BJSD Law

February 21, 2012 5:43 PM

HAMPTON — Five candidates are competing for two three-year terms on the Board of Selectmen.

Age: 54

Occupation: Member at Bean Insurance Agency LLC, Hampton

Education: Hampton Academy, Winnacunnet High School, University of New Hampshire’s Whittemore School of Business and Economics, Bachelor of Science degree

Public service/public office experience: Department of Transportation (1977-1983), Department of the Navy (1983-2008), chairman, town of Milton Board of Selectmen

What are the three most important issues in your race?

1) Money! Commence a plan of reimbursement from the state of New Hampshire regarding infrastructure reimbursement. The state of New Hampshire siphons between .15 and .20 billion dollars per year from within the borders of Hampton. Across state service delivery platforms, taxes and revenue measures, the state piggy-backs on our infrastructure to include police, fire and public works without equitable contribution. This will stop.

2) Infrastructure! The town needs a coherent Capital Improvement Program to include committee work on town building needs. This will start.

3) Business! Secure business input into municipal decision matrix formula. This will start.

If you are elected, how do you plan to address these issues?

1) Deploy our legislative leaders to pinpoint Hampton economic contribution to the state budget with all state agencies. Information is power. Immediately commence negotiations with state leaders to include the governor, to seek reimbursement for our capital infrastructure commitments that the state exploits for revenue gain yet does not contribute or make reimbursement to the town of Hampton.

2) Form a capital improvements committee to include Hampton engineers, builders, skilled craftsmen and business owners who have expertise in the business of building.

3) Incorporate the Hampton Chamber of Commerce in a more proactive business model when conducting the business of Hampton government.

Explain why you are running and why you feel you are the best candidate.

Perhaps now is the time for a new face and new ideas on the board. Hampton is a world-class town with world-class citizens, employees, businesses and geography. This town generates huge opportunity for the state of New Hampshire that yields a Granite State exceptionalism funded in large part on Hampton shoulders. Now is the time for contract ratifications with our employees, coherent dialogue with the state, consideration for our taxpayers and business community and better communication about our achievements and challenges. Leadership is about preparing for success. This election is important. The paradigm has shifted. Our leadership can do better and we will.

Age: 39

Occupation: Self-employed

Education: 1990 graduate, Winnacunnet High School

Public service/public office experience: Hampton Budget Committee 2011-12; chairman, Hampton Commission 375, volunteer coach

What are the three most important issues in your race?

Proper use of the Capital Improvements Plan, keeping the Board of Selectmen at the same ethical standard as is expected of all town employees, and progression, not regression for Hampton.

If you are elected, how do you plan to address these issues?

With strong planning and follow through in working with the Town Manager to achieve goals while keeping the best interests of Hampton and its residents a top priority.

Explain why you are running and why you feel you are the best candidate.

As a lifelong resident of the town of Hampton, I have a personal passion for this community and want to be a part of its resolution through the voice of the residents. I have a real sense of community, a fresh and positive innovative view and have some great ideas from which the residents and the town should benefit.

Age: 60

Occupation: Retired, formerly President- Meggitt USA

Education: Ohio University, 1973, Bachelor of General Studies

Public service/public office experience: Selectman 2005-2008; state representative- 2006-2008; currently president of the Hampton Historical Society, on Board of Trustees since 2000; currently treasurer and board member of Experience Hampton, Inc.; past president of the Hampton Rotary Club; past president of the James House Association.

What are the three most important issues in your race?

We need less controversy and more cooperation on the issues facing the town. No one has all the right answers, it take meaningful dialogue to create solutions.

I would hope that the voters pass the bonds relating to the fire stations and the Church Street pump station along with the employee contracts that are on this year’s warrant so that we can work on planning and implementing continued improvements and repairs to the town’s streets, sewers and drains.I would support the renewal of the contract for the town manager.

We need to make sure that our businesses and business owners have a voice in the future of the town and that we always work toward one community, town and beach.

Lastly, I support a change in our town form of government. I believe a change to a Town Council could increase efficiency and may even improve participation by residents in the decisions facing the town.

If you are elected, how do you plan to address these issues?

Dialogue is the result of both speaking and listening. Listening is the harder of the two. Controlling controversy means staying away from personalities and sticking to the facts. I believe I am a good listener and that I can deal with, and calm controversy.

The town needs to highlight the planning it already does by focusing more public attention on it. The CIP (Capital Improvement Plan) is an active tool, but the public needs to be made more aware of the plan and have more input into its creation. Planning also involves our ability and willingness to pay for the changes and improvements suggested by the plan in a deliberate fashion. In most cases we can deal with the costs of improvements over time by capital reserve funds or bonding. Too often we defer decisions to the point of creating crisis and thus add to the final costs and bunching necessary projects into the same year.

As to the town manager- if elected, in the first month I will move to renew his contract for a mutually agreeable term. I hope that three votes will exist to make that motion pass.

The form of Town government is certainly controversial. I would propose a series of public meetings to get a better sense of the pros and cons of a change and if merited a warrant article in 2013 or 2014 to move the issue forward. It is clear that the deliberative session is not working.

Explain why you are running and why you feel you are the best candidate.

I was shocked by the current Board of Selectmen decision to not renew the manager’s contract. I have also been confused by the return of the discussion on trash collection. Having made decisions on trash and recycling collection, I would have preferred a period of “settling in” before an attempt was made to change the system. I am also concerned that members of the board may be micromanaging our department heads. I think the selectmen should act as a Board of Directors, setting policies and reviewing results, not attempting to become “experts” in areas where the expertise is already employed.Who the best two candidates are is down to the voters. I can merely stand on how I have approached the job in the past. I would hope that we can increase town resident awareness and participation in town activities and its government.

Age: none given

Occupation: State of New Hampshire licensed property and casualty insurance producer, Brownell Insurance Center, Hampton

Education: Bachelor of Arts in English and history

Public service/public office experience: three-term selectman, (served eight of the nine years as selectman representative to the Budget Committee; seven-term member at large of Hampton Municipal Budget Committee (currently vice chairman), elected to a term on each of two formal Charter Commissions; second woman elected as selectman in Hampton; first woman to chair Budget Committee and Board of Selectmen; successfully led taxpayer Class Action suit in 1988 before the Board of Tax and Land Appeals against the BOS for the illegal 1987 tax warrant.

What are the three most important issues in your race?

1) I hope to encourage the Board of Selectmen to return to the intent of the Municipal Budget Act, with each tax year self-contained, releasing as much surplus money as possible at the end of each year to help reduce the tax rate — no more “squirreling” resources and regurgitating them into warrant articles the next year.

2) I hope, with the voters’ support of Article 36, to return to using outside counsel to handle the town’s legal needs. There are plenty of attorneys competent in their fields to serve as advisers. We can save the taxpayers $200,000 per year in salaries and benefits by going out of the legal business at the Town Office. It is much easier to keep track of time spent and what it is spent on if we use specialized counsel as needed rather than general in-house attorneys. We need to hire a negotiator for collective bargaining , and never allow a selectman to participate directly in the negotiating process. Hiring outside counsel means more efficiency, less inclination to file lawsuits and less lobbying in Concord.

3. If our local government under SB2 is to succeed, selectmen must focus on presenting shorter and more user-friendly warrants. No more pages and pages of ordinances, unintelligible wording of articles and day-long deliberative sessions. The warrant must include only what is absolutely necessary for public decision, in a form the average voter can understand. We must bring participatory government back to the public. The large number of selectmen’s flawed articles this year is unprecedented, and the deliberative session did allow them to correct by amendment before a very sparse audience.

If you are elected, how do you plan to address these issues?

All issues need to be addressed in the context of the board as a whole. This is why it is critical to elect independent selectmen who will represent the public interest and not “go along to get along” as if they suddenly belong to an exclusive club. A board is only as good as the sum of its parts. To watch a sitting board enable inappropriate behavior on the part of one selectman (intimidating the manager by seeking his job while still his employer) by carrying on as if nothing has happened should give voters cause for serious concern. And the excessive number of nonpublic sessions, which may or may not have legally been entered into, is also open to question. I support adhering to the letter of the law when it comes to out of the public eye deliberations.

Explain why you are running and why you feel you are the best candidate.

I have a wealth of experience from all of my years of hard work actively serving the public interest — working, not just showing up and warming the chair. I have tremendous respect for the employees who keep this community safe and daily enhance our standard of living and want to keep them well-trained, well-equipped, adequately compensated and productive. My positions are clearly set out, and clearly presented. I am dedicated to working within the law for the taxpayers and voters of Hampton, and I have no aspirations whatever to become the next town manager.

Age: 73

Occupation: Quality control/product assurance management (retired)

Education: Bachelor of Science, Lowell Technological Institute 1963; M.B.A. Northeastern University 1971; University of Hartford, Ward School of Electronics 1958.

Public service /public office experience: Hampton selectman 2009-present.

What are the three most important issues in your race?

A) To maintain firm control of the property taxes and to eliminate spikes and surges as well as to continue to assure financial stability for all the aspects of town government.

B) Increase the efforts to develop a healthy working business relationship with the state of New Hampshire, the Hampton Beach Commission, the Village district and the town of Hampton for the continued development of Hampton Beach.

C) Continue the momentum of the collective bargaining efforts and work to ensure that employee relationships and morale are optimized throughout the town.

If you are elected, how do you plan to address these issues?

A) I have a proposal on the table to improve the budgeting process so that all who are involved are on the same page! This includes the originator of the budget and the subsequent reviewers that consist of town management, selectmen and the Budget Committee. If all have the same data, it should significantly reduce the differences of opinion that arises on the budget that has caused adversity between the government bodies. The Board of Selectmen has indicated that this will be taken up after the elections.I have establish standard formats for the quarterly department head reports, including the solicitation of identified opportunities for cost reductions. These opportunities would then be part of their goals and objectives and then be tracked throughout the year. I have made a written recommendation on this issue, and again, it will be discussed after the elections.

I would like to continue to introduce lean thinking and continuous improvement initiatives into municipal government. Maintaining the way things are because it’s comfortable and the way we have always done them, needs to be discouraged! We need fresh thoughts and minds willing to discuss what may be perceived as uncomfortable subjects by some (which have led to passionate disagreements) if we are to move forward. Change should be embraced if we are to accomplish the main goal of supplying cost effective quality services! All of this needs to be transparent and vetted with the public.The Board of Selectmen needs to be directly involved where it is required and where the tax payer interests need strong representation. We need to continue to review current policies and procedures for adequacy; we need to become goal and performance driven. Everybody should have them and they should be measurable. We need to understand our costs and determine what makes them up to see if we have opportunities for reduction. We need to look at how we are organized to see if synergy is possible. We need to definitely think about regionalization opportunities that we may have. In other words push the envelope!

We need to improve the planning and the capital improvement process. Sound management must start with good planning. We must assure that new projects are well planned out and vetted thoroughly before actions are committed.

I pledge to be a prime mover in the above initiatives, as I believe in them, and the resulting benefits that are derived from their successful implementation.

B) Hampton Beach is a major asset to the town and we need to continue to develop and nurture it. We need sidewalks on the west side of Ocean Boulevard, infrastructure on the streets west of Ashworth Avenue, parking resolutions for the thousands that visit us, improved drainage and lighting, crosswalks and lights where deemed necessary and more. We need to assure the continued development of this valuable asset we have in our town in accordance with the master plan that has been devised.In order to accomplish all that is needed, it is going to take money. Federal and state funding, as well as other sources of funding, will need to be pursued. We need a partnership with all (mentioned above) to make it happen. I am open to honest discussions with all our partners and am positive that with the correct setting and positive approach, and with the taxpayers interest properly represented, that differences can be worked out. After all, reasonable and moderate people should be able to strike accords. I pledge to be active in this process.

C) We have worked very hard in 2010 and 2011 in the collective bargaining process. The ground has been plowed and the town and the unions fully understand one another. We now have reached agreement on five contracts and were very close on the last one, which we have hopes on closing on this year. This process now has a foundation for continued success, which is healthy for the town and all its employees. Success in this endeavor recognizes the employee’s quality of life and lifts the morale of all. It has been shown in industry that a workforce with good morale is more productive, experiences less absenteeism and relationships are less tense. I pledge my continued support to the success of this process.

Explain why you are running and why you feel you are the best candidate.

We have truly accomplished much progress over the last three years and we have the financial metrics to substantiate that point but the job is not finished. It’s a journey, it’s a process and there is no destination! It never ends! I feel that with another three years we will have the roots of the efforts further established and progress will be even more evident. It takes the right people to make this happen. It takes a blend of the right education and solid time tested work experience!

I am a very experienced manager, and I feel that I know the way and what it takes and I will not be diverted from the mission. Working with the town manager and the Board of Selectmen, my skills and abilities will lend strength to the team.

Simply put, I have the management /administrative and engineering experience that comes from being time tested and offer that to the Hampton residents.

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