NORTH COUNTRY PRIORITIES
What does it mean for the people who live here?
That's the question I think we should be asking about decisions made in Concord. Coös County has smaller communities, limited tax bases, long distances and challenges that can look very different from those in the rest of New Hampshire.
I want to make sure those differences are part of the discussion.
Property Taxes & Education
Every New Hampshire child deserves a genuinely adequate education.
I believe public education is one of the fundamental responsibilities we share as a society. We aren't just educating our own children. We're educating the next generation of workers, business owners, neighbors and citizens our communities will depend on.
An adequate education should prepare young people for productive adult lives, whether their path leads to college, a skilled trade, technical training or something else. What that requires changes over time, and rural education won't always look the same as education in more populated parts of the state. Transportation, regional programs, career and technical education, shared services and technology can all be part of making good educational opportunities available in the North Country.
The goal isn't identical schools. It's making sure every New Hampshire child has a real opportunity to build a productive life.
Choice Should Enhance Education, Not Replace It
I support educational choice when it expands opportunities for students. Private schools, homeschooling, charter schools, career and technical programs, online learning and other public schools can all have a place. But choice is a means, not the objective. Educating children is the objective.
That's why I oppose New Hampshire's current Education Freedom Account program. Public education must remain the foundation because it has an obligation that private alternatives do not: making an education available to every child, in every community.
I also believe public money requires reasonable accountability. I would rather see educational-choice programs expand opportunities for students while strengthening, rather than gradually replacing, the public system responsible for educating everyone.
A Statewide Responsibility Needs Statewide Funding
New Hampshire relies unusually heavily on local communities to fund public education. The state's responsibility to provide an adequate education shouldn't depend on how much taxable property happens to surround a child's home.
I believe the Statewide Education Property Tax should actually function as a statewide tax. If one community raises more through SWEPT than is needed to meet the state's education obligation for its own students, that excess should help educate children elsewhere in New Hampshire. Those aren't somebody else's children. They're New Hampshire's children.
Communities should remain free to raise additional local money if they want to provide more than the state guarantees. I'm comfortable with some communities choosing to spend more. The state's responsibility is to provide a genuinely adequate foundation for everyone.
Start With the Obligation, Not the Tax
I oppose a broad-based personal income tax. New Hampshire should address unfair property-tax burdens by making the state meet its existing responsibilities, using current revenues more effectively, and stopping the practice of simply shifting state costs onto towns and local property taxpayers.
Start with what we're responsible for. Figure out what it actually costs. Look at what we're already collecting and spending. Then determine the fairest way to pay for it.
Strong Rural Communities
The first priority for the North Country is sustainability.
The challenges facing Coös County reinforce one another. An aging population and shrinking workforce make it harder for employers to find people. A shortage of workers makes it more expensive to build and maintain housing. Limited housing makes it harder to attract and keep workers. And as population and tax bases decline, communities have a harder time maintaining the services people and businesses need.
There isn't one program that fixes that cycle.
Build on the Economy We Have
I don't think we should build housing and simply hope businesses and workers will follow. We should start with opportunities that make sense for the North Country.
That means helping people develop skills for jobs that already need workers, including the trades, health care and other skilled occupations. Tourism is an important part of our economy and should be treated as real economic development. And when opportunities arise to bring higher-value skilled jobs and manufacturing to the region, New Hampshire should be ready to help make them possible.
Businesses can't grow without workers, workers can't stay without housing, and housing isn't affordable without adequate incomes.
Housing People Can Actually Afford
We need to preserve usable housing where we can while recognizing that rehabilitation alone won't meet the need. More apartments, townhouses and other multifamily housing will have to be part of the answer.
State assistance should be targeted toward places where housing shortages are preventing employers and essential services from finding the people they need. The goal shouldn't simply be to build more units. It should be to make it possible for the people who keep North Country communities running to live here.
Keep Communities Viable
Living in a rural area will always involve tradeoffs. We can't expect every service available in southern New Hampshire to exist in every North Country town.
But continuously responding to population decline by eliminating services can accelerate the very decline we're trying to stop. Health care, EMS, roads, communications and other basic infrastructure are part of what makes a community viable in the first place.
Rural services also sometimes cost more per person. Small towns have limited tax bases, difficult terrain and harsh winters. Broadband and communications infrastructure are more expensive to extend across sparsely populated areas. State policy needs to recognize those realities.
The long-term goal shouldn't be permanent state support. It should be targeted investment that helps the North Country become increasingly able to sustain itself, with jobs, skills and opportunities for the generations that come next.
PRACTICAL GOVERNMENT
Government should solve problems, not simply move the costs around.
I don't think the measure of good government is simply whether it spends more or spends less. The first questions should be: Is this something government needs to be doing, and are taxpayers getting sufficient value for what they're spending?
There are basic services that a functioning society has to make reasonably available, including education, public safety, essential health care, clean water and sanitation, transportation and communications infrastructure. That doesn't mean government always has to provide or pay for them directly. The question is what approach actually works.
COUNT THE WHOLE COST
One of the lessons I took from my career is that you can't make good decisions by looking at only the costs you want to see.
A state program isn't really saving money if it simply shifts the expense onto towns and property taxpayers. A product isn't truly inexpensive if its foreseeable cleanup or disposal costs are left for somebody else to pay years later.
I want government to look at the full cost of its decisions, including the consequences down the road. Programs should have clear objectives, and we should periodically ask whether they're actually accomplishing them. If they aren't, we should change them, replace them or, when appropriate, end them.
RESPECT LOCAL COMMUNITIES
New Hampshire's communities are different, and state policy should recognize those differences.
When the state has entrusted decisions to local communities, I think it should generally respect the decisions they make rather than taking that authority back whenever Concord dislikes the result.
Statewide rules are sometimes necessary, but legislators should consider whether the risks, costs and possible solutions are different in rural communities. A policy that works well in Manchester may work very differently in Dalton, Lancaster or Northumberland.
REPRESENT COÖS, NOT A PARTY
If I'm elected, my job will be to represent the people of Coös County.
I'll work with Democrats, Republicans or anyone else when I think an idea makes sense for the North Country. Party affiliation can help a representative build relationships and have a voice in the legislative process, but party loyalty isn't the reason voters send someone to Concord.
I also don't expect the people I represent to spend their days studying legislation. That's my job. My responsibility is to listen, do the homework, understand the consequences and exercise my best judgment on their behalf.
And whether people agree with a particular vote or not, I should always be prepared to explain why I cast it.