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Sununu, Democrats discuss pandemic relief, tax returns

Staff Report
CLAREMONT — Campaigns in the New Hampshire gubernatorial race elevated their activity in Claremont this week with a visit by Gov. Chris Sununu on Friday and a Democratic Party press conference on Thursday where local Democratic candidates challenged the governor’s financial transparency.

Sununu stopped in Claremont to present three new flags — a U.S. flag, a state flag, and a P.O.W./M.I.A. flag — to state employees at 17 Water St., which houses district offices for the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF). The new flags will be hung above the building entrance to replace the existing ones, which are in worn condition.

Earlier on Friday, Sununu visited the Filtrine Manufacturing Co., in Keene, where he fielded questions from reporters, including from the Eagle Times, on topics ranging from the pandemic and mask mandates, the state economy to the new campaign by New Hampshire Democrats.

Sununu said that Friday’s report of President Donald Trump testing positive for the novel coronavirus is an “unfortunate reminder that we are still very much in this pandemic.”

“We have to wear a mask, practice social distancing and take all the precautions that we can,” he told reporters.

Sununu did not attribute any fault to Trump’s reported infection but said there are never assurances one will avoid infection, regardless of how well one follows the practices.

“People are tested around the president all the time,” Sununu noted.

Sununu reiterated that New Hampshire is doing “a great job” to minimize the cases of the coronavirus but “we have a long way to go” before this pandemic eases and New Hampshire can relax its precautionary measures.

Sununu also said, during his Claremont visit, that the current case numbers in New Hampshire are expected to keep increasing before the state sees them subside again.

The governor told reporters in Keene that a statewide mask mandate is always an option hypothetically though he does not believe one is necessary at the present.

“We could play that card down the road,” Sununu said. “But given that half our cities and towns have absolutely no COVID in them whatsoever a statewide mandate is probably not appropriate. But in our local cities and towns [with] higher numbers that are making those moves, we support them.”

Fifty-one percent of the state’s 191 municipalities that possess updated counts on novel coronavirus cases have reported none. All 191 municipalities analyzed have reported at least one case.

Sununu spoke briefly about Whelen Engineering, who in July laid off 246 employees, including 148 employees from its facility in Charlestown.

Sununu called the COVID-19 pandemic “the biggest economic crisis the state has ever seen” and Whelen, as a manufacturer of lights and sirens for emergency vehicles, was hit particularly hard by a consumer drop in those vehicles.

“The early months were really tough and Whelen [Engineering] was one of the few that went through some tough times,” Sununu said. “But we’re really hoping that as the economy comes back and citizens are making those commitments to police cars and ambulances and things of that nature, it will feed into the secondary market and help them move forward.”

Sununu praised the state’s effort to help New Hampshire companies weather the economic downturn during the pandemic, by appropriating $500 million received through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to assist New Hampshire businesses with rent, payroll and other needs.

Sununu said that with the economy getting back on line, the state’s unemployment rate has dropped from 17%, during the height of the economic shutdown, to 4%.

Claremont Democrats question Sununu on financial appropriates, transparency

Four Democratic candidates for the New Hampshire legislature, including three from Claremont, held a press conference Thursday morning in Broad Street Park to call for Sununu to release his tax returns as a display of financial transparency.

The New Hampshire Democratic Party organized the event earlier this week immediately following national reports regarding President Donald Trump’s tax returns, according to Michael Beyer of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

Two Democratic incumbents, Rep. Gary Merchant (District 4) and Rep. John Cloutier (District 10), and two Democratic candidates, Liza Draper, running for the District 5 House seat, and Sue Pescott from Lebanon, who is running for the vacant Senate seat in District 5, spoke at the event.

While it is not a tradition for New Hampshire governors to release their tax returns, Merchant said that the governor’s power to determine recipients of large amounts of federal aid, along with the Sununu family’s business ties, necessitates greater transparency.

Merchant referenced the $1.25 billion New Hampshire received through the CARES Act, which led to a dispute between Sununu and Democratic legislatures over the authority to disperse the funds. A Hillsborough Superior Court judge dismissed a suit filed by the Democrats in April.

The Democratic candidates on Thursday also pointed to the controversial Sununu decision in 2019 to award an opportunity zone to Waterville Valley, the town that holds the Sununu family’s Waterville Valley ski resort.

Opportunity zones are a federal tax program aimed to spur economic development in low-income communities by offering tax incentives to investors who build businesses or other revitalization projects in a designated opportunity zone.

The Democrats also questioned Sununu’s family ties to energy lobbying groups like the New England Ratepayers Association and whether that influenced Sununu’s veto in 2019 of a popularly bipartisan net metering bill SB159.

The Democrats said that Sununu’s Democratic challenger, Dan Feltes, recently released 10 years of his own tax returns and urged Sununu to do the same.

“Voters are crying out for transparency and want to know who their elected officials are working for,” Beyer told the Eagle Times.

Sununu dismissed the claims on Friday and blasted the Democratic Party’s campaign tactic.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic,” Sununu told the Eagle Times. “The Democrats should be coming up with solutions for 2020 and innovative ideas for how to manage better. The best they can come up with is saying that Sununu is a Republican who supports Trump.”

Sununu also said that no one in Waterville Valley to his knowledge has even utilized the opportunity zone.

In a separate interview with the Eagle Times, Claremont Rep. Walt Stapleton (R-District 5) said that calling for tax returns is a “distraction.”

“There are multiple pages in an individual tax return beyond just the bottom line tax dollars paid or returned,” Stapleton said. “Without knowing the context of the other pages showing how the bottom line number derived, there is little meaning or understanding.”

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