HB 1513 defeated in Committee
“We all hear on the floor of the House and throughout New Hampshire that local control is very important to us,” said Rep. Dennis Malloy, D-Greenland, who testified against the bill. “We've built the state on that premise. And this is one of those opportunities to live up to that premise.”
On March 13, Greenland/Rye State Representative Dennis Malloy led a group of residents and officials from Greenland, Newington and Rye to kill HB 1513 that would remove the authority of our communities to appoint representatives to the Pease Development Authority Board of Directors.
HB 1513 would have put the Governor and Executive Council in charge of deciding who should represent Portsmouth, Newington, Greenland, Rye and New Castle on the PDA.
Representative Malloy said, “For our perspective on this, Greenland is a town that contains one of the major arteries that feeds Pease. And there are thousands of people every day, twice a day that drive up and down (Route) 33 through our town and we support that. We are in complete support of all the developments Pease has brought to the area, and we want to help that. It's been important for us to be in the room and at that table with some degree of authority.”
PDA Board Chair Steve Dupree surprisingly recommended that the Resources Recreation and Development Committee in the House kill this bill so that another bill could be presented. Mr. Dupree was appointed to the PDA Board of Directors by Governor Sununu.
Nearly 90 people signed in to oppose this bill and the Committee voted unanimously to kill it.
It is likely that we have not heard the last of this. I want to assure the Seacoast residents that our local communities will be fighting to make sure we continue to appoint our own representatives to the PDA Board of Directors.
I want to thank everyone who wrote to the committee to argue for our continued representation on the board.