(Two three-year term seats)
Years living in town: 46 years
Previous or current elected office held: Select Board for 9 years, on and off Planning Board 20 plus years
What are two issues you think are important and how would you address them?
The major issue in our town, as in every other town in the state of New Hampshire, is affordable housing and we’ve been working on it for a year now and we will continue to work on it. I think that is probably the single biggest concern of every town in New Hampshire. The board plans to continue to work on ideas and will seek guidance form the state. We’ve got much, much more work to do. That is the issue that concerns our planning board.
Years living in town: 39 years
Previous or current elected office held: I have been on the Planning Board since 1986. I also did one term on the Board of Selectmen back in the 90s. And I also served a term on the ConVal School Board in the 90s.
Other qualifications: I’ve worked as an architecture designer and construction estimator for my whole working life so I’m pretty good at reading plans and understanding how development happens.
What are two issues you think are important and how would you address them?
I think one of the major things that we’re looking at, the board, at the moment is the issue of affordable housing – making it so older people can stay in town and young families can move in. the second issue would be, preserving the rural character of the town as much as possible.
Affordable housing: I think what we’ve been looking at is kind of fine tuning the Planned Residential Development so we can encourage smaller more compact development and also preserve more open space. We’ve been talking about affordable housing most of the last year. We were going to be bringing some zoning amendments to voters likely in 2021.
Preserving rural character: Trying to, especially when large a parcel come up, trying to keep as much of them as possible in open space and cluster things together so there is a sense of community. But at the same time keep it well back from the roads so that as we drive around town things look pretty much the same.
Years living in town: 15
Previous or current elected office held: Library Trustee (2010-2017), 250th Anniversary Fund Committee (2012 – current), Budget Advisory Committee (2017 – current), Temple Community Planning Community, Chair (2019 – current), Temple Broadband Committee, TCPC, (2019 – current)
Other qualifications:
■Project Management Professional
■20+ years working for non-profits focused on leadership development, civic engagement, and conflict resolution and inclusion.
■Member of the Non-Profit network in Peterborough
■Member of the River Center Advisory Board
What are two issues you think are important and how would you address them?
In June of 2019 I was appointed by the Temple Select Board to chair the Temple Community Planning Committee (TCPC) with a focus on addressing the Affordable Housing issue holistically. In the past year I have attended many workshops, forums and community conversations related to Affordable Housing, Smart Growth, Broadband Equity, and Community Planning alongside Planners and Planning Board members from other towns across the state. I continue to follow the legislative proposals at the state and federal levels. I’ve also spoken with representatives from local non-profits who are working with families in need of housing in our region.
One of the first issues the Community Planning Committee took on was Broadband. Like many towns in our area, service in Temple is inconsistent and expensive. The Temple Broadband Committee is preparing to engage the community in the process through a town wide survey, issue RFI’s to existing providers to identify specific areas of need, towards the goal of issuing an RFP so that we can contract with a provider to serve our entire community.
In addition, I will work in partnership with other town committees to further the affordable housing conversation through smart, inclusive planning proposals and community development with a commitment to historical and environmental conservation. We must identify who we are as a community now, and who we want to be in the future. We must promote our community assets like agriculture, artists, recreation, our amazing elementary school and our village center. We are a town that values opportunities to get to know and support our neighbors.
I’m running for Planning Board because I believe we have an opportunity to do something really creative and impactful in Temple, without sacrificing the things we love about living here. We will do this by working together.