Guinta for Mayor in 2007!

WHEN HE won election two years ago, Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta took on the extremely difficult tasks of taming the city bureaucracy, delivering tax cuts, making the city safer and improving services. The progress he has made on those fronts in two short years is impressive.

Those complaining now about the small size of the tax cuts city residents received this year are mostly Guinta opponents who also opposed his pledge two years ago to cut taxes. Irresponsible, they said. Can't be done, they said. Well, guess what?

The ONLY reason Manchester taxpayers received a tax cut at all this year was because Frank Guinta changed the debate at city hall. His predecessor said city residents were happy to pay high taxes. The majority on the board of aldermen agreed.

Then Guinta won, proving them wrong, and aldermen suddenly discovered that they were for tax relief. The tax cut aldermen finally approved was not a wisely crafted one. But it showed that the ground has shifted in Manchester politics. Spending restraint is in, and that is Frank Guinta's doing.

Guinta made crime fighting his other top priority, and he has overseen the hiring of nearly 20 new police officers in the last year and the closing of several downtown trouble spots.

The shooting of Officer Michael Briggs concentrated the aldermen's attention on crime, so Guinta cannot take all the credit there. But he was leading on this issue a year earlier, and early on he committed the police department to some institutional changes that have improved public safety.

Guinta is not just a tax-cutting crime fighter. He also has pushed bureaucratic reform and improved services, including initiating a creative plan to finance a citywide system of bicycle and walking paths. It is one example of his work to improve services while reducing costs.

That is exactly the kind of leadership Manchester needs. Guinta is the right leader at the right time for Manchester. Voters should give him a second term to continue his good-government agenda.

Manchester Taxpayers to Receive First Tax Cut in Decade
Mayor Calls on his opponent to stop ducking the question on tax relief

Manchester- Manchester residents will receive the first tax cut this decade thanks in part to Mayor Guinta’s sound fiscal management and insistence that the trend of annual tax hikes must end. Mayor Guinta has proposed three consecutive budgets that contained tax relief, one as an alderman and two as a mayor. Last week Mayor Guinta offered a simple challenge to his rival Attorney Donovan, on whether or not he would be offering a budget with a tax cut to Manchester residents. Attorney Tom Donovan chose to duck the question and refused to stand behind the concept of offering tax relief to our citizens.

“Working together, we have created a culture of change that empowers elected officials to restore fiscal responsibility to our government and deliver tax relief to our citizens. My hope is that my opponent decides to drop his old habits and join me in my commitment to continue to offer tax relief to the taxpayers of Manchester”. said Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta

“Attorney Donovan has a record of disregarding the interests of Manchester’s Taxpayers. His fiscally irresponsible budget proposals equaled 18% increases in taxes and his tenure on the school board was a driving force behind the string of consecutive tax increases that the taxpayers of Manchester had to endure. said Mike Biundo, Mayor Guinta’s Senior Consultant

Old Habits Die Hard; Taxing Attorney Tom Donovan Reveals his True Colors
Candidate refuses to say he will provide tax relief to Manchester residents

Manchester – As a School Board member Attorney Tom Donovan put forth budgets that would of have had Manchester residents reeling from 18% increases. Today, Attorney Donovan at the 4th Annual Latino Summit, in front of about 35 people, once again showed his true taxing colors. After a direct and simple challenge from the Mayor on whether or not he would be offering a budget with a tax cut to Manchester residents, Tom Donovan ducked the question and refused to stand behind the concept of offering tax relief to our citizens. To those who followed his career on the school board, these turn of events should not come as a surprise.

“Attorney Donovan has a record of disregarding the interests of Manchester’s Taxpayers. His tenure on the school board could have resulted in an 18% increase in taxes for Manchester residents if the mayor and board of alderman didn’t pull the emergency brake on his out of control spending sprees”. said Mike Biundo, Mayor Guinta’s Senior Consultant

If you combine Attorney Donovan’s unimpressive record, propensity for spending and lack of results as a Schools board member, with his total lack of knowledge and leadership in the area of public safety; it is clear his candidacy is deficient in the key areas and issues facing the citizens of Manchester.

“It is obvious that old habits die hard; Tom Donovan cannot duck the truth and cannot hide his true colors. The taxpayers of Manchester deserve and answer not double talk and back peddling. ” I am sure the people of Manchester want to know if he is going to join Mayor Guinta in providing, tax relief to our citizens or is he going to stick to his old and often repeated school board habits.

Tom Donovan record is wrong direction for Manchester
Lack of Planning on Education, Poor Results with Proposed Tax Increases and Deficient in Public Safety

· Tom talks about public safety; but while Mayor Guinta’s has been delivering results, Tom’s only experience in this vital area is a 30 minute meeting with the Chief of Police and some pulled talking points from a website.

· Tom likes to call himself a fiscal conservative yet twice during yesterdays debate he tried to move the conversation away from the $7 million a year that he proposed in increased in spending and the 18% affect that it would have had on the average taxpayer in Manchester. He was quoted saying: “We need to get the debate away from cost…”, “It is not all about the dollars…”

· Tom defended the amount of money Manchester’s School Board is spending on administrative costs (40%) using financial accounting gimmicks to justify the wasteful spending costs. This came after Mayor Guinta called for more dollars to be directed to educating our students and providing teachers the necessary tools in the classrooms.

· Even with the Chairman, Vice Chairman and a Super Majority as his allies on the School Board Tom Donovan did little to provide an enhanced classroom experience for our children.

· Tom has showed hi s lack of knowledge on public safety by calling for Mayor Guinta to apply a Bratton like approach to enhancing public safety in Manchester. The truth is Mayor Guinta introduced Chief Bratton’s Compstat model to Manchester, he set up the weekly meeting to discuss the crime trends in the city that Bratton calls for. He has embraced the community policing model and enhanced community involvement by helping the neighborhood watch groups grow to 800 members strong. He flew to NYC over a year ago to discuss the Bratton model and success with Deputy Chief Simmons to continue the education and improvement process for the betterment of our community.

· Tom makes wild financial claims - stating he solved $3 Million city deficit – THIS IS NOT TRUE - Tom’s poor financial solution cost residents dearly as city services such as law enforcement and fire fighting were hamstrung with 2% departmental budget cuts to keep up with his unsound fiscal spending.

For Immediate Release
Monday, June 18, 2007
Contact: Michael Biundo 603-540-2572

“Mayor Guinta is proud to deliver his record of innovation, accountability and success back to the voters of Manchester. His results driven agenda in the areas of Neighborhood Revitalization, Safety and Security, Fiscal Responsibility and Tax Relief have received widespread approval. The Mayor has a deep respect for the citizens of Manchester, his first responsibility will be that for the job which he was hired, but make no mistake about it, he is already running an aggressive re-election effort and looks forward to taking any and all challengers” said Mike Biundo Senior Consultant, Guinta for Mayor

For Immediate Release
Monday, April 02, 2007
Contact: Michael Biundo 603-540-2572

OFFICIAL PRESS STATEMENT
Re: Representative Beaulieu decision to enter race for Mayor

“Mayor Guinta is proud to take his record of accomplishment and success back to the voters of Manchester. His work and efforts in the areas of, Public Safety, Neighborhood Revitalization, Reducing Taxes and bringing Fiscal Responsibility to our City Government have been met with widespread approval. The Mayor has already begun what will certainly be an aggressive re-election effort” said Mike Biundo Senior Consultant, Guinta for Mayor.

MANCHESTER – Aldermen granted Mayor Frank Guinta the ability to tighten city spending for the next 1 1/2 months, after Guinta pledged he would not "stop city government" or vital services to meet budget targets.

Guinta said the spending freeze is needed to ensure that $750,000 will carry over into the next budget year, which begins July 1. Without the carryover, Guinta said, property taxes would not drop the anticipated 1.6 percent.

The spending freeze limits city spending to only essential items. Any planned overtime or any check over $2,500 must be approved by Finance Officer Bill Sanders. If he says no, it goes to Guinta for consideration.

"The intention is not to stop city government. The intention is not to stop any vital services," Guinta said. "We're in the home stretch. I'd like the flexibility to meet the numbers."

Several aldermen questioned whether Guinta will be able to reach his target, which could require weekly savings of $50,000. And several worried that city services, especially in police and fire coverage, will suffer.

Alderman at-large Dan O'Neil pointed out that overtime is used to fill in when police officers or firefighters take vacations. Those shifts, he said, should be filled. Alderman George Smith, Ward 10, told Guinta he was micromanaging the city.

"We're usurping the department heads. The department heads should run their department the way they see fit," said Smith, who joined O'Neil and Armand Forest, Ward 12, to oppose the measure.

Guinta said emergency overtime will not be questioned. Nor will he block overtime for items such as high-visibility police patrols, undercover police operations, staffing a fire station and traffic control outside Verizon Wireless Arena.

While numbers remain fluid, projections put the city surplus at about $1.2 million for this year, Guinta said. To meet his target, he will have to find $300,000 in savings. By ordinance, half of any surplus is squirreled away into a Rainy Day Fund, the other half can be spent or carried over into the next year's budget.

Also last night:

Aldermen approved the transfer $142,000 to emergency repairs for Piscataquog River Park. The West Side park, which was under repair because of damage from the 2006 Mother's Day flood, was damaged again during the recent spring floods. The money came from a fund earmarked for park upgrades.

Aldermen approved moving the Office of Youth Services from the Rines Center on north Elm Street to a larger space at the Chase Block in downtown Manchester. The relocation will cost about $30,000, and the office's net annual rent will be about $17,000.

Aldermen approved a $500,000 loan to Manchester developer Dick Anagnost, who is building workforce-priced apartments on Karatzas Avenue.

Aldermen delayed consideration of a request to extend a $250,000 mortgage the city holds on a five-story building at 70 Lowell St. Led by Alderman Ted Gatsas, aldermen said they want more financial information before extending the mortgage until 2013.

The city could call the loan, which would force the owners to make a $500,000 balloon payment, officials said. But if the city waits until 2013, it could receive about three times as much.

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Guinta for mayor: The right leader for Manchester