THE WORDS SOUND GOOD.
THE RECORD TELLS A DIFFERENT STORY.
Kristin Kassner built her priorities page around three promises:
Driving Progress. Developing Community. Delivering for You.
But when those words are compared with the public record, they fall apart.
Driving Progress?
Driving means taking the lead. It means originating proposals, building coalitions, negotiating with leadership, and moving legislation across the finish line. It means leadership.
Kassner’s page mostly describes bills she supported, votes she joined, and initiatives led by other people. Casting the same vote as nearly every other legislator is participation. Attending a task-force meeting is participation. Adding your name to someone else’s work is participation.
Riding along is not driving.
Developing Community?
Communities are developed through sustained relationships with constituents in those communities. That requires meeting personally with residents, returning calls and emails, attending local meetings, helping people navigate government, and remaining involved when there is no ceremony or camera.
Presenting a certificate, cutting a ribbon, or appearing for a photograph may be part of the job. It is not the work that built the business, completed the project, or strengthened the community.
Showing up for what the community created is not the same as developing community.
Delivering for You?
Delivery means producing a completed result. The legislation passed. The grant was awarded. The funding was released. The problem was solved.
Yet Kassner’s page includes bills still in committee, legislation still under negotiation, bond authorizations that may never be funded, grants pursued by towns, and programs created or administered by others.
Supporting something is not delivering it. Announcing something is not securing it. Taking credit after the work is finished is not the same as doing the work.
If the initiative has not passed, been funded, or reached the people who need it, it has not been delivered.
The Second Essex District has seen active, persistent representation before. Senator Bruce Tarr continues to demonstrate it. Former Representatives Lenny Mirra and Brad Hill demonstrated it.
Residents deserve more than appearances, announcements, and borrowed accomplishments. They deserve a representative who will do the work before the ribbon is cut and remain after the cameras leave.
Kristin Kassner’s list of so-called accomplishments turns riding along into driving, appearing into developing, and announcing into delivering.
It can be different.
Dan Kelly will be present for the people. Dan Kelly will do the work.
Dan Kelly will make the people’s priorities his own and produce real tangible results.
