WE MAYORS — along with all our Granite State counterparts Jim Bouley, Bob Carrier, Jim Donchess, Paul Grenier, George Hansel, Dana Hilliard, Andrew Hosmer, Charlene Lovett and Olivia Zink — represent communities across the state, from Nashua to Berlin, from Portsmouth to Keene.
Our cities are large and small, from fewer than 9,000 residents to more than 112,000. We’re Republicans, Democrats and independents. We’re full-time mayors, part-time mayors; some elected and others appointed. Some of us have been in this role for years, some for just a few months.
But at the end of the day, we are all responsible for the health and well being of our communities, and when the pandemic hit all eyes turned to us.
Prior to April 2020, New Hampshire’s 13 mayors barely knew each other. Mayors in the same region of the state might have worked together occasionally, but on the whole we were pretty much on our own.
That has changed. Our collaboration began in response to COVID-19, as a way for Gov. Chris Sununu to address all of us at once, answer questions and give updates on pandemic responses at the state level. It quickly became clear that we all had very similar questions and needs, and that everything that was happening in Concord and Keene was also happening in Claremont and Laconia.
After a few months, the state ended these briefings, but we, the mayors, decided to keep them on our calendars. The pandemic was uncharted territory for all of us, so rather than trying to figure out how to forge ahead alone, we instead came together.
As a result, we’ve been able to collectively advocate and implement positive change statewide. Not only were we able to collaborate on and discuss our COVID-19 responses, but we’ve made progress on long-standing issues that impact every single one of our communities. While politicians in Washington and Concord struggle to find common ground, we’ve been able to advocate for issues that resonate with everyone, not just one side of the aisle or the other.
Each of our cities had been attempting to address homelessness and housing in a vacuum, and early on we realized that this is one of the major issues facing each and every one of our communities. So, we wrote a letter to the governor asking for a cohesive and targeted response to homelessness, and for municipalities to have a seat at the table when funding is allocated.
And where in the past many of our singular cries for help were ignored, our collective voice had a lot of power. Because of our advocacy, the state established a Council on Housing Stability and promised to update the statewide plan to address homelessness for the first time in 15 years. The state’s plan was recently released and we look forward to collaborating with them to address this complex issue.
But it wasn’t just homelessness. As the legislative session started, we saw politicians in the State House introducing bills that would raise your property taxes, create unnecessary regulations on local municipalities, and put our public schools at risk.
So we got to work and New Hampshire mayors took a larger role in the legislative session and the state budget than ever before. Across party lines, we fought for an end to the downshifting of costs on to local property taxpayers, for our fair share of the Rooms and Meals Tax, for updates to our state building codes, and more.
Some battles we won, some we didn’t, but we know that our work isn’t done.
Together, our voices are strong. We are making a difference and fighting for our communities more effectively than ever before. Not as Democrats, Republicans or independents, but as mayors who care deeply about the people that we represent.
Rick Becksted is mayor of Portsmouth, Tim McNamara is mayor of Lebanon and Joyce Craig is mayor of Manchester.
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