Joyce Craig: Delivering economic growth for New Hampshire
Our state is in urgent need of a leader in the governor's office who will be a partner for communities across our state. Throughout our work in the legislature, we've been proud to achieve significant wins for Granite Staters, but our progress has been slowed by leaders who haven't understood the urgent needs in housing, education, and community services that our cities and towns face. Joyce Craig is a leader who understands that to grow our economy and help working families, we have to tackle our state's toughest challenges.
We hear calls from our constituents and business community that the biggest need is affordable housing. When Mayor Craig took over as mayor of Manchester after a decade of Republican leadership, there was no vision for the development of housing, and economic growth had stalled. After she was first elected in 2017, she got to work right away to put Manchester on the right path — and it's working.
Mayor Craig has worked tirelessly in Manchester to bring our state more housing. She understands what it takes to work in a community and incentivize affordable housing. Throughout Joyce Craig's six years as mayor of New Hampshire's largest city, the city has passed budgets that devote significant resources to creating more affordable housing. Her administration invested $10M into Manchester's affordable housing trust fund, and has worked directly with developers to incentivize building affordable housing units in the city. Right now, there are over 2,000 units of housing in development in Manchester, and even more are in the planning stages, thanks to Mayor Craig's leadership.
Where there is housing, commercial development follows to create a thriving, safe, and welcoming downtown. She has done this while keeping taxes low, under the property tax cap, and grown the tax base. We need a governor who will partner with local elected officials to do this all across the state, by partnering with developers and businesses.
New Hampshire's communities have so much potential, especially right here on the Seacoast, but they can't do it on their own. We need a governor who will commit available state resources, ensure a transportation policy including public transportation, to promote growth, and attracts the workforce we need to keep our economy thriving for decades to come.
For example, Manchester is now the center of a brand new bio-fabrication industry, which will bring hundreds of millions of dollars in economic development and thousands of new, high paying jobs to our state. And the city made history nationwide, after Mayor Craig's office secured a $44 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge Grant to support this emerging industry.
Mayor Craig's vision for New Hampshire includes creating good-paying jobs; supporting quality public education; developing affordable housing; and protecting reproductive health care. She knows that this vision depends on protecting our climate and on a clear message that hate has no home here.
As legislators committed to serving our communities, as Granite Staters passionate about the future of the state we love, and as parents dedicated to ensuring that all New Hampshire children see a place for themselves here, we stand with Joyce Craig.
The stakes couldn't be higher to elect a Democrat capable of winning by bringing together voters across party lines to be a governor for all New Hampshire people. New Hampshire can't pursue a bright future without leadership, and the time has come to decide whether we will invest in our children and workforce, or work to dismantle public infrastructure. We need to a governor who can proudly support New Hampshire values to bring us together to solve our problems and lead the state forward.
No matter the issue we face, Mayor Craig is the leader we need to tackle them, which is why we'll be doing all we can to elect her New Hampshire's next Governor in November of 2024.