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To the editor:

Honestly it has been very interesting to sit in the audience of the Strafford County Commissioners weekly meetings, executive and delegation meetings to witness firsthand the uncooperative way a certain elected state representative is acting.
When elected as an official, you are elected to serve your constituents and to conduct the people's business. You serve all, not just those in your party affiliation.

The first option was meeting with Commissioner Maglaras privately with the Republican caucus, thus not having to post for a meeting and freezing out the public attendance. The second option was to meet and hold a Strafford County Delegation meeting in which the meeting would be posted and the public would have the right to attend. All state representatives in our county, the county administrator, county commissioners and the public would all be invited to attend.
The Republican caucus responded that they wanted to meet in public as a county delegation and offered up two dates in the month of May. One date was May 16th and the other was next week.
As I generally attend the weekly commissioners meetings, last week's question was the status on this meeting. County Administrator Bower chuckled before explaining he had tried to contact Representative Peter Schmidt, D-Dover, who is the Chairperson of the County Delegation the previous evening. Representative Schmidt was too preoccupied with his broken down car to deal with the people's business at that time and stated he would get back in touch. On Thursday, while attending the weekly commissioner's meeting, I once again asked about the meeting. Crickets from Schmidt! Administrator Bower added they could not hold it next week either due to posting requirements.

- Susan J Rice,

Rochester