Business View Magazine | May 2019

201 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MAY 2019 and vote on items on the town warrant, such as adopting a town operating budget, authorizing the town to borrow money to renovate the public safety building, or leasing a front-end loader. Debate can be lively, and the voters can vote down these items or even amend them. Of course, traditional town meetings are not representative of all New Hampshire’s municipalities. Of our 234 municipalities, 13 are cities, and 7 are towns with a town council- town manager government, different from the “traditional” board of selectmen. While cities—and some of these town council towns—differ from the bulk of New Hampshire’s towns in government structure, there is diversity even among this small group. Manchester, our biggest city, has a population of 110,301, while our smallest city, Franklin, has a population of 8,685. Geographic size also has no bearing on whether a community becomes a city or town. For example, the town of Pittsburg is 291 square miles and the city of Somersworth is only 10 square miles. And whether a municipality is a city or a town, Dillon’s Rule applies. In essence, this means that a municipality can exercise only the powers granted to it by state law. In other words, unless state law says a municipality can do it, the municipality cannot. Being a Dillon’s Rule state generally means local officials spend considerable time lobbying the state legislature to approve bills granting local authority and disapprove bills imposing restrictions on them. The New Hampshire Municipal Association: Speaking with a Common Voice Regardless of the size and form of government, municipalities rely heavily on volunteers or other elected officials who divide their time between their careers and families with their service to their municipalities. To assist these volunteers— and all municipal officials and employees—in