[NOTE: Edited for length.]
Kristin Kassner, the one-term representative for Essex 2d District (comprising Ipswich, Rowley, Hamilton, Newbury, Georgetown, and half of Topsfield), who won her 2022 election by one vote, has pulled out of a candidates forum with her 2024 challenger Mark Tashjian, sponsored jointly by the Ipswich Democrat Town Committee and the Ipswich Republican Town Committee.
The campaigns had agreed to a forum where each of the candidates would address important issues of public safety, energy and the environment, housing, educating our children, and transparency on Beacon Hill.
Although Kassner’s senior campaign advisor, Elizabeth Kilcoyne, had agreed to the forum and even produced the digital and hard copy poster publicizing the event, Kilcoyne informed the Ipswich Local News on Friday October 4, less than two weeks before the event, that Kassner would now be pulling out because she has “a scheduling conflict . . . which is forecasted to potentially have critical legislation” and offered no alternative dates. Kilcoyne, having previously agreed to the format and the moderators, also stated she now had concerns about them.
The Ipswich Republican Town Committee believes these excuses are pretextual and reveal a candidate who is purposely evading the only live forum where both candidates will appear.
Kassner stated in that 2022 League of Women Voters forum that she was concerned about the recently passed Section 3A law (mandating changes to zoning laws allowing thousands of units of multifamily housing as a matter of right in communities like Ipswich and Rowley who host or are adjacent to MBTA stations), and pledged to seek amendments to the law to support the enormous infrastructure costs that would result through this influx of new housing. She didn’t, and now urges towns like Rowley and Ipswich to adopt the zoning restrictions. Her opponent, Tashjian, opposes adoption of 3A as an unfunded mandate and would seek to rescind it if elected.
Instead of fighting for her district, Kassner rubber stamped some of the more egregious laws ever passed by the Democrat controlled legislature.
Kassner voted lockstep with her Democrat colleagues to support $1 billion in migrant crisis spending, rejecting Republican attempts to prioritize residents, including homeless veterans, for emergency housing. Kassner voted for the controversial gun bill which gun rights advocates have argued is an historic attack on the 2d Amendment and places unnecessary barriers to law-abiding citizens seeking to own a gun. Instead of fighting for transparency, Kassner has aligned herself with her Democrat colleagues in opposing efforts by the State Auditor to audit the House of Representatives.
The Ipswich Republican Town Committee urges voters in Ipswich, Rowley, Hamilton, Georgetown, Newbury and Topsfield (Precinct 1) to attend the October 16 forum (7:00-8:00 p.m. at the Ipswich Republican Town Hall, Meeting Room A). Mark Tashjian will be there, and it is still our hope that Representative Kassner will reconsider to discuss her record and the issues of clear importance to the district.
Dan Kelly
Chair, Ipswich Republican Town Committee
