Seacoast Restauranter Becomes Third NH Democrat To Run For Governor

NEWMARKET, NH — The owner of a Latin American restaurant on the Seacoast is running for governor, saying he will champion the voice of the working- and middle-class in New Hampshire.

Jonathan Kiper, the owner of Jonny Boston’s International in Newmarket, said he will be a candidate for governor next year as a Democrat while focusing on several issues, including modernizing the state’s government systems, affordable housing, restructuring education funding, and addressing climate change. The single father grew up in Stratham, graduating from Exeter High School more than two decades ago, and then moved overseas to study audio engineering. During that time, he recorded an album and published books. Nearly 10 years ago, he opened Jonny Boston’s International while serving on Newmarket committees, including the town council, ZBA, and energy and environment committees while back in the states.

Kiper said, “For too long,” New Hampshire’s working- and middle classes had been “drowned out by the wealthy elite,” and it was time to elect “representatives who know our problems because they have lived them.”

One proposal was a transformative decade-long plan to overhaul the state’s outdated systems to make government “more responsive and effective for its citizens.” He would create a commission to “update the way state agencies operate.” He said his own small business experience dealing with state government proved the need to be true.

“For instance,” he said, “did you know it’s illegal to open a bar with only 19 seats in New Hampshire? Why? No one at the Liquor Commission knows, yet they enforce that rule and many other rules that seem to be bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake.”

Kiper would also propose a constitutional amendment to pay state representatives a $20,000 salary instead of the $200 plus mileage they receive now. He said this change would ensure “more individuals from diverse socio-economic backgrounds can serve and shape policies” while reducing “the current overrepresentation of the affluent and retired, who make up approximately 75 percent of the present Legislature.”

Affordable housing was another issue Kiper would like to address, including what he called “the dire need” for affordable starter homes for young families and blue-collar workers as well as apartments. Many job sectors — nursing, firefighters, home health aides, and others, do not earn enough to secure current market-rate housing. He suggested working to end exclusionary zoning at the local level, saying it was “simply too complicated and is preventing workforce housing.” Workers, he added, needed places to live. He likened residents who want their communities to remain exactly the same to a puppy — a puppy does not remain a puppy; a town will grow or die.

“It’s just supply and demand as well as demographics,” he said.

Kiper said promoting these housing initiatives would bolster New Hampshire’s workforce and address inflation.

School funding also had to be reformed, with Kiper suggesting wealthier towns benefited from “lower taxes” while less affluent communities “shoulder the weight of higher property taxes.” He said communities, when eyeing housing development, also use the cost of children as a deterrent, which exacerbated the problem of housing and taxes. When asked if he supported the donor-receiver town concept, Kiper said the funding part might be resolved before the November election since the education funding ruling by the court. He said one way to make up the half a billion shortfall would be to raise current taxes — liquor, rooms and meals, and business profits and business enterprise, proportionally, calling it “the least controversial way to do it, assuming the Legislature accepts that we have to do it and don’t try and kick the can down the road.” Kiper did not respond to specific data showing, for example, that many affluent homeowners in places like Portsmouth pay more in actual property taxes than cities like Concord, even though the rates were lower due to housing assessments and much higher values.

At the same time, Kiper suggested restructuring rooms and meals, “which functions as a sales tax,” and business profits and business enterprise taxes, which are “forms of income tax.” In some communities, he presumed drops in property taxes would lead to lower property taxes, but admitted, in other communities, school budgets could be increased, or funds could be used for infrastructure at the local level like water and sewer upgrades.

Kiper also said officials needed to take a long-term approach when eyeing current demographics since New Hampshire had one of the second-oldest populations in the nation.

“New Hampshire deserves a roadmap that spans not just the next decade but the next century and millennium,” Kiper said. “Together, we can craft a legacy of resilience, inclusivity, and prosperity for generations to come.”

Kiper offered extensive policy positions on his website, while also calling for “a world where we tax trash, pollution, and greed.”

Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig and District 2 Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington of Concord are also running to be the Democrat’s nominee, while former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and former Senate President Chuck Morse are running for the Republican nomination.

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