NOTTINGHAM DEMOCRATS’ RESPONSE TO THE RECENT
“GOP COMMITTEE” MAILING TO NOTTINGHAM RESIDENTS
*** Your vote on March 28 matters. See this link for candidates we support and recommendations on warrant articles: VOTER GUIDE
Several days ago the "Nottingham NH GOP Committee" sent a mailing to Republicans and Undeclared voters in Nottingham. It attacked town officials and candidates for town office, and contained much false or misleading information.
The mailing did not comply with state law because it did not have the name and contact information for an individual as required. They claim to be all about "transparency", so why won't they put a name to their words?
It was clearly the work of the "free state" faction in town - it features a quote from Alan Bershtein praising Tom Butkiewicz. Bershtein was our state rep and voted to secede from the U.S. Butkiewicz has been behind the tax caps, the push to negotiate teachers salaries in public, and was almost removed by the police from the town & school deliberative sessions for defying the moderator. The Budget Committee will be controlled by this clearly well organized free state faction if Butkiewicz, Bershtein, Tweed, Morrison, and Mike Kelley vote as a block and bring along a couple others. And note that Bershtein and Tweed have been listed on the Free State web site as volunteers (Tweed’s name was recently removed).
According to the mailing, our elected officials "have no respect for you or your hard-earned Money". The caps on "Money" says it all - their focus is entirely on cutting budgets, and in the long term eliminating funding for areas like the library, which they proposed should be funded thru donations. They're also working to discredit the school with unwarranted attacks on teacher contract negotiations and book banning.
Do they respect our hard-earned money? Brent Tweed, a free state volunteer, is running for Budget Committee - after costing the town ~$100k by challenging a town ordinance that limited dumping of hazardous waste. One would think that we all would be against polluting our town.
Our elected officials do their best to balance the needs of the town and the school with the burden on the taxpayers. Our real problem is mandates from the state without any financial support, so we are forced to pay. Most recently, the vouchers for private school, masquerading as "parental choice" will take even more dollars away from our school and our children.
They claim that the town's 4% tax cap "saved us from a 12% tax increase". But they offer no proof that this is true.
They state that a "small group of tax-and-spend advocates" changed the school tax cap at the deliberative session. It was a democratic vote of the citizens who chose to attend the meeting. Apparently supporters of the cap decided not to attend. And it was false to list Kathy Brosnan as a member of that "small group" - she did not vote on the amendment.
They claim "hand-picked" people have filled vacant positions. In the case of the budget committee, a vacancy was filled by a vote of the committee from volunteers who applied. No evidence that the committee members chose the applicants.
They falsely claim that the percent of residents below the poverty line has "more than doubled" in the past few years. In fact, from 2010 to 2020, the poverty rate in Nottingham went up only 0.3% from 4.9% to 5.2% (from NH Employment Security), far from doubling. What data source are they using?
They claim the "Selectboard has done nothing" about issues with the highway dept. and transfer station. The Board may have taken action in non-public since these are personnel issues, so we don't know that they have "done nothing". More than likely, it's not apathy by the Selectboard, but that the town is having issues finding people to hire, just like other employers
On our re-scheduled election day, March 28, we have a chance to oppose this agenda. Please vote for:
Select Board: Tim Dabrieo, Steve Welch
Budget Committee – 3 Years: Charlotte Fyfe, Owen Friend-Gray, Robert Kelly
Budget Committee – 1 Year: Hal Rafter – WRITE-IN
School Board: Kathryne Brosnan, Lisa Heath