HAVERHILL — An incumbent and two challengers are seeking the Republican Party’s nomination in the Grafton 5 district to fill two seats in the New Hampshire House.

State Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, and two other Haverhill residents, Marie Louise Bjelobrk and Greg Mathieson, are competing in the party’s primary on Sept. 10 to represent a two-seat district serving the Upper Valley towns of Haverhill and Piermont, as well as Benton, Landaff and Warren.

State Rep. Matthew Coulon, R-Haverhill, who currently holds one of the seats, is not seeking reelection.

The winners of the Republican primary in Grafton 5 will advance to the general election in November, where they are expected to face Democratic challengers Rachael Booth, of Landaff, and Dustin Vigneault, of Haverhill — who are running uncontested on the Democratic primary ballot.

The three Republican candidates, in interviews last week, discussed topics including education funding and protecting infrastructure from severe weather damage.

On abortion, all three Republicans said they support the state’s current law, which allows abortions in the first 24 weeks, with exceptions thereafter if the woman’s life is at risk or for fatal fetal diagnoses.

Marie Louise Bjelobrk

Bjelobrk, 55, is a physical therapist and small business owner who is seeking her first election to public office.

Bjelobrk said she hopes to ease residents’ property tax burden. The current structure is unsustainable, she said, and disproportionately affects rural, property-poor communities. Rather than replacing it with an income or sales tax, Bjelobrk said the state needs to attract new businesses to help broaden the tax base and to reduce the cost of government operations.

“State government is similar to a business setting,” Bjelobrk said. “And when not operating within the budget limits it will not run correctly, causing taxes to increase due to poor planning and wasteful spending.”

School budgets in particular need to be trimmed of “administrative bloat and wasteful overhead,” Bjelobrk said. The majority of education spending should be applied directly to improving classroom learning, including for the recruitment and retention of teachers.

Bjelobrk also is a proponent of school choice and the state’s voucher program, known as Education Freedom Accounts, which she said are effective uses of taxpayer dollars. She also said she opposed school funding for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, programs or for instruction in critical race theory, a set of ideas holding that racial bias is inherent in many parts of western society, particularly in its legal and social institutions.

Bjelobrk said that the state needs to prioritize upgrading and expanding its infrastructure, particularly stormwater and wastewater systems, which both received “poor” ratings by the American Society of Civil Engineers seven years ago. If elected, Bjelobrk said she would seek to increase funding to municipalities for wastewater by $65 million by diverting money from funds for affordable housing initiatives and state prison projects.

Rick Ladd

Ladd, 79, is seeking a ninth term in the New Hampshire House. A retired teacher and school principal, he currently chairs the House Education Committee.

Education and workforce development, two of Ladd’s top political priorities, are among the state’s major challenges, he said in an email.

Statewide per-pupil spending has increased 57% since 2012, while the student population in the past decade has declined 13%, Ladd said. Many schools face teacher shortages in critical subject areas, such as the sciences, mathematics and special education, though the average starting teaching salary in the state — “slightly higher than $40,000” — may make it difficult to attract highly-qualified candidates, he added.

“I am sensitive to disparity and inequities encountered in property poor schools,” Ladd said. “However, I cannot support either an income tax or sales tax as a remedy to fix education funding.”

Instead, the Legislature should reevaluate how state funding to school districts, known as Education Adequacy Aid, is collected, calculated and distributed, to give greater consider to communities with less property wealth or higher rates of students who need additional resources, Ladd said.

The state also needs focus on increasing funding to local districts for school building aid, special education reimbursements and career-technical education, he said.

If reelected, Ladd said he plans to propose allowing municipalities to request up to $100,000 in state aid to address infrastructure damage incurred in a state-declared weather event, such as flooding. A bill signed into law in August, SB 944, limits a municipality’s funding request to $25,000.

Greg Mathieson

Mathieson, 70, is a photojournalist, author and retired U.S. Army veteran who is seeking his first election to public office. If elected to the House, he hopes to help make taxes and living costs affordable, especially for senior citizens; expand broadband in underserved rural areas and to help fire departments with funds for equipment to protect against toxic carcinogens encountered while on duty.

“We can’t afford to have our heroes getting sick, much less the potential medical burdens on their families, our towns and departments,” Mathieson. “We need to see if the state could help with the costs of replacing (firefighters’) protective gear statewide, which is an expensive ticket item.”

On education funding, Mathieson said the state needs to focus on increasing school building aid to districts, as the costs of new schools or major renovations place a heavy tax burden on communities. The Legislature also should explore ways to increase the revenues generated by the state lottery for public education, he said.

“There seems to be a wealth of funding within the state coffers that isn’t being spent (including education reserves) that could be used if all sides could come together to spend it responsibly,” Mathieson said. “Funds from lottery ticket sales are supposed to be helping schools but (only 29%) in funding from that source makes it to the school districts.”

On infrastructure, Mathieson said he supports increasing the amount of state aid that a municipality may request to repair weather-related infrastructure damages to $100,000.

“Having worked (as a reservist) for FEMA for five years, it’s hard for our part of the country to mitigate for the heavy rain and snow that we get,” Mathieson said. “Much of mitigation goes into the initial construction of the roads and the early storm water management.

New Hampshire’s primary elections for state and federal offices will be on Tuesday, Sept. 10.

Patrick Adrian may be reached at padrian@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.