Lebanon, New Hampshire

The Mascoma Greenway is a 2.1-mile pedestri- an/bicycle walkway that connects Lebanon and West Lebanon. It runs along a defunct Boston & Maine railway line along the Mascoma River and right through Lebanon’s downtown.While the project originally surfaced as part of Lebanon’s master plan in late 1990s, it wasn’t until 2012 that the New Hampshire Department of Trans- portation, which owns the railway, entered into a trail use agreement with the city, which has been working on how to complete the project for the past several years. Paving a 12-foot-wide path began last summer, and Lebanon is still working on how to incorporate the old railroad tunnel that goes under Hanover Street and The Mall. “We’re deciding whether we want to turn it into a parking area, or renovate it as a route for the Greenway, or build a route around that area,” says Mulholland. “That’s at least a $2 million project.” Another one of Mulholland’s mandates was to help make Lebanon’s municipal buildings achieve zero carbon emissions, and two upcoming projects should help realize that goal.One is a landfill gas to energy project,which should be completed by 2019.“That will produce over a megawatt of power, which should be more power than needed in all of our municipal facilities,”Mulholland explains.“We’re going to burn the methane to produce electricity.On PREFERRED VENDOR n Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center www.dartmouth-hitchcock.org Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H) is a nonprofit academic health sys- tem serving communities in northern New England. D-H pro- vides access to more than 1,000 primary care doctors and spe- cialists in almost every area of medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center; the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, one of only 45 Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation; the Children’s Hos- pital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock; four affiliate hospitals; 24 ambu- latory clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont; and through the Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire. The D-H system trains nearly 400 residents and fellows annually, and performs world-class research. LEBANON, NEWHAMPSHIRE top of that,we’re looking at 113 acres at the airport to turn into a solar farm. If not the largest solar project in the state, it will be pretty close to it.We’re just starting the process to get that underway.That will be a huge energy project, and we’re going to be selling green power back to the grid when I get that solar power project up.” Finally,Mulholland says that he was asked to increase the efficiency of city services.“We’re going paperless by July 2020,”he declares,“and we’ve already started that process -95 percent of the work will be done without paper here at City Hall and the rest of our buildings.” Mulholland believes that Lebanon will continue to confront its challenges and opportunities with a forward-thinking approach. “The things that we’re doing with complete streets, walkability, public transportation, the high tech activity that we have going on here–New Hampshire is a very conservative state, but the Upper Valley is a small cluster of very progressive mindsets. For example, we’re the only community looking at municipal aggregation, which is going to have major impact on our businesses and residences in terms of sav- ings in electricity costs. This is a place that people like to be and like to live, and we still have a lot of potential. It’s a thriving community.We’re fortu- nate we’re not struggling to stay ahead.”