Joe Kelly Levasseur Voted to Override Tax Cap in 2015
Alderman Who Touts Himself as Tax Cap Defender Claimed Vote on Teachers Contract Was A “Revenue Cap” Override
MANCHESTER, NH — Self-proclaimed “Tax Cap” Protector Joseph Kelly Levasseur voted to override Mayor Ted Gatsas’ veto of a teacher’s contract that exceeded the tax cap in September 2015.
Levasseur did not vote to ratify the teacher’s contract, which passed by a 10–3 vote and triggered Gatsas’ veto.
Gatsas vetoed the contract as he claimed the tax cap was part of the City Charter and he was bound to toe the fiscal line.
School Board member John Avard, who helped negotiate the contract, claimed that not passing the contract would cost the city $400,000 a month. That did not change Gatsas’ mind.
Joe Kelly Levasseur was one of the 11 aldermen to vote to override Gatsas’ veto.
The bête noire of Ted Gatsas, Joe Kelly Levasseur was having it both ways, voting against the teachers contract and then voting against the mayor’s veto that would have prevented the contract from being implemented.
The Union Leader interpreted his actions as a vote to override the tax cap. Its perception was Joe Kelly Levasseur had voted to override the tax cap.
When I last appeared on Levasseur’s public access TV show in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as President in November 2016, Joe rankled me when he went into his into his tax cap protector shtick. When I brought up his vote to override the tax cap, he exploded, claiming that he voted to override the “revenue cap.”
His co-host Ed Sapienza looked uncomfortable when Joe went off on me.
On the show, I expressed staunch anti-Trump views. Levasseur — in many ways, the Ur-Trump — had morphed from a Mitt Romney supporter into a rabid Trump acolyte.
Nobody quite knew how that phenomenon would play out, but we should have, as Joe Kelly Levasseur was the Trump of Manchester, New Hampshire before Trump became the Joe Kelly Levasseur of the United States of America.
Joe did not like that I had pointed out the truth, about his overriding the tax cap. He never had me on his show again.
To understand Joe Kelly Levasseur’s character, or lack thereof, remember this: Levasseur gave credit for his 2011 alderman at large win to Mitt Romney, who he claimed helped New Hampshire Republicans.
When I would visit him at his old law downtown law office, there was a ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT sign on the couch in the waiting room.
After becoming a member of the Trump Über Alles cult, JKL would trash Romney in accordance with his leader Der Furore’s anti-Mitt tantrums.
Former New Hampshire Democratic Party Kathy Chair Kathy Sullivan laughed when I told her that Joe Kelly Levasseur had turned on me.
She said, “Joe will be your friend for two years, and then your mortal enemy for two years after that. It’s a cycle.”
We have never become friends again. The cycle was broken.
