Chiasson Hopes Years Of Experience Will Elect Her To City Council

CONCORD, NH — It was chilly morning for June on Saturday so Edith Chiasson, a West End resident hoping to win the special election for the Ward 4 Concord City Council seat, was bundled up. Outside on her porch, with a bit of sprinkles in the air, Chiasson said she was running, primarily, to fulfill a promise to her neighbors to become involved in the future after there were issues with parking fees on Essex Street last year. With the Franklin Pierce UNH School of Law nearby and countless parking and traffic issues that go back many decades, parking permits were issued for the street – one of handful of streets in the city with permitted parking.

Residents thought things were going pretty well with the permitting process – until an increase to the fees was slipped into larger parking budget that hoped to fill a deficit and come up with badly needed money to repair the city’s downtown garages … quite a ways away from Essex Street.

“It was a surprise to a lot of us, because we missed the public hearings, that we were going to have a significant increase in fees for parking,” she noted.

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Chiasson got her neighbors together, created a petition, and made a change to the plan. After doing that, she was asked by some of her neighbors to consider running for city council in the future. Chiasson said she would because she and others were disappointed with the lack of representation on the issue.

“We are largely working people who’ve raised our families and we vote for someone to represent us,” she said. “And we depend on that.”

Chiasson said the experience made her understand how instrumental she could be by protecting herself and her neighbors from bad public policy.

After raising her children and now, living next door to her grandchildren, in the same place for nearly three decades, Chiasson wanted to preserve the small town feel that brought her to Concord in the first place while ensuring that the city had the opportunity to grow, as well. The city, she noted, was in the middle of the hustle and bustle of places like Manchester and the smaller communities that surround Concord.

Chiasson recently completed an MPA at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy. She has more than eight years of public service with the state of New Hampshire and more than 30 years of experience in financial services, customer service, sales, and operations. Chiasson also has more than a decade of volunteer work in the community.

The volunteer and work experience, she added, allows her to work at things “from all angles” instead of having a “narrow focus” on the city’s issues. Looking at the larger picture and working collaborative, especially around infrastructure, road repairs, future development, and the budget, will be important for the next city councilor, she added.

One area of concern was the large number of tax-exempt properties in Concord which ends up passing on a larger burden to taxpayers than in other New Hampshire communities. Combined with the city’s aging population, and exemptions on property taxes, and it will be important to be focused all of the issues the council has to work on, Chiasson said.

“As we think about that, again, who is going to be the voice for balance?,” she asked.

Doing the proper research and ensuring the public has a lot of information will also be a focus to Chiasson if elected. She noted that it was difficult to take a deep drive into the information right now.

“That’s why we need the right person, to take a closer look,” she said, “to scrutinize what’s there. I’m on the outside right now … but, being a representative, I’d have more access to that and more ability to talk that through.”

Concord, she noted, had a really good balance of young and old, students, people opening businesses, and was a great place to live. At the same time, Chiasson wants to be cautious about residents constantly being asked to open their pocketbooks – since their income sources were limited.

Chiasson also looks at the race as the chance to “pay back for all the people who represented my interests, up to this point, and now I have the opportunity to do it, for those who can’t.”

Ward 4 residents go to the polls from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Concord on Bradley Street.