You Rose to the Challenge

by Angie Cardinal

Town voting day in Farmington has passed and it's time to congratulate each other on a job well done. I challenged the people of Farmington to increase voter turn-out by 10% compared to last year. Do you know what we did? 714 of us voted improving the turn-out by 35%. You rose to the challenge and are over-acheivers!

Congratulations to the Paraprofessionals on Warrant Article #4 passing, approving the cost items in the new agreement. Congratulations to all those elected or re-elected on Tuesday, as well.

Congratulations to the Farmington Police Department and Fire Department employees on moving forward with the Safety Building. This is going to be an exciting change for all of us to look forward to.

Overall, I look forward to our leaders in town (school included) working together in all efforts to better Farmington. We are all hoping to see new business, improved infrastructure, smart decisions and real improvements in our future. Would you like to get involved? I recommend you just show up at a meeting and observe the proceedings. Once you get comfortable with the topics, ask questions and find out how you can help. Vacancies on any of the committees, commissions & boards pop up all the time:

• Budget Committee
• Capital Improvement Committee
• Conservation Commission
• Economic Development Committee
• Planning Board
• Trustees of the Trust Funds
• Zoning Board of Adjustment

During this past Monday's Farmington School Board meeting, the board voted in favor of posting all non-public meeting minutes once the board approves each set, the same way the public meeting minutes are posted. Kudos to them for this change because this is a clear step toward improved transparency. The next school board meeting is planned for Monday, March 21 in the Farmington High School Library starting at 6:30 PM.

A School Board Candidate Should Provide a Resumé, Right?

by Angie Cardinal

Let's start focusing on improvement in the future, shall we? The next municipal election is about a month away and 2 seats on the Farmington School Board are up for a new term. I have filed as a candidate for one of those seats. 

Treating this opportunity to serve our town in a serious, long term position, I now share with you my resumé seeking your vote. When I think about voting in elections, I want to know what the candidate's qualifications and strengths are for that position. That's my intention in posting my qualifications, background and strengths on this blog as it's an easy way to tell you all about me as a candidate. Please share with other Farmington residents and feel free to contact me with any questions you may have!

Angie Cardinal

PO Box 432
Farmington, NH 03835

angiecardinal@gmail.com

Objective: To serve the people of Farmington, NH as a School Board Member for the next three years, or more.

Education:

• 1996 graduate of Ludlow High School, Ludlow, Massachusetts
• 2000 Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester, Massachusetts
• Internship/Project at the National Society of Professional Engineers in Alexandria, Virginia 
• Internship/Project at Baxter Healthcare Manufacturing in Cartago, Costa Rica
• Graduated with distinction
• Inducted into the Order of Omega honor society

Employment:

• 2000-2004: Procurement Associate for Pratt & Whitney's supply chain leadership program, a division of United Technologies Corporation in East Hartford, Connecticut
• Certification in Production and Inventory Management
• Supervisory role in a Union workplace
• Travelled through Europe as a Continuous Improvement Facilitator
• Managed joint-venture sourcing in China for the Hamilton Sundstrand division
• 2004-2005: Sourcing Agent for First Act, Inc., a guitar company in Boston, Massachusetts
• 2005-2011: Production Control and Industrial Engineering Manager for Intel, Massachusetts
• Learned and subsequently taught leadership strategies, including Continuous Improvement facilitation
• Earned numerous recognitions for leadership performance
• Achieved cost savings goals as sole manager of a balanced department budget five years in a row
• 2011-present: CEO & COO for the Cardinal household as stay-at-home mom to Anna (8) and Leo (5)
• 2014-present: Dedicated Volunteer
• Volunteer Coordinator for the Farmington PTA
• Volunteer Coordinator for the Farmington 500 Boys & Girls Club
• Coordinating volunteers for Valley View and Henry Wilson
• Initiated the community service volunteer coordinating program to help Farmington High School students find meaningful volunteer opportunities

Personal:
     I am a first-generation American born to proud, supportive parents, Jim and Maria. They met as teenagers and married right out of high school. They built a family in Ludlow, Massachusetts while demonstrating a tireless work ethic as small business owners of a tax-prep service, a travel agency and a disc jockey service, all while being active in their town and leaders in the church community. 

     My big, close-knit, Portuguese family always includes children of every age group. For example, there is only a four-year age gap between my younger brother and my oldest daughter. I was a single mother of nine years when I met my husband, KJ Cardinal. We married on Cardinal Hill in Farmington in 2006. We blended our families pretty easily considering we handled the teenage years with our daughter, Samantha, while rearing our two youngest babies, Anna and Leo, at the same time. Samantha is now finishing her bachelor's degree in Mathematics at UMASS-Dartmouth.

      While pregnant with our daughter Anna in 2007, I financially supported our family so KJ could go after his dream of starting his own business, Pack Network. In his first year of operation, he juggled his budding business with the role of stay-at-home dad to baby Anna. As a full-time working mother, I witnessed how fast our children were growing. So, we decided I can always go back to work, but we can't get our children's youth back. KJ's business was taking off, so we swapped roles...  he became our sole breadwinner in 2011, while I decided to leave Intel to become stay-at-home mom.

      In 2013, we moved our family to Farmington from Hudson, Massachusetts. KJ’s stories about growing up in this community and the friends we have made here set us on a course to make Farmington our forever home. The greatest motivating factor for our move is family. KJ's parents, Kim and Darlene, are the center of our "village" required to raise a strong family just as Kim's parents were the center of theirs. We assumed the family home from them and now all live under one roof just as Kim's parents did 36 years ago. Our bond with them has been the best relationship we could have hoped for. Ideally, I would have waited until Anna and Leo are a little bit older to seek a position on the school board but Kim and Darlene are the reason why I am able to balance volunteer and school board commitments with our family needs. This integration into our Farmington community is perfect timing. Our journey to Farmington is a unique one and we feel blessed we have been able to make the choices we have thus far.

Strengths:
Here are a few of my strengths as they pertain to the Farmington School Board:

• Culture change: it’s a slow, complex process. I learned a long time ago that members of a successful team, whether it be a family, a collective union of employees, a sports team, or a fundraising organization, have to work toward common goals. Those goals must be stated out loud, reminded and challenged on a regular basis. The mentality of “us versus them” (aka a partisan culture) rarely fits within a healthy team. When goals and motives are individual and conflicting, you end up with that partisan culture. From my observations, our most recent district leadership has shown signs of a dysfunctional team. Within the past month, the culture has begun to change and needs to keep improving. The taxpayers of Farmington need to feel they can trust elected board members to get the best use of their hard-earned tax dollars. All the uncertainty within the most recent budget cycle has caused many taxpayers to lose some trust in the majority of the current school board. Rebuilding trust is one of the most difficult culture changes to achieve. In my experience, communication and transparency of information and expectations is the first step in rebuilding trust. 

• Strong leadership: it’s just natural. My greatest belief when it comes to being a good leader is it must start with empathy. Balancing our stakeholders’ concerns (which means you have to seek out their concerns, actually listen and affirm you have a clear understanding) with your own belief in what is fair and reasonable is the key. My observations with our current board's culture is there is no interest in truly understanding all stakeholders' concerns. That’s what a real leader does: connects those points and shows others there is a way to reach that balance. This, to me, is what a high-performing school board member is: an elected leader who uses empathy to guide them in balancing the wants and needs of everyone affected in our district in a fair and reasonable way.

• Prepared, Passionate & Loyal: it's the only way. I was born a Lion and adopted by Tigers. Where I grew up, in Ludlow, MA, home of the Lions, I was able to learn in a strong school system and enjoy success as a student despite my personal challenges. I want the same things for my children, their friends, my friends’ children, and for this entire community of Tigers!  I am the type of person who takes on solving problems all the time because I enjoy being challenged. I do not shy away from difficult challenges. Instead, I prepare myself really well to make the best decision with as much information at my hands as possible. If I’m not prepared to make a decision or give an opinion, I go out and prepare myself. From what I have observed with our current board's culture, the level of preparedness is scattered. The majority of current board members are looking to the SAU to do all the preparation and data gathering while little research seems to be done on the board’s end. There is a great deal of deferral to legal advice, which seems to be hemorrhaging taxpayers' hard-earned money over recent years. I have observed the majority of the current board taking other people’s opinions of the law instead of directly learning the laws and regulations that govern our district. Our municipal government relies on checks and balances. I feel this structure really should work well for us as long as those elected or appointed perform their roles well. This means the five school board members have to be the leaders in this district, not simply follow along. Another form of preparation I have put myself up to is making connections with school board members in other New Hampshire districts. This way, I’m also learning how an effective school board conducts business and is supposed to operate, not just how it has always been in Farmington.

Thank you very much for allowing me the chance to tell you a little bit about myself. If you would like to discuss anything at all, I would love to sit down with you individually at your request to have open dialogue. My vision includes role modeling an approachable school board member in the hopes I will influence all the other board members to be the same. On March 8th, I would appreciate your vote. Go Tigers!

The purpose of the Deliberative Session, January 30, 2016 at 9:00 AM, FHS Gym

by Angie Cardinal

The Deliberative Session consists of explanation, discussion and debate on each article contained in the School District warrant. Non-voters may attend and seek permission to speak. Voters may amend a warrant article, subject to certain limitations: an amendment may not add a new subject to an article, an amendment may not change wording that is prescribed by law, and an amendment may not eliminate the subject matter of an article (such as inserting the word "not" thereby making the article meaningless).

The voters at the Deliberative Session may change the School District operating budget as long as the amendment does not increase the appropriation recommended by the town budget committee by more than 10%.

At Friday night's Budget Committee Public Hearing, it was obvious that at least two of the members' only concern was reducing the tax rate and that's their prerogative. The public commenters shared their serious concerns about cutting the School Budget too much for the schools to be successful and continue to improve as they have over the past few years. The budget committee kept the unknown health insurance savings in the budget for the school board to figure out on their own. We will have to wait for official information to be released before I can tell you exactly what decisions were made because I couldn't stay at the hearing past an hour and a half. If any readers stayed through the end and would like to provide input, please comment below or email me. Here is the article written by Dave Andreeson on fosters.com with some information.

We know now that we have to step up our role as responsible residents at the Deliberative Session on January 30, 2016 at 9:00 AM in the Farmington High School gymnasium. If you are already a registered voter in the town of Farmington, you are all set to participate at the Deliberative Session. If you are not registered to vote or are unsure if you are, you may easily confirm/register on January 19th from 7:00 - 7:30 PM at the Farmington Municipal Office located at 356 Main St. Just bring your ID, please. If you can't make it on January 19th, simply call 755-3657 as soon as possible to discuss your options.

Reference: RSA 32:18; RSA 39:2; RSA 40:13