July 14, 2025
6:32 – 7:41 PM, In Person Meeting: Kimball Library
Executive Council Attendees: Michael Boucher, Butler, Raymond Lipfert, Sam Butler, Chris Citorik
Meeting:
At 6:32, Michael Boucher officially starts the meeting.
He starts by discussing the newly created website and its e-mail address as ways to get information from and contact the Atkinson Democrats.
At 6:34, Michael Boucher announces the August 25th Maggie Goodlander town hall event hosted by the town Executive Board. He explains how this will be a private event that will require any interested persons to RSVP ahead of time.
After this topic, Michael Boucher and Jill Ottow discuss the best ways to support the library trustees and the library. They discuss how some disgruntled individuals are showing up to the trustee meetings to cause a ruckus, but recommend not showing up to start arguments with them that will only make the situation worse.
At 6:38, Michael Boucher introduces representative Megan Murray, who is the representative for Amherst in the New Hampshire State House as well as a representative from the state Democratic Party.
Megan introduces herself, discusses her time as a legislator, and acknowledges Jay Markel (Republican House representative for Atkinson), who showed up to the meeting. Over the next hour, she discusses various topics and takes questions from the crowd about various policies and issues on the state, federal, and local levels.
Some of the topics discussed included:
Massive budget cuts to universities. And how millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs have been cut from various environmental, educational, and Health and Human Services-related programs.
How a lack of federal funding has created many state and county layoffs and funding issues.
How public money for the EFA vouchers is going to a firm out of state (which takes 10% Commission and is who decides who is admitted and who gets what for the program) that is not being audited and has already been proven to make several mistakes. Also, the voucher program has no IEP protections.
It's discussed how this voucher program is redirecting a lot of public money into the hands of people who already attend private schoolings. It's also discussed how the state is not paying as much as it is legally required to local school districts. Not only did the court rule this, but Republicans have acknowledged it and admitted that they will do nothing. Letting the costs fall to local school districts to make up.
It's discussed how the cost of everything is going up and pricing people out of communities, but at the same time, programs that help people are being defunded, and schools are also losing a lot of their funds (making local communities less attractive due to worse educational standards).
It's discussed how Dems want to ensure equal education, to protect education, and to protect speech and literature at all levels of schooling.
Another topic discussed is how to enact actionable change aside from just flipping seats in elections. Representative Murray recommended showing up and being active in local governance and local elections, and advocating for certain issues when possible.
Another point of discussion is about how taxes have gone down and programs have been defunded, and how the cost of everything has gone up, including fees and fines (like how there are less inspections but higher registration fees). There are now 7 pages worth of new fees, including for example, a new Medicare tax on children. The federal and state levels have defunded Medicare and Medicaid, but now impose increased taxes/fees for using the programs. This not only makes it harder for people to access these programs, but it's also increasingly putting the responsibility on local welfare programs funded through property taxes, and third-party organizations (like food organizations who are now buying food for cheap from Canada to be able to afford feeding people).
Another discussion is about marijuana legalization and revenue capitalization. And how, while many people in New Hampshire support it, certain politicians refuse to even consider it as they are “simply against it” Or have “seen it enough”.
The final topic of note was about the prevalence of “free Staters” in the Republican Party. Representative Murray notes that the free Staters have considerable sway in the republican caucus and seek to dismantle government from the inside out.
At 7:32, the Q&A with representative Murray ends.
At 7:33, Michael Boucher opens the floor, during which the situation with the library trustees is once again discussed.
734 Michael Boucher notes that our school district is the last large school not to have a full-day kindergarten, and asks all available persons to spread the word about showing up to school board meetings to encourage compliance with the new state policy.
The last topic of discussion is the Maggie Goodlander event. Michael Boucher encourages anyone who is interested to come on August 25th.
Michael Boucher officially ends the meeting at 7:41 PM.