Pave = Misbehave?

Or: how a small town turned road money into police real estate during a tax-reset year and still called it progress

In New Hampshire, we love our image.

Live Free or Die.

Town meeting democracy.

Local control.

Common sense.

A healthy suspicion of nonsense, strangers, and anything with too many syllables.

We like to think local government is lean, practical, and sturdy. A little rusty, maybe, but basically honest — like an old plow truck that starts every winter with enough swearing.

And then a town comes along and says, what if we ran the budget like a shell game at the church fair?

Ossipee, naturally, has entered the chat.

Because this story gets a lot more interesting when you line up the timing and watch the moving pieces. And by “interesting,” I mean the kind of interesting that makes taxpayers stare at their bill like it just personally insulted them.

2023: the year everybody’s house got a paper glow-up

In 2023, Ossipee was not just having a regular tax year. The town’s own Assessor’s Report says it conducted a town-wide revaluation, bringing assessments to market value as of April 1, 2023. That same 2023 annual report still listed Todd Haywood of Granite Hill Municipal Services as assessor, while the Selectmen’s Report said the town had also engaged Avitar Associates in a 5-year contract as its new assessor.

So 2023 was basically the year everybody’s house got a paper makeover.

Not a real one.

No new roof.

No free addition.

No granite countertops descending from heaven.

Just a nice, official increase in value on paper — the municipal version of telling everyone in town, “Congratulations, your ranch is now emotionally a mansion.”

And all of that was happening while the Police Department was also in transition. The 2023 annual report says the department was transitioning to a new Police Chief, and Chief Donald Babbin wrote that he was in his first six months as Chief.

So while taxpayers were getting introduced to their exciting new property values, the town was also introducing a new chief, a new direction, and soon enough, a shiny new police-building plan.

Nothing says “steady as she goes” quite like changing the tax base and police leadership at the same time.

Then the road money,

grew a badge

At the March 2024 town meeting, voters approved Article #21 for $300,000 in paving and Article #28 to add to the Police Vehicle and Equipment ETF.

On paper, that all sounds normal enough.

Paving money for paving.

Police money for police things.

Boring. Sensible. Mildly beige.

Exactly the kind of town-meeting stuff people vote on between coffee refills and wondering why the microphone always sounds like it came from a submarine.

Then, by May 14, 2024, Jonathan Smith was publicly pitching the purchase of 43 Chickville Road as a new police station. In the joint Planning Board/Conservation Commission meeting, he called the building “literally perfect,” gave the price as $699,000, and laid out the funding plan: $260,000 in ARPA funds, sale of the old station for $399,000, plus money from the general operating budget.

He also said it would have “zero tax impact” with “no town meeting, no bond.”

Now, whenever government says “zero tax impact,” taxpayers should grab a snack and sit down, because that phrase has a long and glorious history of aging badly.

It is the fiscal equivalent of hearing, “Don’t worry, this will only take a minute.”

December 2024: where the story stopped being subtle

Then came the December 18, 2024 Budget Committee meeting, which is where the whole thing went from “huh” to “excuse me?”

At that meeting, Chairman Joe Goss said, flat out, that last year’s $300,000 for paving went for the purchase of the Police Station.

Not “helped indirectly.”

Not “was part of a broader funding strategy.”

Not “got reallocated in a nuanced way.”

Went for the purchase of the Police Station.

He also said the sale of the former station was supposed to offset the new paving increase. During that same discussion, Goss proposed a method that would have kept taxpayers from seeing that extra $300,000 increase if the building did not sell.

Smith said he did not support that method.

The minutes show the paving line at $600,000, and the recommendation passed 7-3, with Smith voting in favor.

So let’s translate this out of town-hall dialect and into regular kitchen-table English:

The town asked voters for paving money.

Later, the town’s own budget minutes said that paving money went to buy the police station.

Then, when there was a live discussion about softening the visible tax hit if the old building had not sold yet, Smith opposed that route and backed the higher paving number anyway.

That is not belt-tightening.

That is not holding the line.

That is not even creative budgeting.

That is putting ROADS on the label and REAL ESTATE in the can.

Or, in proper small-town terms: that is selling folks a snow shovel and handing them a fishing pole.

Then the money gets even more Ossipee

In the September 4, 2024 Budget Committee minutes, Matt Sawyer said the Government Buildings line was over budget because of the un budgeted purchase of the former Co-Op building for the new police department. Meeting records later discussed that building as a $699,000 purchase. Sawyer said remaining ARPA funds covered a large portion, and Finance Director Andrea Picard stated the paving line item was $300,000 and that not paving that year would offset the negative $283,951.14 Government Buildings balance.

In normal-person language, road money became the financial shock absorber for a police-building purchase.

That is the sort of thing that makes taxpayers stare at potholes and say, “So we skipped asphalt to buy walls?”

And because this town apparently believes in sequels, the paving story came back the next year.

In September 2025, Budget Committee minutes show discussion of a $600,000 paving request. Concerns were raised because paving money had been used the year before for an alternate purpose, and Jonathan Smith said the sale of the old police department building would show up in revenues.

So first paving got bumped aside to cushion another expense.

Then later paving came back asking for a bigger allowance.

Asphalt, apparently, is now a recurring character in the budget drama.

And because this is Ossipee… there is more!

No Ossipee budget tale would be complete without at least one accessory that sounds like it wandered in from a completely different town.

Public-facing records later showed the Ossipee Police Department highlighting a “new armored vehicle” at Touch-A-Truck, and October 2025 selectmen’s minutes refer to “the new humvee” being used for Trunk or Treat.

Now, to stay precise: I have not found a town record directly proving that the Humvee came out of the Police Vehicle and Equipment ETF, so that part should be handled carefully.

But the public record does show the town ended up with a new armored/Humvee-style vehicle that was being rolled out at family-friendly events.

Which is adorable.

Nothing says small-town fiscal restraint quite like taxpayers watching their bills climb while a military-style vehicle becomes part of the parade circuit.

And yes, people can decide for themselves whether Ossipee’s most urgent unmet need during a tax-reset period was:

A. roads that need paving, or

B. making sure Touch-A-Truck looks like the opening scene of a budget-conscious action movie.

This is Ossipee. We are not exactly fending off hostile armored divisions at the transfer station.

The red-flag pileup

Here is what makes the whole thing worth paying attention to:

• In 2023, assessments were reset to market value.

• In 2023, the town was changing how assessment work was being handled.

• In 2023, the Police Department was transitioning to a new chief.

• In March 2024, voters approved $300,000 for paving.

• In May 2024, Smith pitched the new police station as “literally perfect” and said it would have “zero tax impact.”

• By December 2024, the town’s own budget minutes said that last year’s paving money had gone to the police station.

• And when there was discussion about reducing the visible tax hit if the old station had not sold, Smith still backed the higher paving number.

That is not a tiny bookkeeping oopsie.

That is a pattern.

A pattern with taxpayer consequences.

What makes people mad is not the complexity. It’s the label

This does not automatically prove a crime. It does not have to.

What it proves is that taxpayers are perfectly reasonable for asking whether the town sold one thing, spent another, and hoped the public would be too tired, too busy, or too polite to notice the detour.

Because when people hear paving, they think roads.

When they hear police equipment, they think actual operational need.

When they hear zero tax impact, they think someone has done math with numbers instead of wishful thinking.

But when road money becomes station money, while tax values are already being reset upward, and armored toys start appearing at community events, it is fair to ask whether the budget process has become less “common sense” and more small-town three-card monte with better stationery.

The bottom line

Jonathan Smith can argue this was sound policy.

He can say the town needed the building.

He can say paving costs are rising.

He can say the old station sale was meant to offset the pain.

He can say everything was above board.

Fine.

But none of that is the same as saying he fought to lower the tax burden.

Because the record, written by the town itself, points the other way.

During a major 2023 tax reset, while the police department was under new leadership, Smith backed a chain of decisions that helped move Ossipee from paving roads to funding police property, while taxpayers were left standing in the same driveway with a bigger bill and fewer excuses.

Because in Ossipee, apparently, even the paving money can take a detour.

And somehow, the toll still lands on the homeowner.

If this town keeps up the act, the next warrant article is going to read like:

Article 12: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $300,000 for potholes, parades, police real estate, armored festivities, and whatever else fits under the tarp.