MANCHESTER, N.H. – Recently, Mayoral Candidate Rich Girard issued a pair of statements regarding the reaction to proposed changes to the city’s charter regarding the Manchester School District that drew concerns from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office as well as an anonymous individual seeking to spur the mayoral candidates into a debate.
Following the letter, Girard’s statement noted that he supported the questions going to the ballot, but opposed the wording of the questions fearing that they were deceptive.
Girard also referred to the effort as another “political power play” by Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig and her supporters, stating that the effort was about empowering bureaucrats and unions rather than improving education.
“Taxpayers still need to rally this election, however. If they listen to the AG’s office this time, the next school board will be able to order these questions to ballot again,” he said. While I believe the taxpayers would win that debate decisively at the ballot box, which is why I was okay with those questions being on this year’s ballot, legal niceties notwithstanding, I also believe the debate will be divisive in our city and damaging to our already failing schools.”
Girard also drew attention to a new website called Manchestermayor.com, which seeks questions from Manchester residents for a proposed debate between the three current mayoral candidates.
When asked by Manchester Ink Link, Girard said he was unaware of the owner of Manchestermayor.com
According to ICANN, the website was created on Aug. 9 and the owner used Perfect Privacy LLC as a registrar, a website hosting company in Jacksonville, Fla.