Candidate Bio: Cynthia Dokmo, Independent For State Rep

Amherst Patch has sent a candidate bio to all people running for state representative and state senate to tell Patch readers a little about themselves and why they are running for office. Bios will be posted as they are received and will feed into our Election 2012 topic page which can be found under the "News" tab above.

Cynthia Dokmo, Independent

Running for State Representative

Background/Education:

Gettysburg College, BA

University of Baltimore, JD

Certificate in Advanced Accounting, SNHU

Experience/Occupation:

Retired Attorney at Drescher & Dokmo, PA

Town Service:

Souhegan School District Moderator--14 years and counting

Amherst Planning Board, 14 years.

Amherst School Board, 1 term

Amherst Land Trust, about 6 years

Bertha Rogers Trust, Trustee, 9 years

Civic Service:

Milford Rotary, Member

Milford Rotary Foundation, Trustee

SHARE, Director, current Chair

Endowment for Health, former Director for 10 years, currently on Advisory Council

State Representative: 8 terms--various leadership positions

Co-founder of Restore the Center

Personal:

Family: Husband: Lew

Three sons

Amherst resident for 33 years

Why are you running?

For the past several years, our legislative leaders have increasingly chosen ideology and political dogma over thoughtful, fact based, common sense decision making.  Our representatives seem to no longer represent our best interests, but those of their political party and/or their ideology.  This is true on both sides of the aisle.

The resultant polarization has created such gridlock that the critical issues which we face are either not resolved or resolved with an extremist solution which is unworkable and unsustainable, often causing unintended consequences which are more serious than the issue originally addressed.

It is with this in mind, that [Bob Heaton and I] have decided to run for State Representatives as Independents in the November election.  We want to put the interests of the citizens of Amherst ahead of partisan politics.  We want to put the interests of Amherst taxpayers ahead of ideological driven solutions, which simply pass down the cost of programs from the State to the local property taxpayer. We want to put the interests of all Amherst citizens ahead of special interest groups and lobbyists.

If you agree with our philosophy, you can help by signing a Nomination Paper, which will enable us to have our names placed on the November ballot.  We hope to give Amherst voters more choice in November.

In addition, it will send a message to our current leaders that we demand that our representatives represent us in Concord. Please contact cyndokmo@aol.com or rmheaton47@comcast.net with any questions.