LEBANON — City residents will be asked in November to choose between four Democrats and two Republicans hoping to represent Lebanon in the New Hampshire House next year.
Democratic state Reps. George Sykes, Susan Almy, Richard Abel and Laurel Stavis are seeking re-election to Grafton District 13, which is made up of four seats representing all of Lebanon’s three wards.
They’re being challenged by Republicans Michael Balog and Joshua Flanders. The top four vote-getters will win seats.
Almy, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, says there are many “big issues” that will require attention next year.
“And they all have to do with money,” she said.
Almy, a former agricultural researcher who specialized in developing countries in Africa, predicts that state revenue will drop between 5% and 6% as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, “if we’re not in too much trouble.”
“That’s a lot of money. It’s almost as much as during the Great Recession,” she said, adding the total fallout won’t likely be known until after budget-writing begins.
On top of that, a legislative commission is currently looking into educating funding and will likely recommend a new formula that will affect budget negotiations, Almy said.
The House, she said, will be trying to balance all of those issues and “figure out if there’s a way that we can increase revenues.”
“We have to be careful not to hurt the businesses in New Hampshire,” she said.
Almy, who presides over her homeowners’ association, has spent part of her 12 terms in the House advocating for condominium owners. She’s also a proponent of a road usage fee, which would charge car owners based on the fuel economy of their vehicle. Supporters say the additional cost is necessary because of decreasing gas tax revenue caused by higher fuel standards.
Sykes, a retired Lebanon deputy fire chief, says he’s running for a fifth term in the House to complete work on bills that fell by the wayside earlier this year.
The Legislature suspended its session in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic and, when lawmakers returned to work in June, they took up fewer bills.
“Frankly, I haven’t finished all the work that I’ve been trying to accomplish while in Concord,” said Sykes, who is also a member of the Lebanon City Council. “There are some issues that are really important to me that are still on the table and I’m going to make sure that those issues come forward again as we move into next year.”
Sykes, 69, said he’s committed to expanding the number of electric vehicle charging stations in the state, including bringing more to Lebanon. He currently sits on the state’s Electric Vehicle Charging Station Infrastructures Commission.
“It’s sort of like the train stations of another era,” he said. “If you have one, people will come and they’ll stop. And if you don’t, they’ll just continue on by.”
Sykes, who chairs the House Transportation Committee, was the prime sponsor of a bill that would have allowed New Hampshire residents without a Social Security card, including undocumented immigrants, to apply for a state driver’s license. The legislation passed the Democratically-controlled House but failed in the Senate.
Stavis, a former Dartmouth College administrator, said she’s also running to continue working on efforts that stalled during the coronavirus pandemic.
Her top priority is cleanup of the Westboro Rail Yard, a historic rail depot in West Lebanon that’s fallen into disrepair.
The state budget sets aside $1.87 million for the Department of Transportation to demolish “structures on state-owned property,” including the rail yard’s historic bunkhouse, roundhouse, sandhouse and chimney. However, the project has been put on hold because of hits to state revenue.
“Job one for me is trying to figure out how to get those funds released so that we can proceed with revitalizing downtown West Lebanon,” said Stavis, who also serves on the Lebanon Planning Board and is chairwoman of the Listen Community Services board of trustees.
Stavis, 70, also hopes to lessen partisanship at the Statehouse.
“The most important thing for me is trying to figure out how we can establish a way of speaking across to the aisle to one another that’s conducive for the people of New Hampshire,” she said. “The more we can communicate the better off voters will be.”
During the last session, she’s sponsored two bills — one changing how Grafton County commissioners are elected and another that would have allowed people to change the sex designation on their birth certificate. Both were unsuccessful.
Abel, a former book publisher and Franklin Pierce University professor, is running for a fourth term to continue advocating for greater health insurance protections.
He sits on the House Committee on Commerce and Consumer Affairs, which regulates the insurance industry and may play a large role in crafting the state’s response to challenges to the Affordable Care Act.
The Supreme Court in November will take up arguments about the sweeping 2010 law known as Obamacare and, officials worry, low-income Granite Staters would suffer if it is defeated.
“There will be lots of work still to be done to ensure that people’s insurance stays in place,” he said.
Abel, 70, said he also hopes to continue working to craft a paid family leave plan, a key Democratic policy proposal that is reviewed by his committee. “I think we have a really good plan,” he said. “It would be a way to help keep young working families in the state.”
In the last session, Abel sponsored legislation that would have allocated New Hampshire’s Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote.
He also among a group of lawmakers who sought to repeal a New Hampshire law shielding gun makers and sellers from civil lawsuits.
‘It just doesn’t make sense to me why manufacturers of other products are still liable if something happens with one of their products,” Abel said.
All of the Democratic contenders say they support efforts to raise New Hampshire’s minimum wage up from the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.
They’re also in favor of a paid family leave plan that would provide workers up to 12 weeks off to take care of sick family members or themselves following the birth or adoption of a child and would be funded through a mandatory deduction from workers’ paychecks. The plan, put forward by Democrats, was vetoed twice by Gov. Chris Sununu.
And the Lebanon lawmakers say they support a so-called “red flag” that would have allowed a family member or housemate to seek an order to temporarily get firearms out of the possession of someone who poses a risk to others or themselves.
Flanders, a city native and Lebanon High School graduate, said he’s running to help “bridge the current divide in politics.”
“There’s too much Democrat versus Republican and people lose sight of what really matters,” he said. “In the end, we’re all human beings.”
While Flanders is running as a Republican, he says he’s not afraid to buck his own party on key issues, such as marijuana legalization. Retail sale of the drug, he said, could help boost state coffers.
“It would be an enormous income source at the state level,” Flanders said while comparing the possible boon from marijuana to the roughly $700 million in sales at the state liquor stores.
Flanders, 31, supports school choice and voucher programs as well as additional funding for treatment programs to combat the opined epidemic.
Flanders said he’s undecided about the red flag law vetoed by Sununu this year, saying “it could be a great law” if there were greater protections for gun owners.
He is against raising the minimum wage, saying it could hurt small businesses at a time many are already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.
And while he supports a paid family medical leave program, Flanders favors one put forward last year by Sununu and Gov. Phil Scott. That program, which was roundly rejected by Democrats in both states, would create a tax credit to entice businesses to join voluntarily.
Balog, a retired Connecticut police officer, said he’s entering the race to “offer the community another choice besides the usual people they see on the ballot.”
He says he’s focused on conservative principals, such as increasing local control on school matters and opposing Common Core education standards, a state sales or income tax and funding for Planned Parenthood.
“It’s an extra burden on already overburdened citizens,” he said of the possibility of a broad-based tax.
The 69-year-old Balog, who ran for the House in 2016 and 2018 and has also run unsuccessfully for City Council, said he’s also against increasing the minimum wage, saying it could hurt small mom and pop businesses. The minimum wage, he said, is a “beginners wage” that’s supposed to be a starting point for new workers.
He said employers should offer insurance programs that offer employees time off for emergencies and to take care of family members but the state shouldn’t be responsible for running a paid family leave program.
“I don’t think it’s fair to everybody to create another level of bureaucracy that they have to get through,” he said.
Balog also opposed red flag laws, saying he fears that anonymous tips could result in some people having their firearms unjustly taken away.
“You need due process to guarantee your rights as a citizen from being taken advantage of from an overburdensome government,” he said.
The four-seat Grafton District 13 is considered a Democratic stronghold, with the last Republicans elected to represent Lebanon taking office in 2002. One of the two, former Mayor Ralph Akins, is now a Democrat.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.