Dateline: Mar. 8, 2026

On March 10, 2026 it is hoped that sufficient numbers of common sense residents turn out to vote for the people and budgets that the town needs to provide its numerous services. What follows here is an analysis of selectmen candidates, town warrant issues, and school warrant issues. Consider them carefully before casting your votes.

Candidates for Selectman

This is the only contested position on both the town and school district ballots. For the rest of the town ballot, only one person is running for each position, which means they will win that position no matter how few votes they receive. Sadly for the school district ballot, three positions have no one running for office. With the ongoing criticism of government spending and property taxes, there seems to be a lack of interest in stepping up and participating in these local positions and helping to be a positive influence for all the residents.

Here is an idea. Convince a friend to run for an office and get people to write in that name.

The following statements were obtained from the selectman candidates who also responded to a query from the Concord Monitor.

Candidate Kristopher Fowler

Background: My name is Kris Fowler and I am running for the Board of Selectmen. I have lived in Allenstown for over 40 years. Been involved in different positions on town boards including Supervisor of the Checklist, Ballot Clerk, Budget Committee, and Allenstown Historical Society.

Issues: I have decided it is time to step it up. My reason for running is to help this town reduce taxes. I want to bring in some fresh eyes and see if there are ways to do that without making cuts.

Plans: I want to help this town and not hamper its growth. One way I want to do this is to work with our department heads one on one. I would like too see what they are dealing with from the inside. They all work hard to get a reasonable budget, one they can work with. There are services that have suffered due to default budgets being voted in. We need to figure out how to keep from falling back on that. Default budgets only help in the immediate but will eventually hurt more in the future as expenses continue building up. I would appreciate your votes on March 10th. I believe that working together we can get this community back to where it once was and where it deserves to be . Thank you!

Candidate John Childs

Background: My name is John T. Childs and I am one candidate running for the open position on the Board of Selectman (BOS).

Issues: The town has a spending problem. I was the only member of the Municipal Budget Committee to "Not Recommend" the proposed budget you will be voting for on March 10. I think the residents will overwhelmingly reject the proposed budget leading to another default budget. We are taxing our residents out of their homes and many still resent the elimination of the solid waste program implemented by the BOS to cover the reduction due to last year's vote leading to the default.

Plans: Using a line by line review of the budget, first by our department heads then by the BOS, we can find the savings with no department exempt from review.

The residents need to restore funding for the transfer station via the warrant article with a cost of $150,000. The other tax funded warrant articles should be rejected as they all add onto the budget, whether the proposed or the default budget is implemented.

As a town we need to think about the ability of all the citizens to afford to live in Allenstown. That is how a Community is developed!

Candidate Timothy Sylvernale

Background: I served 2 terms (3 years each) on the Budget Committee, worked as an IT Network engineer, small business owner, and am a U.S. Army veteran.

Issues: One of my ongoing efforts in the Allenstown community is to increase Town Hall transparency and communication. All too often, I hear residents in town say they didn't hear about something or the information that they did hear was via a third person. I would like to better utilize the town website and other mediums like social media to promote better communication, which will help promote a stronger community, participation, and pride.

Plans: As a concerned resident who is also on the Municipal Budget Committee, I started a new venture. I decided I would start recording all the budget committee meetings and posting them online. Since I started this practice, I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from single parents and others who aren't able to attend the meetings.

If the voters allow me, I would like to join a winning team of the Board of Selectmen to assist in the cleanup of the spending habits of the past while balancing a vision of the future. I have been watching the Board of Selectmen meetings and believe they have begun to repair the damage to the budget. I believe I will bring an outsider's view to the table. As a team, I believe we can restore the trust [of] the residents we serve.

Town Warrant Issues

Article 18: Town Operating Budget. The difference between the disastrous 2025 Default Budget ($5,507,875.00) and the 2026 Proposed Budget $5,555,750.00) is this:

+ $47,875.00 (a 0.87% increase)

The 2026 Default Budget is $5,259,603.00), which is less than the 2025 Default Budget that we suffered through last year. We lost services like all town trash collection and road paving last year and ended up paying more to private vendors than if we had approved the proposed budget.

Don't be one of those "brilliant people" who vote for the lower budget just because it's lower. Lower budgets mean lower services.

Warrant Articles 2-14. These are amendments to the Town Zoning Ordinance are in reaction to NH State Laws (RSAs) recently enacted.

Warrant Article 19: Sewer Operating Budget. This is paid for by homes and businesses connected to the sewer system, not by property owners with private septic systems. But of course when you have your septic system pumped out every few years, the haulers' favorite place to empty their trucks is at the Allenstown Sewer Dept.

Warrant Article 23: Solid Waste Collection. This was reported in February by Allenstown-Alt, at the Jan. 31 Deliberative Session.

"Article 23 would appropriate $150,000 to allow the Highway Dept. to buy several dumpsters for about $17,000 and allow residents to once again dispose of household trash at the Transfer Station only. This would also allow the town to be in compliance with state law. The rest of the funds would be used to pay for disposal for the year. Because this is a warrant article, it expires after a year and would have to be reintroduced or added to next year's Solid Waste Budget.

"If the article passes at the March 10 election, the town would still have to put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) to find the best vendor to haul away the trash. The days and times when residents could dispose of trash would still need to be determined and the start of trash collection would likely start no earlier than April 2026."

School Warrant Issues

Article 1: Proposed School Budget The $15 million in spending seems to flies in the face of the current mantra of affordability. The Default School Budget is $1,000 more so there is no real choice here.

The handout at the January 11 Budget Hearing explained that almost 30% of the school budget is to be spent on Special Ed. No one could answer why so many children are coded that way other than it was due to unfunded mandates by the feds and the state and there wasn't anything they could do about it. That's might fall into the category of a non-answer.

The text of the school budget warrant article also had these negative proficiency scores from the NH Dept. of Education: English Language Arts (ELA): 48%, Math: 35%, and Science: 38%. For $15 million, residents should demand that the school district to make its primary goal to increase student proficiency scores. Do we want 8th grade graduates whose only primary proficiency is cell phone usage?

As a protest, consider not voting either way on the school budget.

Article 2: School raises. For reasons given above, a private employer would say "You're fired!" and not offer raises for poor performance.

Article 11: Open Enrollment. This was a hot topic at the Jan. 31 Deliberative Session. This seemed like a way that the State Legislature cooked up to allow better performing school districts to "steal" students from poorer performing school districts. (For homework, answer the question: which one are we?)

The article was worded to allow up to 25 students from outside SAU 53 but prevent any Allenstown students from moving to another school district. This sounded like a limitation on freedom of choice. With the negative aspects mentioned with Article 1, the better action plan is for the Allenstown School District to fight against mandated costs and raise student performance to make this district more attractive.

What You Can Do

On Tuesday March 10, go to the Old Elementary School on Main St. to vote. Voting runs from 8:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. in the old gym.

Carefully evaluate the selectman candidates. Who wants to work with all departments to move the town forward? Who wants to cut budgets and spending articles without understanding the harm that causes? Who blames department heads for bad spending habits? Who cautions against default budgets as a lifestyle? Who wants to actively encourage new businesses to set up shop here?