Concord
A few weeks ago, at a Wicwas Lake Grange meeting in her hometown of Meredith, N.H., Forrester’s fellow Grange members jokingly suggested she compete in a local baking contest.
Her blueberry muffins ended up winning at the Grange in Meredith and are headed to the state competition in October.
“I said it as a joke,” fellow Grange member Jeanne Lowrey said with a laugh at a recent picnic hosted by Forrester. “She said, ‘Sure. I would and I will.’ And here she comes with the blueberry muffins.”
To her friends and supporters in the Lakes Region, that is who Forrester is: someone who keeps her word, whether the project at hand is muffins, upgrading the local park or fighting for a balanced budget in Concord.
“She has so many things in the fire, but it doesn’t seem to faze her,” Meredith resident Bob Greemore said. “She’s been very effective on the finance committee, getting the budgets under control.”
Small towns like Meredith are a major focus of Forrester’s campaign for the corner office.
The Republican, whose district includes several Upper Valley towns in Grafton County, said the state’s downshifting of costs and increasing of burdensome regulations for small towns and businesses is what motivated her successful run for state Senate six years ago, and it’s motivating her bid for governor.
As a former town administrator and business development director, she said she’s seen the effects state rules have on small towns that don’t have full-time staffs.
“I really want to see a culture change,” Forrester said. “I think state government needs to serve the communities.”
If elected, Forrester said one of her main priorities would be to improve communication between local government and the state. She already has proposed a 10-county summit to hear from local communities all over.
“I just want government to be more accessible,” she said. “I think what’s missing is communication. I think we could have better relationships if we just start talking to each other.”
Forrester came to New Hampshire by way of Texas and her home state of Michigan. She met her husband, Keith, while they were both working at Exxon Mobil in Texas. He was from Hollis, N.H., so they got married and moved back East.
Forrester said she has always loved the feel of small New Hampshire towns.
“It’s just Americana, that’s what I love,” she said. “It’s the mix of people, all different socioeconomic classes, no airs.”
Spurring business development in local communities has been a pivotal focus of her career as executive director for Main Street Plymouth and Greater Meredith. Forrester also worked as a town administrator in New Durham, N.H., and Tuftonboro, N.H., before she ran for state Senate in 2010.
New Hampshire businessman Alex Ray, who owns the Common Man restaurants, said he was impressed by Forrester’s attention to detail as soon as he met her.
“She really got involved in these things,” Ray said, adding Forrester is “not just another talking head.”
Tim Keefe, the former dean of students at Plymouth State University, also got to know Forrester while she was working on the Main Street program. He said he was struck by Forrester’s love for small communities and tireless work ethic.
Keefe usually doesn’t get involved with politics, but this year, he has a candidate. He’s such a fervent supporter, he wrote a song called I Dream of Jeanie in the Governor’s Chair (set to the tune of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair). Everyone who showed up to the Wicwas Grange picnic serenaded Forrester with the ballad on Sunday.
“I really believe if Jeanie says she’ll do everything in her power to work on something, she’s going to do it,” Keefe said.
Not all of Forrester’s ideas have panned out, however.
Earlier this year, she proposed the state pursue putting a private treatment center on the former Laconia (N.H.) State School property.
Forrester was approached by Ray, who helped start a treatment center in Franklin, N.H., and was interested in the Laconia property.
“I’ve been on that site many, many times and trying to find a good use for it,” Forrester said, adding the state does “need treatment beds; what that number is, I’m not sure.”
But Laconia officials soon made it clear they weren’t pleased with the proposal.
“Most of us would hope it would be put to economic development use,” Laconia Mayor Ed Engler said. “We were surprised by this.”
There has been some talk of the city buying the property, and Engler said some in Laconia want the state school property returned to local hands.
“We would like to get it out of the state’s hands because we’re distrustful,” he said.
Engler said he’s not completely opposed to a treatment center there in the future.
“That door remains open,” he said. “We’re certainly not saying, ‘Never, never, never.’ ”
Ray said the experience showed him Forrester is willing to go against the grain.
“She stood up knowing she would get a little grief, and she did,” he said. “That means that she’s not afraid, she’s not going with the wind.”
Forrester has been outspoken about the opioid epidemic. Long before she became a state senator, she worked at the adolescent treatment and recovery center Odyssey House in Hampton, N.H., as director of administration.
Her time there made an impression on her.
“I got to see firsthand how addiction ruined young lives and how they struggle to come back from that,” she said.
In her campaign for governor, she’s received the most attention for her proposals on fighting the state’s opioid epidemic, including lifetime sentences without parole for drug dealers and exploring the use of the National Guard on the New Hampshire and Massachusetts border, where the flow of drugs is most intense.
Forrester previously said she would consider sending National Guard members to patrol New Hampshire’s northern border with Canada and its southern border with Massachusetts to help bolster police presence.
In an interview on Sunday, she said she would want to speak with local law enforcement to make sure drug enforcement efforts aren’t being duplicated. She’s not, however, dismissing the idea completely.
“Everything should be on the table about how we deal with this problem,” Forrester said.
Forrester has taken some heat for her legislative decisions on the opioid epidemic. She broke with fellow Republican senators to vote against Medicaid expansion earlier this year, though she had previously voted for it.
Treatment experts often tout expanded Medicaid as the most important way to expand access to drug treatment.
But Greemore, the Meredith resident, said Forrester’s initial vote for the federal health plan is the biggest disagreement he’s had with her.
Greemore, a former state representative, didn’t vote for expanded Medicaid because he believes recipients “should be earning their own way.”
Nevertheless, Greemore said there’s room for disagreement. He still proudly backs Forrester in her race for governor. “She tells you what she’s supporting and what she’s not supporting,” he said. “She’s a straight shooter.”