BELLOWS FALLS — Running for a local public office is simple. Especially in our current pandemic. Doing the job is hard. Or it should be, if you are doing it right.
Anyone can run if they live in the community where they wish to be elected. What they need to possess is deep experience with its residents, a sharp mind with vision for the future, and a gift for numbers and budgeting.
Every town and village needs forward motion to renew housing stock, to attract commerce, and to spread the tax burden evenly among all its hardworking citizens.
From this, I know there is still plenty of work to be done in Rockingham. That is why I am running for a seat on the Rockingham Selectboard.
As a Bellows Falls Village Trustee and its current president, I have encouraged the reduction of taxes for over six years now, continuously reviewing the numbers and asking for more and more efficiencies with minimal or no additional expenditures.
I have strongly supported the introduction of new, efficient reduction of materials at our wastewater treatment plant. I think we can go further in the next five years to reduce, recycle, and create more useable product from a once-cost-centered necessity into a profit center.
I have encouraged future growth in the area of transportation with AV testing (the Automated Vehicle Transparency and Engagement for Safe Testing program), to ultimately provide serviceable transport to all Bellows Falls and Rockingham residents.
As a Rockingham planning commissioner, I presented for recommendation the Bellows Falls Park Project, which was adopted by our commission, with initial funding from a planning grant, and it is now ultimately to be completed as the Firemen's Memorial Park for the benefit of all town residents. An idea 40 years from concept to fruition. I have found successful ways of cutting through the red tape in my time on boards.
I love this community and all of its people. I cherish the hardworking culture of its ancestors, who continue to remind us through our historic architecture what this place, by the banks of the massive and powerful Connecticut River, meant to them.
I continue to promote renovation of our buildings through private investments, not public tax dollars. This community must be attractive, affordable, and sustainable for the future of my grandchildren, as well as yours.
I will advocate passionately for this town in the same exact manner I currently do for this village. I am available to listen to any voter's concerns at any time. We are a small community, but we are mighty in our mutual desires for the future and in our abilities to fashion those desires into reality.