Ruais shares accomplishments and ideas in his second State of the City Address

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. – Continuing an annual tradition, Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais shared a recap of his administration’s past year and upcoming plans during Wednesday morning’s Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce State of the City Address.

Wednesday marked Ruais’ second address as mayor and included a multitude of topics familiar to those attending his monthly ward town hall meetings such as PR bail reform, education, housing and homelessness. He added emphasis on the issue of bail reform issue given a recent arrest for a stabbing and another for a bank robbery where both suspects were released on bail almost immediately, joining the 24 percent of arrested individuals who were out on bail at the time of arrest in 2024.

“Where is the justice for the victims? Where is the justice for the police? Where is the justice for our residents and businesses? On what planet is this acceptable and what is it going to take for this madness to end?” he asked.

The address also focused on Ruais’ focus on several core principles behind his tenure.

One of those principles was humility and collaboration, with the mayor thanking numerous city officials as well as former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on the celebration of his 216^th birthday. Ruais noted Lincoln’s approach at setting clear goals, welcoming different opinions and remaining magnanimous. In particular, he talked about Lincoln’s impetus to rise up to meet the moment and said that this approach was needed to overcome the partisanship found today in American politics.

“It’s far more difficult to take thee long view, to ignore the noise, the petty squabbles, and do what you believe is right. We are better than the political rhetoric of our day suggests. It hurts our ability to get things done. Years from now when all the speeches are given, all the votes have been taken, and all the campaigns have long since been run, how do we want to be remembered? To me this is easy,” he said. “We should strive to be remembered by the moments when the chips were down, we rolled up our sleeves, we worked together, and we made the difficult decisions that moved our city forward.”

Ruais also talked about another principle frequently mentioned in previous speeches: urgency.

Wednesday leaves 328 days left in Ruais’ current term according to the clock in his office, a fact he has sometimes shared with the hours, minutes and seconds left as well in the past. While he said that the clock is a conversation starter, it also symbolized his aim to impact progress in Manchester as quickly as possible.

“My first reality is this: while my time in office is finite, my duty to the city is indefinite. It’s incumbent upon us to leave Manchester a better place,” he said. “I want to be able to look back and say, ‘we listened and we got things done.’”

“When you can see the real tangible progress, that’s my drug,” he later added.

Ruais also took the speech as an opportunity to tease a proposed collection of plans called “Together We Rise: 50 Initiatives, One Future,” noting some ideas such as an AI chatbot to facilitate user interaction between residents and city staff. Following the speech in a question and answer period with Scott Spradling, Ruais also shared his desire to bring 3D-printed houses to Manchester to help address the city’s housing crisis, homing to emulate the recent efforts of a city in Texas.

During the discussion with Spradling, he also took on a variety of topics. Ruais told Spradling that he feels about the upcoming city budget given that obstacles from last year such as an unexpected abatement for the Mall of New Hampshire are not looming on the horizon. Other topics included more discussion on bail reform, the importance of city staff, potential surplus public properties that can be used for housing and the impact of the ongoing chaos in Washington on funding of the city government and local non-profits.

Ruais gave thanks to Governor Ayotte and New Hampshire’s congressional delegation in providing guidance through the crisis, stating he believed that removing government waste is important but it is better done with a scalpel through the legislative process. He also urged calm as events unfold at the federal level.

“I think it’s important for all of us holding elected office not to rile up people,” he said to Spradling.” We have to take a deep breath, we have to recognize that we have a process in place where one branch of government doesn’t get to rule the day over the other branches of government.”

For previous State of the City Addresses, see below

2024 – Ruais touts accomplishments, upcoming initiatives, during State of City address

2023 – Mayor Craig delivers final State of the City Address

2022 – Craig shares positive message as State of City Address returns to NHIOP

2021 – Craig talks pandemic, housing and more at Chamber State of the City event

2020 = Mayor shares accomplishments and expectations at State of City address