Democrats made a difference for Nashua: We brought home funds for Education and Property Tax Relief fighting Republicans all the way.
This year finishes my fourth term in Concord and my last. Thank you for the most interesting and rewarding eight years serving you.
Broadly I know we need to create a 2-year budget and I know it will be difficult at best. The goal will not be to cut but to mend, it will not be to remove but to heal, because through this pandemic we have learned where our vulnerabilities are and I know we can find solutions.
The work that awaits our next term will have multiplied as so much has been left on the table because of the novel coronavirus interrupting our session. We also face a very different state with very different needs, it is a future we will need to face together.
There are specific bills of mine that fell through the cracks. Two for constituents – one to standardize training for food allergies and another to deal with some archaic rules on a city’s right concerning bedbugs.
We also want to help cities and towns around the state deal with abusive Right-to-Know requests. I saw the problem in Nashua, began crafting bills, and was inundated with messages from all over the state on how much the abuses cost their communities. Not one person denied the citizen’s right to know what their government was doing, everyone knows that is fundamental to our state and has been from the beginning, but when taken to the extreme it becomes abuse. I hope to find a way through this troublesome issue.
My Committee has always been, and I hope to return to, the House Labor Committee where we hear bills intended to affect workers, employers, and the NH department that serves them both, one small issue at a time. Some laws on our books are outdated and need to be brought into the 21st Century, some are punitive that really don’t need to be, and the opportunity to create better communication between parties is there – we just need to make it happen.
The second big issue people talk about is taxes, and I agree this is a huge issue. NH places an unequal burden on people by making property tax on the most heavily used way to fund public services.
| Nashua | $3,757,003 | $5,161,872 | $8,918,875 |
| Received from the Democrat’s Budget | Municipai Aid Funding | Education Funding Increase vs Current Law | Municipal Aid and Education Funding Increase Combined |
and on the last possible day, signed into law.
Among so may positive items – this directly benefited the taxpayers of Nashua
One issue I hear quite often when knocking on doors is guns. I’m not sure why it is a primary issue to people, employment, rent costs and availability, water clean of PFAs, roads, and schools, all seem to me to be higher on the scale of affecting people’s lives. NH had no need to change gun laws, we had been working along just fine. But change, and this preoccupation, did come to NH and we lost some good protection. Responsible Gun Owners know that with rights comes responsibility and the vast number of owners respect this with training, proper storage, even permits. I will not vote to take away a person’s right to own or carry, I will however support methods to keep us safer as a community.
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