ponzi-scheme move, Alexander paid returns to some Raxx-LeMay investors with the investor money from other LLCs she controlled.

After that, things took off for Alexander—but not for her investors. She transferred the Raxx-LeMay properties to another LLC, leaving that business and its investors $850,000 in debt and with no assets.

Alexander’s Elm and Baker, LLC., netted $750,000 in investor money to convert a Manchester property into apartments. Instead, Alexander used more than half that money to repay other, unrelated investors and her own personal loans, ultimately leading to foreclosure on the Elm and Baker property in 2023. 

Her biggest dream, the $21.5 million Laconia State School development, would have been a resort village with retail. It was the winning bid for the property. But for some reason, Alexander couldn’t close the deal. 

Alexander’s winning bid garnered negative attention as people close to the deal began asking questions about her financing. At the same time, one of her failed Manchester developments turned into a lawsuit. Former Gov. Chris Sununu recently said the state gave Alexander multiple opportunities to come up with the money before finally moving on.

“And after three or four extensions, we’re like, ‘Okay, enough is enough.’ And we pulled the plug, rightly so,” Sununu said.

Behind the scenes, Alexander struggled to raise $250,000 from investors for the $21.5 million purchase. At that point, she used $75,000 of that money on herself, including a month-long trip to Paris, Barcelona, Valencia, Nassau, Florida, and New Orleans.

Soon after the Laconia State School deal fell apart, Alexander was under investigation by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New Hampshire Bureau of Securities Regulation. As part of an agreement with New Hampshire authorities, Alexander will repay $96,000 to New Hampshire victims. She also agreed to give up any licensing to sell securities anywhere, and agreed not to be head of any company anywhere ever again.

Sununu gives credit to then-Executive Councilor Ted Gatsas (R-District 4) for protecting the state from getting more deeply involved with Alexander during the Laconia property process.

“Gatsas was one of the councilors who said, ‘We could have a problem here,” Sununu said during a recent radio appearance.

As the Alexander deal dragged out, “Ted was just really smart in terms of what we were potentially walking into, and putting up red flags for us. He really drove the message to get the state to pivot. And it was clearly the right thing to do.”

The Manchester Police Department’s (MPD) message on the Thomas Rogers case is “move along, nothing to see here.”

But multiple legal sources tell NHJournal the MPD’s officers completely mishandled the domestic violence case against the Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney.

The MPD dropped the charges filed against Rogers this week, despite the fact that he had previously been arrested twice on the same day for allegedly abusing his girlfriend and violating his bail.

“Decisions at the time of arrest and arraignment are made based on the information available in that moment. As with any case, we acted in accordance with standard procedure,” said Heather Hamel, spokesperson for the MPD.

However, legal insiders told NHJournal that the case should never have been handled by the MPD prosecutor’s office. All misdemeanor criminal cases in Manchester are supposed to go to the City Solicitor’s office. In fact, the City Solicitor is even listed as the prosecutor on the court’s public docket in Rogers’ case. Before the charges were dropped, the case was scheduled for trial in September.

However, MPD prosecutors handle cases for arraignment and initial bail hearings before handing the case off to the City Solicitor. And the MPD cut a deal with Rogers’ attorney on Monday morning when he was scheduled for his arraignment on charges of domestic violence-simple assault, stalking, and breach of bail. 

Instead of the arraignment, the MPD prosecutor and defense attorney presented an agreement to conditionally “nol pros” the charges. That means the charges will be dropped as long as Rogers remains on good behavior for a year and undergoes drug and alcohol testing. 

Rogers was arrested in the early morning hours of July 4 in Manchester after neighbors saw him shove his girlfriend to the ground, at which time the neighbors intervened, according to police reports. The neighbors reportedly said they had witnessed Rogers abuse the woman prior to the arrest. Hours later, Rogers was arrested again at the woman’s home in violation of his bail order, according to court records.

The expedited handling of the case raises questions about the appearance of favoritism for Rogers, who was assigned to the HCAO’s Special Victims Unit before his arrest. Rogers was in charge of prosecuting felony domestic violence cases, as well as rapes, sexual assaults, and other similar crimes, most of which were investigated by MPD detectives.

Hamel denied that Rogers got any special treatment, despite his working relationship with the MPD.

“We don’t make decisions based on appearances. We follow the law and established practices, and we have full confidence in our prosecutors to make fair, unbiased decisions based on their experience and the facts,” Hamel said. “Mr. Rogers worked on cases that involved officers from our department, but there was no direct relationship or personal connection that would have influenced this matter.”

Still, NHJournal is told by legal sources that neither the MPD nor the City Solicitor should have handled the prosecution. If Rogers’ case had gone to the City Solicitor’s Office, NHJournal has learned it is unlikely City Solicitor Emily Gray Rice would have kept the case in-house. Rice declined to comment when contacted this week.

Rice, a former federal prosecutor, was brought in by former Mayor Ted Gatsas in 2017 to clean up the office. Rice took over after the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office publicly called out her predecessor, Tom Clark, who oversaw an office that failed to prosecute a number of domestic violence cases.

Lyn Schollett, executive director with the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, is calling for a review of Rogers’ criminal case and the way it was handled. She also wants a review of all the cases he handled as a prosecutor.

First Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Shawn Sweeney has said Rogers is no longer working in the SVU, but it’s unclear if he is still employed by the office. Sweeney claims the HCAO had no role in Rogers’ deal.

“It is important to clarify that our office has not been involved in the investigation, prosecution, or the decision to dismiss these charges,” Sweeney said. “To ensure continuity, Mr. Rogers’ cases are being reassigned. We remain resolute in our commitment to pursuing justice for victims of domestic violence and holding offenders accountable.”

Rogers, a 2015 UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law graduate and president of the school’s Federalist Society, started working for the HCAO last year. His arrest and deal come as Hillsborough County Attorney John Coughlin, a former judge, is said to be a candidate for a federally appointed position.

Coughlin’s office already earned a black eye when it mishandled paperwork, resulting in the release of Amuri Diole from jail after he was deemed a danger to himself and others. While he was free in April 2021, Diole allegedly abducted a woman off the street, brought her to Valley Cemetery, and raped her for hours until he was stopped and arrested by Manchester Police.

“I can’t change history. I can’t change the facts,” Coughlin told NHJournal in October.

All criminal charges against Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Thomas Rogers, a lawyer working in the Special Victims Unit, were dropped Monday, just days after he was arrested twice in two separate domestic violence incidents.

Now, the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence is calling for a full review of this case and all of the cases Rogers prosecuted in Special Victims.

“[W]e recognize that when someone in a position of authority within the criminal justice system is accused of domestic violence, it can erode public trust,” said Lyn Schollett, executive director of the Coalition. “Survivors who have put their faith in the system may now question whether their own cases will be taken seriously, fairly prosecuted, or influenced by internal relationships.”

Rogers was in Manchester District Court on Monday to settle misdemeanor charges of domestic violence-simple assault, stalking, and breach of bail following his two arrests Friday morning — once just after midnight and again around 6:30 a.m.

The deal reached between prosecutors and Rogers’ defense attorney lets him walk away with all charges nol prossed, or dismissed, by the court. It also stipulates that Rogers is to be on good behavior for the next year and submit to taking a drug or alcohol test.

Heather Hamel, spokesperson for the Manchester Police Department, told NHJournal that the victim in the case had input into the agreement. Schollett said bringing the victim into the settlement talks was the right thing to do.

“Every individual who experiences domestic violence deserves safety, support, and the freedom to make their own decisions—including whether or not to participate in a criminal prosecution. It is critical that victims’ voices be heard and respected,” Schiollett said.

While it is important that victims have a voice in the process, it’s crucial for the rule of law to apply to everyone, even prosecutors, she said.

“No one, regardless of their status or position, is above accountability, and no survivor is alone,” Schollett said.

The Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office needs to acknowledge the deep faith the community puts in its employees to uphold the law and protect people by taking concerns about Rogers seriously, according to Schollett. That faith has been shaken by Rogers’ arrest and quick settlement and needs to be earned back.

“We encourage the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office to address the public’s concerns directly and transparently, and to reaffirm its commitment to handling all domestic violence cases with integrity, consistency, and impartiality,” Schollett said. “We also call for an independent review of both this case and of all of the domestic violence cases handled by the prosecutor charged with domestic violence. Such a review and public report are the only way to ensure that public confidence is restored and that no survivor feels their case may be unfairly handled due to internal conflicts of interest.”

Rogers’ case was prosecuted by the Manchester City Solicitor’s Office, according to court records. City Solicitor Emily Gray Rice did not respond to a request for comment.

Shawn Sweeney, First Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney, told NHJournal Rogers is no longer working in the Special Victims Unit, but declined to say if he was still employed by the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office. 

According to court records, sometime after midnight on Friday, Rogers got into a conflict with neighbors over fireworks being lit. Rogers had been drinking and began fighting with a neighbor after the neighbor saw Rogers shove his girlfriend to the ground, according to court records. Police were called about the first incident, and Rogers was taken into custody and charged with domestic violence simple assault. He was then released around 2:30 a.m. on bail and ordered to stay away from the woman. 

Police responded to a 911 hang-up call from his address around 6:30 a.m. to find Rogers now alone in the home, according to court records. He was then arrested and charged with stalking and breach of bail.

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.

Jurors found a former Manchester teacher who solicited sex with a child during work hours guilty Thursday on one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor.

Stacey Lancaster, 46, a Navy veteran and Manchester West High School’s lead NJROTC teacher, was busted last year as part of a federal sting operation nabbing several men. Lancaster was arrested in the parking lot of the Manchester Econo Lodge where he thought he was meeting a child’s pimp.

Lancaster was fired by the school district shortly after his arrest. His trial started this week in the United States District Court in Concord.

Federal agents set up a sting last year, using an online ad to draw out men interested in sex with children, according to court records. Lancaster responded to the ad while at work and engaged in a text conversation with an undercover agent.

Lancaster texted back and forth online with someone offering up two young girls for paid sex. Lancaster was first given the choice of the 12-year-old, but seemed incredulous at the girl’s photo.

“Did you say she’s 12? Are you being serious? That’s really bad if it’s true,” Lancaster texted after seeing the child’s photo, according to court records.

The pimp offered a 14-year-old girl to Lancaster instead, but Lancaster decided to go with the 12-year-old, and agreed to pay $100. He finished up his work at the high school that afternoon, and a short time later went to the Manchester hotel to meet the pimp and the girl, according to court records. 

In the hotel parking lot, Lancaster frisked the pimp to make sure there was now hidden police microphone, and then proceeded to close the deal. That’s when agents with Homeland Security Investigations and Manchester Police pounced, taking Lancaster into custody on attempted sex trafficking charges.

Lancaster is the latest New Hampshire school employee recently busted for inappropriate behavior with children.

• A Portsmouth High School assistant track coach is being accused of paying for sex with an underage girl who was actually an undercover officer.
• The superintendent of the Sanborn Regional School District just announced he’s resigning after the arrest of a special education teacher who was allegedly abusing children on his watch.
• A Claremont Middle School teacher was recently arrested for violating a restraining order requiring her to stay away from a 14-year-old boy.
• A former substitute teacher from the Bedford school district was charged with possession of child sex abuse images.

Opponents of GOP-backed parents’ rights legislation currently working its way through the State House argue teachers and school staff should be allowed to have information about students’ behavior regarding sex and gender that is denied to parents. State House Democrats have repeatedly argued adult teachers and students should be allowed to share secrets because parents can’t be trusted with that information. Parents might harm — or even kill — their children if they are allowed to know what teachers do, Democrats say.

Supporters of parents’ rights point to the significant number of cases of criminal behavior by teachers to remind lawmakers that teachers are no more or less trustworthy than parents.

Lancaster will be sentenced at a later date in federal court.

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. 

Emails and handouts from Manchester School District staff make two things clear.

The school district is still embracing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion content and policies. And they don’t want parents or the public to know about it.

The district is scrambling after a student handout using DEI teacher training materials in a class on the Holocaust was posted on the internet.

When it did, Amadou Hamady Sy, the Manchester School District’s executive director of Student Engagement, Outcomes and Success, sent staffers an email reminding them to keep the DEI lessons to themselves. Hamady Sy expressed concern that the materials had leaked to “individuals outside the school community and even the local press.”

“Given the current political climate and heightened scrutiny around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work, we are again reminding all staff to refrain from sharing any training materials, especially presentation slides, surveys, facilitator guides, or discussion content with students or external parties,” Hamady Sy wrote. “These resources were designed strictly for internal staff development purposes.”

Not the right answer for parents or opponents of race-based DEI curricula.

“They don’t want parents and taxpayers to know that teachers are being trained to bring these divisive concepts into the classroom,” said state Sen. Victoria Sullivan (R-Manchester).

The handout in question was given to eighth-grade students at the Henry McLaughlin Jr. Middle School. It purported to lay out the “Wheel of Power and Privilege” in society, encouraging children to contemplate their own “power and privilege” by circling attributes they felt matched their own, such as skin color and economic background.

There was also a packet on so-called “microaggressions” — actions that can be labeled as racist or discriminatory even if the person committing them has no racist or discriminatory beliefs or motives.

The school district claims it was part of its Holocaust education, a state requirement. However, the handout makes no mention of Nazi Germany’s slaughter of Jews.

Sullivan called the materials the type of divisive, race-based ideology that the legislature has been trying to get out of schools for years.

“Within that lesson was a power and privilege wheel that sent a message to students that some children are better than others. That is a message that should never be put upon children,” Sullivan said. “All children are unique in their talents and abilities. Telling children that they are better than some people or are less than others based on skin color, sexuality, body size, and gender is unacceptable. The lesson also uses the term ‘cisgender,’ which is a made-up term not rooted in any science and has been deemed a slur.”

When parents began complaining about the DEI materials, district officials blamed the teacher. According to the district, the microaggressions worksheet and “Wheel of Power and Privilege” are part of teacher training and never intended for students.

“In this isolated incident, students were asked to complete an anonymous self-reflection form to explore their understanding of self to text within the unit. Unfortunately, materials intended only for staff professional development were used for this anonymous student self-reflection,” the district said in a statement released Friday. “We want to be clear that there was never a survey completed as part of this lesson or unit. The district team has taken steps so this action is not repeated.”

“But the fact remains the materials are used for teacher training, which shows the school district has the wrong priorities,” Sullivan said.

“Manchester repeatedly makes headlines for inadequate proficiency scores. Yet, this is where they are spending taxpayer dollars,” Sullivan said.

And, Sullivan added, the fact that the school is trying to keep materials secret from parents and the public raises more questions about what’s being taught in classrooms.

The Manchester School District already fought a lawsuit defending its right to keep parents in the dark about their children’s behavior regarding sex and gender at school. In court, Manchester argued the district has no legal duty to tell parents if their child identifies as a different sex at school than his or her biological one.

If Manchester parents don’t like it, “They can homeschool, or they can send their child to a private school; those are options available to them,” said the district’s attorney, Meghan Glynn.

The school district prevailed before the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

“We cannot conclude that any interference with parental rights which may result from non-disclosure is of constitutional dimension,” the Supreme Court justices ruled.

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.”

Mayors from across the Granite State, as well as the entire Manchester Board of Aldermen, are joining in a bipartisan push and are backing Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s call to reform bail. 

“This is not a partisan issue, it’s a safety issue, and the safety of our cities is non-negotiable,” Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais said.

Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan, Claremont Mayor Dale Girard, Dover Mayor Robert Carrier, Keene Mayor Jay Kahn, Berlin Mayor Robert Cone, Franklin Mayor Desiree McLaughlin, and Concord Mayor Byron Champlin joined Ruais in a letter to House Speaker Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) and Senate President Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry) urging action on bail reform.

“Our citizens, businesses and tourists deserve our best efforts when it comes to keeping our streets safe,” the mayors wrote.

Ayotte has made fixing the bail system a top priority since taking office. She wants to see the 2018 attempt at bail reform, which made it easier for suspects to get released without posting cash bail, rolled back.

“Our current system is a joke to criminals. Too often, offenders are back on the street before officers who arrested them have even finished filing their paperwork. Our law enforcement officers and the public deserve better than this. The safest state in the nation deserves better than this,” Ayotte said.

In an op-ed for NHJournal, Ayotte pledged that, if the current bail reform proposal doesn’t make it to her desk, she will get it done anyway. The governor is putting bail reform into House Bill 2, the state budget trailer, to make sure it passes.

Manchester’s Board of Aldermen says the 2018 law reforming bail has had disastrous consequences for the city. In 2024, Manchester Police arrested 2,971 adults in 4,551 incidents. That’s because 27 percent of people arrested in Manchester last year were arrested more than once. Of the individuals arrested, 24 percent of them, or 715 people, were already out on bail at the time of their arrest.

“We understand the good intentions behind the previous changes to our bail laws. However, those good intentions have been replaced by criminal acts … When individuals are not held accountable for their actions, it encourages more bad behavior,” the Aldermen said in a statement.

Manchester became ground zero for the bail reform debate last month when Kyle Bisson, 25, was released on personal recognizance bail after he repeatedly stabbed another man in an Elm Street confrontation. Bisson has a criminal record, including a prior assault conviction, but he was not out on bail when he was arrested for the Feb. 7 fight. Manchester’s Police prosecutor did not request cash bail at Bisson’s initial bail hearing.

Cities and towns throughout New Hampshire are already struggling to hire police officers, leaving those they do have overworked. The revolving door bail system is only making the staffing and morale problems worse, the mayors said in their letter.

“This problem compounds itself when criminals cycle through a process of arrest and release, only to be arrested again,” the mayors said.

People just want safe cities again, Ruais added. 

“We need to focus on making sure violent and repeat offenders are taken off our streets,” Ruais said. “We are counting on the legislature to do the right thing, which will go a long way to making all Granite Staters safer, regardless of where they live.”