Banfield: Burns Won't Abandon Constituents

By Ann Marie Banfield

After all of the slick fliers and campaign ads we’ve been bombarded with lately, I found one particularly interesting and thought, maybe readers might not catch the attempt to mislead voters on Nov. 4.

I’m talking about the latest flier from Executive Councilor Chris Pappas. Pappas is serving in the towns of: towns of Allenstown, Auburn, Barrington, Bedford, Bow, Candia, Chichester, Deerfield, Epsom, Goffstown, Hooksett, Lee, Londonderry, Loudon, Northwood, Nottingham, Pembroke, and Pittsfield, and the city of Manchester.

This position is important because the Executive Councilors oversee the Governor.

In the Pappas ad it says: “I want to keep politics out of the Council chamber, especially when it comes to critical decisions like expanding access to health care coverage.” - Chris Pappas
That’s a great line to add to a campaign flier, it’s just too bad he doesn’t follow his own advice.

Last year, Gov. Maggie Hassan appointed Bill Duncan to the New Hampshire Board of Education(NH BOE). Duncan had no experience in education other than contributing his political opinions on his blog. His opinions follow the liberal Democrat party line so he’s became quite a political activist for the Democrat party.

That’s all it seems to take in order to qualify for an important position on the Board of Education these days. Some would call this cronyism, however it is important to ensure we have qualified individuals serving on the NH BOE.

We have valuable educators who’ve retired or others who’ve been involved in different forms of education. A homeschooler, for instance, would add perspective that could be valuable. What about Sid Glassner who is a regular contributor on the Girard at Large Radio show? Glassner has been an educator for more than half a century and has experience in public education. Sadly, those types of individuals were passed over in order to grant a political pay-off to a political activist.

Duncan was also the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the state of New Hampshire. He wanted to shut down the scholarship program that grants assistance to low income families who need tuition assistance for their children.

One of Duncan’s biggest fights has been to support the Common Core Standards (CCSS) in New Hampshire. Since Hassan still supports the dumbed down academic standards for our public schools, she must have wanted someone on the Board who would rubber stamp the rules and regulations that will follow the CCSS as they are being implemented in the public schools.

Pappas knew all of this as an Executive Councilor and still voted for Duncan’s appointment to the Board.

I sat in on this vote and listened to the board members discuss that they had never received so many calls and e-mails before from their constituents. The vast majority of those who contacted the Councilors opposed the Duncan appointment.

Two of those Executive Councilors, Joe Kenney and Chris Sununu voted with their constituents and opposed the appointment. Three of the Executive Councilors, Chris Pappas, Colin Van Ostern and Deb Pignatelli ignored their constituents and supported the appointment.

What does this tell us? Pappas did play politics where our children are concerned.
If Pappas is willing to acknowledge that politics should be kept out of the Council chamber but is still willing to deceive voters and play politics with our kids, he’s not the best person to represent us on the Executive Council.

For those reasons, I would encourage voters to support Bob Burns. I believe Bob will listen to voters and not be a rubber stamp for the governor when it comes to important issues like public education.

Ann Marie Banfield lives in Bedford.