What's New

The Arbor Day Foundation has again named Portsmouth a Tree City USA and has awarded the Tree Growth Award to the City’s Department of Public Works Parks and Greenery Division. City Arborist Supervisor Max Wiater with the City’s Parks and Greenery Division, led by Corin Hallowell and the Trees & Public Greenery Committee, have helped Portsmouth achieve Tree City USA recognition for over twenty years.

Today the City of Portsmouth filed suit against SoBow Square, LLC, its Development Partner (Developer) in the McIntyre Project. The suit, filed in Rockingham County Superior Court, asked the Court to find that the City fully complied with its obligations under the Settlement Agreement, signed in April of 2022, and to find the Developer committed numerous material breaches of that agreement.

The City of Portsmouth's Mosquito Control Program begins monitoring on April 10, 2023. Crews from Dragon Mosquito Control, Inc., the City’s contracted service, will be checking swamps, salt marshes, woodland pools, ditches, catch basins and other shallow, stagnant water for mosquito larvae.

When mosquito larvae are found, treatment may occur using one or more of the following:

At a Special Meeting of the City Council today at 12:00 pm in City Hall, City Attorney Susan Morrell reported that the City of Portsmouth and Redgate/Kane, also known as SoBow Square, LLC, still have not reached an agreement on a number of critical issues needed to move forward with plans to redevelop the Thomas J. McIntyre Federal Building by the March 31, 2023 extension deadline  set by the General Services Administration (GSA).

The Portsmouth City Council has scheduled a Special Meeting on the McIntyre Project for Saturday, March 11, 2023.

It is anticipated that the City Council will enter into a Non-Public Session from 3 to 4 pm. A Public Session will be held at 4 pm.

The City Council recently voted to increase the income limits for both the elderly and disabled exemptions. Income limits will increase from $46,124 to $50,137 for single taxpayers and from $63,108 to $68,598 for married couples. Total assets for both exemptions will remain at $500,000 whether single or married.

The City of Portsmouth’s Mechanic Street Pump Station experienced an equipment failure in January that left only one of the station’s three pumps operational. The pump station continues to operate and passes the required flows to the Peirce Island Wastewater Treatment Facility. In order to ensure redundancy and manage high flow events, the City mobilized two temporary engine-driven backup pumps in the Pump Station’s parking lot.

In the past four months, the City of Portsmouth has accepted three grants from the New Hampshire State Library: a $9,682 grant for the preservation of historic City documents and to rebuild the wall around Point of Graves Burial Ground (the City’s oldest cemetery), $20,000 for delineating wetlands within the City limits, and a third $20,000 for preservation work on the wall facing North Mill Pond in North Cemetery.