The Executive Council stopped a $700 million prison replacement, the largest construction project New Hampshire has taken up in a generation. Wheeler voted to stop it.
We may move forward … have all the specifications in place, then we can’t come up with the money. I think that’s a bad direction to go.
Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, April 16, 2026
His reasoning was the reasoning of a man who has met a payroll. Do not lock the state into a decade-long obligation it may not be able to fund, and get real design options on the table before committing to any of them.
Seven hundred million dollars is not a rounding error in a state this size. It is the kind of number that shows up in property tax bills for twenty years. Wheeler treated it that way when it would have been far easier to go along.
This is his hometown paper reporting it, in the district that will judge the vote.
