The Sullivan County NH Republican Committee

Category: Our blog

  • When Sports Became a Spectator Sport in Claremont

    The same town that rallied for athletics last summer found its voice against athletes this spring.

    By Kevin Tyson

    Last August, the Claremont school district stared into a five-million-dollar hole, and the community did what communities do. People wrote checks. People ran fundraisers. People rallied for the kids. The athletic department, in particular, became a cause celebre. Cut the sports? Unthinkable. Sports build character. Sports keep kids off the streets.

    One of the loudest checks came from a place some of those same neighbors have now decided is a public nuisance.

    Mike Parks, who runs Claremont Motorsports Park, told the City Council on April 23 that the track donated all of its 50/50 raffle proceeds last summer to the alumni association to help backstop the very athletic programs the budget crisis had threatened. This year, he is doing it again, this time for the twelve-and-under youth baseball travel team. He also runs a go-karting program for kids fourteen and younger. Ninety of them. Five-year-olds with helmets on, learning to drive a line through a corner instead of, as he diplomatically put it, “doing what a lot of other kids do.”

    That is a sport. Those are athletes. The track is, among other things, a youth athletics facility that pays its own taxes and writes checks to other youth athletics programs. It has been operating in this town since 1947, which is to say longer than most of its critics have been alive and considerably longer than most of their houses have been standing.

    So, naturally, the response from a portion of the community has been to treat it as a zoning problem.

    The April 23 hearing on Ordinance 644 brought out a familiar New Hampshire cast. There was the family psychologist who moved to Claremont two years ago, bought a house “miles away” from the track, and now wants the Council to consider that engine noise “activates the central nervous system.” There was the resident four miles away who reports that “the way the land contours” delivers the sound straight to her bedroom window at 9:45 on a summer Friday. Both insisted, with the practiced civic care of people who have read the room, that they do not want the racetrack to go away. They simply want it to be quieter, shorter, smaller, less.

    This is the standard rhetorical move of people who would, in fact, like something to go away.

    Here is what is striking. Nobody at that hearing said motor sports are not sports. Nobody said the kids in the go-kart program are not kids. Nobody proposed that Little League games end at 8 PM, or that the high school football team play with mufflers. The premise that Claremont owes its athletic programs a hearing, an accommodation, and, in last summer’s case, a bailout was treated as self-evident when the sport was baseball, and as up for revision when the sport was racing.

    What I keep meeting, in Claremont and elsewhere, is the resident whose tolerance for ambient civic noise is exquisitely calibrated to whether his children are the ones making it.

    Claremont voters approved a $42.9 million school budget in March, with a substantial line item for athletics. Claremont’s racetrack pays property taxes, employs people, brings spectators who buy gas, hot dogs, and motel rooms, runs a youth program, and donates its raffle proceeds to the alumni association that backstops the schools. If the Council wants a coherent policy on community sports, the place to start is the recognition that we already have one, and that one of its most consistent contributors has been pulling onto the track at five o’clock on Friday nights since Harry Truman was president.

    Ordinance 644, as drafted, is mostly housekeeping: definitions, hours, insurance, and a graduated penalty structure. None of that is unreasonable. Councilor Irish was right to observe that no one at the hearing actually said they wanted the track gone. The Council’s work now is to ensure the ordinance reflects what people said rather than what the loudest among them implied.

    Sixty-five race nights and seventy-five total events would roughly preserve the status quo. It would also preserve a small-business asset that has outlived four generations of complaints from people who moved in next to it. The next time the schools need a check, the Council might consider whether the sound of a small-block V8 on a summer evening is really the price the town is unwilling to pay.

    It has, after all, been the price of admission since 1947.

    Sources

    City of Claremont, NH. Council meeting transcript, Ordinance 644 first reading and public hearing, April 23, 2026. Comments by Mike Parks (50/50 donations to the alumni association supporting school athletics; youth baseball funding; 90 children in the go-karting program; track operating since 1947); Ward 3 family psychologist (“central nervous system” framing; relocation two years prior); Abby Clark, Ward 3 (residence four miles from the track; 9:45 PM noise impact); Councilor Irish (no resident requested closure; 60–65 race-night average); Ward 3 resident (track as a regional asset comparable to the Opera House).

    Claremont School District, FY2026 budget approved March 10, 2026, $42.9 million. See “Claremont School Board Politics,” Claremont, March 2026.

    City of Claremont. Draft Ordinance 644, Licensing Board Authorization for Motor Vehicle Races, first reading April 23, 2026.

  • Your Lincoln—Reagan Dinner Invitation

    You’re invited!

  • Monthly Meeting Tomorrow!

    We will be meeting tomorrow night, Tuesday the 14th, at 6:30 in the conference room on the second floor of 24 Opera House Square. If you find yourself locked out, then please ping the Signal group.

    See you there!

  • Monthly Meeting Rescheduled

  • A Sullivan County Republican Committee View: Why the Property Tax Narrative Misses the Point

    In New Hampshire, property taxes are not a theoretical issue. They show up in escrow payments, rent increases, and “maybe we should move” conversations at kitchen tables across Sullivan County. So when we hear speeches and posts claiming that property taxes are high because Republicans “shifted burdens,” “broke promises,” or “underfunded” education, we think the public deserves a more serious explanation than a blame story.

    Here is our view, grounded in a conservative approach to public policy: focus on incentives, tradeoffs, and results. If a claim cannot survive that treatment, it is not a solution. It is a slogan.

    1) Blame is not analysis

    A lot of funding rhetoric leans heavily on motives and villains. It implies that if you can identify the “bad people” who caused the problem, then the policy work is basically done.

    We reject that approach. It turns budget debates into morality plays and it distracts from the real questions: What drives costs? What drives outcomes? What reforms change behavior instead of just rerouting money?

    2) “The state only pays X percent” is not the whole story

    We often hear arguments like, “New Hampshire is dead last because the state pays only a small share of education spending.” Even if the share number is accurate, a share statistic by itself does not prove the system is underfunded or unfair.

    A low state share can simply mean New Hampshire funds education differently than other states. The relevant questions are:

    • How much is spent in total, per student, and how has that changed?
    • What are the outcomes for students?
    • What parts of the budget are growing fastest and why?

    If you want to persuade taxpayers, show the full picture. Do not ask them to accept a verdict based on a single slice of a complicated system.

    3) The cost side is treated like fate

    We think the most revealing feature of many “the state should pay more” arguments is what they leave out: the drivers of spending growth.

    If special education costs are rising, if healthcare and benefits are rising, if administrative layers grow faster than enrollment, if maintenance is deferred until buildings become emergency projects, those are not minor details. They are core reasons property tax pressure persists year after year.

    A plan that focuses mostly on increasing state dollars without confronting spending incentives is not a plan. It is a request for a larger blank check.

    4) More state funding can create the wrong incentives

    We are not opposed to the state contributing to education. But we are clear-eyed about how subsidies change behavior.

    When a higher level of government pays more of the bill, the local political cost of spending goes down. That makes spending easier and restraint harder. It also creates a permanent lobbying cycle for expanded aid, because once something is subsidized it quickly becomes “normal,” and any attempt to reduce it is treated as a crisis.

    If someone proposes raising the state share, they should also propose structures that prevent predictable cost inflation. Otherwise the outcome is simple: spending rises and taxpayers still lose.

    5) “Business tax cuts caused the problem” is usually weakly supported

    We also hear claims that Republicans cut business taxes because “trickle-down economics,” and therefore revenue shortages forced higher property taxes.

    This argument typically lacks the serious evidence it would need to justify major tax policy changes. If you are going to claim business tax policy caused slower growth or reduced revenue in a way that meaningfully drove property tax burdens, you need more than a talking point. You need time windows, comparisons, and controls for other drivers like migration, housing costs, and economic cycles.

    In short: show your work.

    6) School choice is not “lost revenue,” it is accountability pressure

    We view education dollars as belonging to families and taxpayers, not to systems. When families seek alternatives, it is often because they believe the current system is not delivering the outcomes they were promised at the price they are paying.

    School choice is not primarily about “defunding.” It is about competition and accountability. Monopoly systems tend to become expensive, insulated, and slow to reform. Choice introduces feedback. That is why it is controversial, and that is also why it matters.

    7) Property taxes can be unfair, but we should measure it honestly

    Property taxes can hit lower-income households hard, and renters feel property taxes too because they are baked into rent. Retirees can be especially vulnerable when income is fixed and assessments rise.

    But if we are going to talk about regressivity, we should do it carefully. That means accounting for renters, exemptions, credits, and the difference between income and assets. We should look at total tax burden, not just one tax, and we should not use selective statistics to manufacture certainty.

    What we support: reform that changes incentives

    We believe the best path forward is not a bigger blame campaign or a bigger funding pipeline. It is structural reform that forces tradeoffs and rewards results.

    That includes:

    • Transparent, comparable budget reporting that taxpayers can actually understand
    • Clear tracking of cost drivers, including special education, benefits, and administration
    • Procurement and construction discipline so “temporary” spending does not become permanent debt
    • Serious academic accountability tied to spending growth
    • More educational options so families are not trapped in one system regardless of performance

    Conclusion

    We take property tax pressure seriously. We also take policy seriously. We are not interested in narratives that treat spending as destiny and higher revenue as the only adult response.

    Sullivan County taxpayers deserve solutions that confront incentives, measure outcomes, and tell the truth about tradeoffs. Anything less is politics pretending to be economics.

  • Local Control, Local Reponsibility

    For the first time in decades (this century might not be too much of an exaggeration) voters in Claremont will have an honest choice at this coming school district election.

    Instead of seeing default and proposed budgets that are rubber stamped; a collection of escalating contracts driving costs; and a pre-approved choice between tweedledee and tweedledum;  voters have a democratic choice in 2026.

    The fundamental issue is one of trust. Do you trust the school board and the local cabal who have been ruining the city’s reputation since the 90’s to change course without intervention?  Are a few buttons and slogans enough?

    Or do you think that they might benefit from less carrot and more stick?

    At the final school board meeting, I heard plenty of blame for outsiders (banks, DC, Concord). Yet I maintain that responsibility lies at home. Our community, our board, our voters approved the rogue’s gallery of SAU administration that ran the district into the red.  This was performed annually for decades.

    For those old enough to remember Walt Kelly and Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  The noose around the city and the district has a label, Made in Claremont.

    The crisis of late stage socialism is that you run out of other people to blame for your troubles.  Meanwhile, other people’s money grows ever scarcer and harder to obtain.  No one trusts you.

    The real curse of Volinsky, Tobin, and the endless Claremont lawsuits is that some people actually believed the lie.  They cultivated a culture of irresponsible behavior that encouraged greater recklessness when it was least affordable. We face the consequences of their bad decisions, as well as doubling down with bad leadership, moral and financial.

    It is past time to impose order, clear out the rot, and reform the district so that it serves the community, not just a handful of confused elites who can’t imagine peasant revolt as a natural consequence of their abject failure of the public trust.

    With much difficulty, the spending growth cap of Article 8 has been successfully brought to the voters for their consideration.  You may also note an influx of candidates without suspicious past or damaging ties to the school board and the elites.  And so I ask, “What say you? What say you? This is our democracy. Vote your conscience. And I will hold your election fulfilled. What say you?”