Five vying to represent Franklin, Northfield on GOP ticket

FRANKLIN — With two seats available in Merrimack District 3, and just one in Merrimack District 25, five Republican candidates for state representative — Ernesto Gonzalez, Werner Horn and Bryan Morse of District 3, and Brandon Stevens and James Thibault of 25 — made their case to constituents at a forum hosted by the Merrimack County Republican Committee at Peabody Place on Aug. 28.

Merrimack District 3 includes the city of Franklin, and Merrimack 25 represents both Franklin and Northfield.

MCRC Chair Scott Maltzie moderated the forum before opening it up to audience questions. Maltzie emphasized the importance of this upcoming Primary Election.

“Obviously, when President [Joe] Biden decided not to run for reelection, the election profile changed a little bit, so we certainly would expect some greater turnout, perhaps on the Democrat side, and certainly the Republicans have been kind of highly motivated for a little while now. So it’s going to be a different election than it would have been a few months ago,” he said.

“The Primary Election is where you get to choose who are the people that are going to be running for you in November. And if you choose poorly in September, then you live with what you have in November.”

Some candidates pointed to the national election as an example of how the country, including Franklin and Northfield, is going in the wrong direction politically. Gonzalez, who is originally from Cuba, moved to the states in 1968 with his parents to escape communism. They came legally, through a vetting system of sponsorship. He says he sees the United States moving toward the ideologies he set out to escape.

“One of my major concerns is that this country is rapidly moving towards totalitarian style, Marxism,” Gonzalez said. “We just have this fancy word for it, called progressivism, but it's really the same thing.”

The forum moved quickly into policy. Candidates got 1.5 minutes to answer each question, and education was front of mind.

Stevens advocated for parents’ choice in where to send a kid to school, especially due to inadequate education in the local public schools.

“Parents choose the best place that your child can be educated, whether you want that to be a government school, or if you want that to be a charter school or private school or a co-op or even home school,” he said. "And the best way to give people that option is to expand the EFA program.”

Thibault, 18, recently graduated from Winnisquam Regional High School, and is now in his first year at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, studying politics. In 2021, his family lost their home due to rising property tax, and his parents have struggled to get the education best needed for his sisters with special needs. Many of his policies stem from his experience in public schools, seeing problems firsthand. He focused on teachers’ salaries and would work to raise them in the state. He also criticized the disparity between the salaries of teachers and administrators.

“The turnover rate at Winnisquam for the past four years or more has been over 50%, so we need to examine that,” Thibault said. "Because these administrators should not be getting that much money for how, frankly, little work they do compared to what the teachers do, day in and day out.”

Horn, who served as a representative for Merrimack 3 from 2014 to 2020, responded to a question from Delaney Carrier, the Franklin School Board chair, as to whether the Franklin School District can compete with a town with higher property values like Rye or Exeter, who can invest more money into each child in the school district. Horn seemed to be an advocate for equity versus equality in terms of providing an adequate education for any student in New Hampshire, including Franklin.

“The state kicks in money, and then the municipalities kick in money. In that dynamic, you’ll never get equality because there are poor communities, and there are rich communities, and equality is never going to happen. Equity is achievable from a state. Equity says that when we have a constitutional right to an adequate education, we can establish what an adequate education looks like,” Horn said. “We need to make sure that we are giving all of New Hampshire’s kids the same base shot.”

Maltzie asked the candidates about the opioid crisis and what each candidate would do curb the issue locally.

All candidates agreed increased awareness of addiction, as well as increased support for mental health services and facilities, is a way to get people proper support. Morse spoke to why mental health treatment is important.

“I would say mental health treatment, because along with addiction, it's very difficult to get. I have family who have struggled with addiction, specifically heroin and fentanyl, for years, very heavily,” he said. “Family support was able to help them get pulled out, and they've been clean now for a really long time. So definitely see more state funding to go to open up more facilities.”

Franklin business owner Miriam Kovacs asked what the candidates would do about large pharmaceutical companies bringing drugs into local communities.

“You talk about mental health. You talk about needing resources, but you're not talking about how it's not just poor people that are affected by opioids. It's anyone really,” she said. “And how are we holding the actual source of it accountable when the actual source of it is what's paying for our political systems?”

Kovacs' question quickly turned into criticism of the candidates. After using some inflammatory language toward the candidates, Kovacs started arguing with other audience members, prompting Horn and Morse to attempt to separate Kovacs from the audience. After being asked to leave, she finished her thoughts and walked out.

Despite the interruption, Maltzie took the question seriously.

“Let's answer that question, because we have some other people who want to ask questions, too, and I know opioids is a big deal and we've all been affected. We've all known somebody that's really been hurt, killed, addicted. We've all had those people in our lives,” he said.

In a lighthearted turn, Maltzie asked each candidate their favorite ice cream flavor, and where to get it. He also asked about their favorite car, as in his view, you can find out a lot about someone from their car preference.

Stevens gave a shoutout to Dipsy Doodle Dairy Bar's mint chocolate chip, and loves the 1987 Porsche 911 Carrera. Thibault likes Kellerhaus’ cherry ice cream, and likes either a GMC Sierra or a Chevy Silverado. Morse went with a larger franchise, Dairy Queen, for their Reese’s blizzard. Horn likes Jordan’s Ice Cream’s peanut butter cup, despite not being much of a sweets guy, and said his favorite vehicle is the M1A1 tank from when he was in the Army.

“There’s no traffic that’s going to stop that,” Horn said.

Gonzalez likes sweet cream, one of the first flavors he had when he moved to the United States. He didn’t share where he gets it, or his favorite car.

Candidates said they were running because they care about their local community, not because of the $100 yearly salary.

“I want to run to preserve a lot of the rights and freedoms and liberties that we have here in New Hampshire,” Stevens said. “There's a lot of tumultuous potential on the horizon with what's coming in, a regime change at a federal level. And unfortunately, a lot of that cascades down to us at a state level.”

The winners in the primary contest on Tuesday, Sept. 10, will face Democrats Joyce May Fulweiler (Merrimack 25) and Scott Burns and Justine Hoppe in Merrimack 3 in November.