Areacode603.com - Concord Monitor

Mitt Romney staged a brief campaign event in Hillsboro yesterday in front of what he called a "bridge to nowhere," saying the structure symbolizes the nation's current path to financial ruin.

"This is an absolute bridge to nowhere if there ever was one," Romney said to about 150 supporters in folding chairs in the parking lot of a Ford dealership. "That's your stimulus dollars at work - a bridge that goes nowhere."

The stone arch bridge, commonly referred to as Sawyer Bridge, was built around 1860. It crosses the Contoocook River to the other bank but doesn't connect to any roads.

The bridge, which had fallen into disrepair, was shored up about two years ago to the tune of $252,380 - $150,045 in federal stimulus money, $73,787 in federal transportation enhancement funding and $28,548 from Hillsboro, said Shane O'Keefe, planning director for the town.

A Merrimack County jury yesterday awarded $1.5 million to former state trooper James Conrad, deciding that state police officials had no right to hold him at police headquarters while he had an emotional breakdown in November 2007.

Following eight days of testimony, jurors deliberated for about a day before siding with Conrad on his false imprisonment claim, assigning the state Department of Safety 70 percent of the fault for the incident and then-Lt. Mark Myrdek the remaining 30 percent.

The damages about doubled an economist's calculation of what Conrad lost in future earning ability as a result of the incident, which led to his arrest and termination from the state police.

"I'm ecstatic," Conrad said in a phone conversation yesterday. He got the news from his attorneys, Chuck Douglas and Kevin Leonard, after graduating from New Hampshire Technical Institute, and Douglas said they were celebrating yesterday afternoon at O Steaks and Seafood.

A second police officer charged with stealing a vest last May from Brian Blackden's North State Street pepper spray supply shop died at his home May 11, the day the complaints were filed in court.

Gary Norton, a 48-year-old Bedford police sergeant, had not yet been issued a summons for the misdemeanor theft charge, Concord police Lt. Timothy O'Malley said yesterday.

O'Malley said he couldn't comment on Norton's cause of death, but Assistant Safety Commissioner Earl Sweeney confirmed the sergeant's death was a suicide, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader.

Sweeney did not return calls for comment yesterday, and neither did Bedford police Chief John Bryfonski. An obituary published in the Union Leader yesterday said Norton, who worked for the Bedford police for 15 years, died at his home May 11.

Jim Bassett's appointment to the state Supreme Court is all but assured following a hearing yesterday before the Executive Council. Only one of the five members of the all-Republican council said afterward that he is leaning against Bassett's confirmation.

Bassett, a Canterbury resident who has spent 27 years at the Orr & Reno law firm in Concord, was nominated earlier this month by Democratic Gov. John Lynch to fill a seat on the state's high court vacated by Justice James Duggan's retirement in January.

"I am confident I can do the job well and I will do my best to earn your confidence and support," Bassett said at the beginning of yesterday's 1 p.m. hearing. "This is an unusual moment for me - I'm unaccustomed to being the center of attention or dwelling on my accomplishments."

The federal government yesterday called for all baby boomers to be tested for hepatitis C, which kills more Americans each year than AIDS and is the leading reason for liver transplants.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the recommendation to find hundreds of thousands of people who have the infection, which greatly increases their chances of developing cirrhosis and liver cancer, but don't know it.

The hepatitis C virus is transmitted by blood, usually through intravenous drug use or transfusions, before a blood test for it became widely available in 1992. Extremely small amounts of the virus are able to cause infection. Some experts believe that rolled-up dollar bills used to snort cocaine and passed person-to-person can carry enough infected blood to transmit the virus.

"Many baby boomers may not even remember the behaviors that put them at risk," said John Ward, head of the CDC's division of viral hepatitis.

When one of Roger Jobin's coworkers was diagnosed with cancer nearly seven years ago, he wanted to do something to show support and make a difference.

Jobin lives on School Street in Concord, along the route of the annual Rock 'N Race to raise money for Concord Hospital's Payson Center for Cancer Care. So he organized a group of colleagues from Northwestern Mutual to run and walk in honor of Craig Moquin.

Moquin, 50, of Hooksett, is still battling recurring Hodgkin's lymphoma, but walked the 10th annual Rock 'N Race last night. Afterward, he flipped burgers for more than 100 people gathered in Jobin's backyard. A group of Moquin's friends have walked or run Rock 'N Race in his honor for the past several years.

Moquin said he wants other cancer patients to know "there's hope." That hope was alive last night, as more than 6,000 walkers and runners raised money and honored loved ones affected by cancer.

Organizers have pulled the plug on a plan to build a single-stream recycling plant in Penacook, unable to move forward with the $15.6 million construction project after Concord withdrew from the venture last month.

The joint board of the Concord Regional Solid Waste/Resource Recovery Cooperative decided last night, on a voice vote without opposition, to terminate contracts with outside communities that had pledged to send material to the plant. The board also voted to rescind bid awards to three companies that were to build the facility, provide equipment and build a road to the site off Whitney Road.

Those votes effectively killed the project, which had been in the works for more than half a decade and had already cost the co-op roughly $3 million. The group was preparing to close on financing and begin construction this spring when Concord, which had previously supported the project, decided to pull out, calling its latest projections too risky.

The Senate easily passed a constitutional amendment that would prevent the state from taxing personal income. It passed with the support of the Senate's Republicans and one of its Democrats, Sen. Lou D'Allesandro of Manchester.

"Let's let the public decide," D'Allesandro said. "We've been debating and debating this. The public will make the decision whether (a ban on income tax) should be in the Constitution or not."

A similarly worded bill passed the House in January, 257-101.

The version passed by the Senate yesterday does not change the intent of the House's bill, just its wording. Sen. Jeb Bradley, a Wolfeboro Republican, said it clarifies that no "natural" person's income can be taxed to distinguish real people from corporations, which fall under the legal definition of person.

Bradley and the amendment's supporters said the constitutional amendment preserves one of the state's greatest advantages: its lack of an income tax.

A person who kills an unborn child would be charged with homicide under a bill that passed both the House and Senate. Still up for debate, though, is how old the fetus must be to count as a murder victim.

Yesterday, the Senate set the age at eight weeks following conception in an 18-6 vote. The House voted in January to put the age at 24 weeks, over the objections of some who wanted conception to be enough.

The two chambers must agree on an age no later than June 7 for the bill to go to the governor. If it reaches the governor as it passed the Senate, it may have problems.

"The governor told legislative leaders he would be open to a bill based on a standard of viability," which is about 24 weeks, said Colin Manning, Gov. John Lynch's spokesman. "He has very serious concerns about the bill that passed today."

A Hill police sergeant has been charged in an incident last May at a North State Street pepper-spray supply shop where owner Brian Blackden says he was robbed and threatened by members of a police motorcycle club.

The Concord police issued a summons Tuesday to Jonathan Evans, 56, of Hill for a misdemeanor theft by unauthorized taking charge related to a May 21, 2011, incident at Pepper Defense Supply at 485 N. State St. The police report doesn't explain Evans's alleged role in the incident but lists a Road Dawgs vest as stolen.

Reached at home yesterday, Evans said, "I can't say anything right now, but I didn't break the law doing anything of that nature."

Evans didn't comment when asked whether he was at Blackden's store that day. He said he had been a member of the Road Dawgs, a motorcycle club for active and retired police officers, for six years but resigned from the club last year. He wouldn't say why he resigned.