Rye Select Board candidate Rob Wright
Name: Rob Wright
Education: Bachelor's degree in business administration, University of Iowa, 1982
Occupation: Retired
Political or civic experience highlights: Rye Planning Board, current chair; Long Range Planning and Master Plan Steering Sub-committees
What are your top three priorities if elected?: Accountable government
The core function of government is to provide security, order and the provision of common necessities - “needs”- for which we agree to give up some of our money, in the form of taxes. Taxes also pay for things that promote the general welfare and aesthetic comfort. These are “wants”. If a group of citizens identify a non-need as being helpful to a majority of citizens, such as a park or public art, they are free to promote the funding of it as a warrant article, and the Town will decide by majority vote.
The Rye Select Board has, for some time, “recommended” items that are wants, not needs, while failing to account for the identification, prioritization and accounting of true needs. Last December, we all got a very bleak “Christmas Surprise” in the form of a tax bill that was 30% higher than the prior year second half bill. I would restore transparency and common-sense plain dealing to the Board.
Lower Taxes
We spend a lot in Rye. (see below)
What is the biggest challenge the town is facing and how would you address it?: More than any other Seacoast town per capita. Maybe we want it that way, and maybe we just don’t know the price of our “wants." My approach is to make clear what’s necessary, and what is nice to have. I would encourage every board, commission and committee to look for private funding for “wants”, as well as state and federal grants. Each of them should have one member assigned to “development” – finding ways to get funding outside of taxing the general citizenry. Rye is a “wealthy” town – by definition, anyone who owns their home (86% of Rye is owner occupied) has “wealth”, since the price of an average home is $1.2 million. But property wealth doesn’t automatically relate to income, and in New Hampshire we tax on the former, except for dividends and interest income. I have had conversations with a number of older citizens (we aged nearly seven years on average between 2010 and 2020) who are very concerned with tax increases, as they represent a threat to these folks’ ability to stay in their homes. Rye should be prioritizing needs and seeking alternate funding for wants.
Clean water
(see below)
What else should voters know about you?: The town has experienced an alarming number of beach closures in the past several years, as well as a “boil” order on water provided by the Rye Water District. There has been much discussion by current members of the Select Board on how they originated/participated in/are pursuing “studies” on both matters. The reality is, it’s time for action. I will press for finite resolution to procurement of clean drinking water, and pursuit of multiple strategies for the RWD, including the proposed treatment plant and new well exploration, as well as hearing any offers from competing public utilities proposals. I will immediately press ahead with enforcement action as one prong in the effort to clean up Parsons Creek watershed. Concomitantly, I will press for conclusive study to identify potential point sources of biologic and perfluorinated chemical compound contamination of all our waterways. Once we have conclusive data as to the sources, we should look to hold the responsible parties to account. This isn’t going to be easy, and will take great resolve, in no small part because we may discover – as Pogo did – that we have met the enemy, and he is us.
In conclusion, I believe that my tenure on land-use boards and committees in Rye has informed me on the subject matter sufficiently to organize and lead the Town. I don’t have all the answers, but I understand the nature of the questions sufficiently to give an informed “yes” or “no” to what is a want, and what areneeds.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Rye Select Board candidate Rob Wright
