Key figure in enacting 2008 tax cap says it's time for a change in city government

Rochester City Hall; inset, former mayoral candidate and state rep Fred Leonard (Courtesy photos)

Over the last several years, Rochester government has been using the unassigned fund balance to essentially get around our 2008 tax cap. The override provision of the tax cap was really meant for emergencies. You know, natural disaster or issues that came in between fiscal year budgets. Projects and real estate purchases should be included in the operating budget or the capital improvement budget.
While citizens and taxpayers only get five minutes each month to express their views on any given issue, Rochester's unelected bureaucrats have unfettered access to our elected representatives we simply don't have. Most of their influence is peddled out of sight of the public eye putting The People at a disadvantage.
As citizens we have the ability to change how this all works. By establishing a charter commission, using a petition to get the question on this November's ballot, we would be able to elect charter commission members to look at revising our charter.
As defined by New Hampshire law, the definition of revising our city charter shall mean any change to an existing charter that results in a change in the municipality's form of government, meaning we can go from a council manager form of government back to a mayor council form of government, otherwise known as a strong mayor form of government.
In a strong mayor form of government, the mayor acts as the executive branch and the council acts as the legislative branch. Today, we have an unelected city manager acting as the executive branch and the mayor and city councilors acting as the legislative branch. The People are left competing with the bureaucratic level of our government that has all the resources and tools The People do not. We believe this must end!
Joins us by signing the petition to help get the question of establishing a charter commission on November's ballot!
Seven hundred and ninety-two verified registered voter signatures are needed by Aug. 6 to get the question on the ballot.
The petition will ask if Rochester voters want to return to a mayor-council form of government (abandoning the council-manager plan).

Fred Leonard is a former Rochester mayoral candidate, a former Strafford 1 state rep and one of the key people who helped pass the city's 2008 tax cap. He can be reached at 603-923-2451