By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
LACONIA – Citizens of all 10 towns in Belknap County and the six wards in Laconia have a new voter’s guide listed for the GOP Primary Sept. 13 posted by a new organization looking to remove “extremists” from office who they contend led to the crisis at Gunstock.
There are 13 races. A primary focus of the group is to unseat Free Stater state Rep. Mike Sylvia, R-Belmont, chair of the Belknap County Delegation, and state Rep. Norm Silber, R-Gilford, but others are also in their crosshairs.
In fact, none of the incumbents who were no-shows at an emergency meeting on Gunstock on Aug. 1 are endorsed by the group.
“In the case of Gunstock, Mike Sylvia and Norm Silber are responsible for the turmoil that caused appalling amounts of taxpayer-funded legal bills for the Gunstock Area Commission and Delegation. Small government is one thing; irresponsible governing is another,” said Al Posnack, chair of the PAC.
Sylvia responded: “The Marxist group calling itself Citizens for Belknap is irrelevant to the actual citizens of Belknap County. As always they distort the language to deceive the public. The people of Belmont are not buying any their falsehoods.”
Belknap County residents can go to the front page of the Citizens for Belknap website at 5 p.m. Monday to see the recommendations. They can also see it http://www.CitizensforBelknap.org/votersguide.
All 18 seats in the House from Belknap County are currently held by Republicans, and some of them consider themselves libertarians and members of the Free State movement.
No-show legislators were criticized for their lack of leadership by Gov. Chris Sununu, a fellow Republican, who urged citizens to vote them out of office.
State Rep. Harry Bean, R-Gilford, an incumbent who has supported Sylvia’s and Silber’s efforts in the past, was endorsed by the group, however.
It said he showed leadership in calling for the emergency meeting at Gunstock.
Posnack said the voter’s guide will help voter’s wishing to “avoid electing Free State and extremist candidates in the GOP primary.”
He called that “a first step to returning to reasonable county government this November 8th,” when the general election will be held.
“The Primary version of the Voter’s Guide only shows our recommendations for the Republican primary races for Belknap County offices, including the state Reps, who comprise the Belknap County Delegation and have control of the County budget,” he said. “We haven’t included Democrat or independent candidates because there are no contested races for them in the Primary. We’ll add those for the General Election version,” Posnack said.
The town-by-town guide lists recommendations for State House, County Commission, County Sheriff, and Registrar of Probate.
“With the exception of the sheriff’s race, we were mostly concerned with identifying Free State or other extreme candidates,” Posnack said.
Posnack said that the bipartisan steering committee had multiple meetings to discuss positions on candidates, and most decisions were made on their records and positions on county issues.
“The disgraceful behavior of the majority of Belknap County state Representatives toward Gunstock was definitely a factor, but some of those same bad actors have gutted the nursing home and public safety budgets, and reduced or stopped providing county support to outside elder care and mental health services as well,” said Posnack.
Posnack reminded unaffiliated or independent voters that New Hampshire election law allows them to take either a Republican or Democratic ballot during the primary.
He encouraged them to use the group’s voter’s guide and take a Republican ballot, then switch back to Unaffiliated after casting a ballot.
“Unaffiliated voters will play a huge role in the direction of the Belknap County government,” he said.
