Tardif promises new ideas if elected to County Commission

Tardif promises new ideas if elected to County Commission

LACONIA — Former Laconia Mayor Thomas Tardif, who is running for County Commission, remembers getting a rude awakening when he built a house with his own hands in 1977.

He bought an open lot next to his house on Winter Street.

“I looked at blueprints and knew I could build it,” he said in an interview at The Laconia Daily Sun. “I built it for our family needs and never gave a thought about the overhead that went with it, taxes.”

He sold his old, 1,740-square-foot house and moved into the new one, a 2,400-square-foot Cape Cod-style home he constructed mostly by himself in three weeks.

Tardif was shocked to discover later that the assessed value on his new home was about seven times the price at which he had sold his old one.

He would later run for City Council as part of the small-government, low-taxes Straight Arrow movement. Tardif served as a councilor from 1988 to 1989, and then as mayor, 1990-91. His promise was not to increase the amount of money the city raised with taxes.

Now, Tardif says he would like to bring new ideas to the County Commission.

He would like to “restore civility within county government by increased transparency while demanding accountability.”

He feels a memorandum of understanding between the new County Commission and the new County Delegation could set guidelines and help with civility.

Tardif would like to place the commission’s proposed budget in a new format in which narration of key items can help people understand where the money is going.

He said he will rely on management experience gained in a career working in the telephone and communications industry.

“When I was working for the phone company, there was an ideas at work program,” he recalled. “I had the largest number of ideas. That carried over into private life. I am an inventor and owner of three patents.”

Tardif is in a three-way race for the Republican nomination for the Belknap County Commission seat in District 1 (Laconia, New Hampton and Sanbornton). This is the only contested race for a Belknap County office in the September 11 primary.

He faces incumbent commission chairman Dave DeVoy, of Sanbornton, who is seeking re-election to a two-year term and is also opposed by Brian Gallagher, a member of the Gunstock Area Commission, who is also a Sanbornton resident.

Tardif said he supports “the historic role of taxpayers being able to challenge illegal or unconstitutional acts by our agents — county government.

“For years, taxpayer suits have held state, county, city or town governments accountable because we, the citizens, are in charge. We are not peasants in a medieval kingdom, but rather the government is our agent, and we are in charge.

“It is time to restore taxpayer standing by exercising your right and responsibility to vote.”