Jonny Boston’s restaurant owner running for NH governor to be 'a voice' for middle class

NEWMARKET — Jon Kiper, long-time Newmarket resident and owner of Jonny Boston’s International Restaurant, recently announced he is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor to bring “a voice to the working and middle class.”

“I’ve been thinking about this since 2015,” he said. “I’ve been on a number of boards in Newmarket and the Town Council… I realized that a lot of the issues we were dealing with were systemic to the state and that there was no way to fix them from the local level.”

He is competing for the Democratic nomination against two well-known candidates with high profiles in the state: Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig and state Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington.

Chuck Morse, the former state Senate president, and Kelly Ayotte, the former state’s attorney general and U.S. senator from 2010 to 2016, are seeking the Republican nomination.

Kiper said he initially wanted to run for one of New Hampshire's 400 local state representative seats, but “couldn’t afford to” because legislators only receive a yearly $100 stipend. He said only the “rich and retired people who have the time” run, and those people “make up 75% to 80% of (state) representatives.”

“For too long, the voices of the working and middle class in New Hampshire have been drowned out by the wealthy elite,” he said. “It's time to elect representatives who know our problems because they’ve lived them.”

Kiper advocates for pay bump for state legislators

Kiper said his campaign “will draw attention” to the fact New Hampshire pays legislators significantly less than other states.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, New York pays its legislators $110,000, California pays $114,877 and Massachusetts pays $70,536. In neighboring Maine, legislators receive $15,417 for the first session and an estimated $10,923 for the second session.

“Every other state, it’s a job where you get a paycheck,” he said.

According to Kiper, proposals to pay legislators have been brought up in the past by “some of the less affluent state reps” but found no success. He likened the situation to companies having “unpaid interns.”

“The rich ones and the retired ones voted ‘No’ because they knew if they were getting a check, then there would be more people running, and they would have competition at the ballot box,” he said. "They treat it like a little hobby.”

Kiper said offering a salary would attract a more diverse Legislature.

Kiper: NH needs more affordable housing

Kiper said he would prioritize addressing the affordable housing crisis in the state.

One solution, he said, is modular homes.

“It’s cheap, you can do an assembly-line style, you can make houses small, you can stack them up to build apartment buildings,” he said.

Kiper said retirees have become the fastest-growing demographic in New Hampshire. Mathematically, he said, “you just cannot have a functioning economy when that’s the biggest group of people because we currently do not have the workforce to take care of them.

“The reason why we don’t have those people is because there’s nowhere for them to live,” he said.

Kiper said many town planning boards and zoning boards have shown hesitation in greenlighting projects focused on workforce housing and starter homes. A predominant concern, he said, is the potential increase in local property tax bills due to families with children.

“For years, the planning boards and town councils (in richer towns) didn’t want to build housing which might attract the workforce – let’s say 18 to 35 – because those people would have children and those children would cause their taxes to go up,” he said.

Kiper: NH needs to address education funding issue

Kiper said to increase affordable housing, the state needs to address education funding.

He said the current system of having local education predominantly funded through property taxes is not working. A Superior Court judge recently ruled New Hampshire is not adequately funding public education and must nearly double the amount it spends per student. The suit was filed by 18 school districts that accused the state of failing to meet its constitutional requirements to fund an adequate education.

At present, Kiper said, “municipalities bear 60% of the educational expenses for the children in their communities.”

Kiper said there needs to be a new funding formula that decreases reliance on local property taxes and instead uses a combination of state taxes to fund schools more equitably. He suggests using business enterprise and profits taxes to feed into a statewide education fund and for the state to consider new revenue streams such as proceeds from the legalization of marijuana.

Kiper: Campaign to highlight issues impacting middle class

A Stratham native, Kiper went through the SAU 16 school system growing up, graduating from Exeter High School in 2001 before moving to Australia to attend the SAE Institute in Melbourne to major in audio engineering.

Kiper opened his 20-seat restaurant, Jonny Boston’s International, in 2014, serving fusion food. He has been active in local government since 2019, having served on the Zoning Board, Energy and Environment Committee and Town Council up until 2022.

During his time on the Town Council, Kiper pushed the planning board to legalize tiny houses, created an ordinance to allow restaurants to sell alcohol on the sidewalk, and led the initiative for food composting at the town transfer station.

Currently, Kiper serves on the board for the Newmarket MillSpace, planning events and expanding the arts and business scene. In his free time, he enjoys hiking the mountains and spending time at the beach. He resides in Newmarket with his 7-year-old son, Ollie, and their cat, Duck.

Kiper admits he is late to the party in entering the governor’s race. His two other challengers Executive Councilor Cindy Warmington and Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig announced their candidacies in the summer.

Kiper said he knows he faces a tough challenge in winning the Democratic nomination for governor, but his main goal is to raise awareness about the issues important to the working and middle-class.

“I will definitely become governor one day – it might not be 2024 but it might be in 2026,” he said. “If either Cinde Warmington or Joyce Craig were to adopt some of the changes that I proposed, I would drop out tomorrow and endorse them.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Newmarket restaurant owner Jon Kiper joins race for NH governor