Candidate Interview Transcript

NH State Rep, Carroll County District 3: Bryan Randolph (D) and Karel Crawford (R)

Source: Conway Daily Sun video interview, published October 14, 2026 (about 29:40). Also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCJnEI8wtsc

Moderator: Daymond Steer, Conway Daily Sun reporter

About this transcript: it comes from YouTube’s automatic captions. I removed filler words (“uh”, “um”) and repeated words, corrected names and places the captions misheard (for example “conquered” to Concord and “Carol” to Karel), and added speaker labels based on context. A few attributions are judgment calls and are marked. Check the video before quoting anyone directly.

[0:14]  STEER:  Hello, I’m Conway Daily Sun reporter Daymond Steer, and I’m joined by Carroll County District 3 Representative Karel Crawford, a Republican, and her challenger, Democrat Bryan Randolph. Thank you for coming today.

[0:30]  CANDIDATES:  Thanks for having us. / Yeah, thank you.

[0:32]  STEER:  I guess we’ll start off with your background. How long have you both lived in the area? Professionally, what have you done for work, that kind of thing? I guess we’ll start with Bryan.

[0:42]  RANDOLPH:  Sure. My name is Bryan Randolph. I live in Moultonborough with my wife, and we have a six-year-old daughter who is in first grade this year at the Central School. Big shout out to the Central School. We love it; she loves it there. We’ve been in Moultonborough since 2013. We moved up here after I finished a master of social work and a master of outdoor education at the University of New Hampshire. Currently I work as a licensed social worker; I’ve been licensed for about the past 10 years. I work for a group practice in Plymouth and work with people of all ages: adults, families, children, first responders, veterans. I also have a contract with the Inter-Lakes School District, so I’m in the public schools two days a week. Really excited to be here. Thank you for the opportunity, and I’m really looking forward to it.

[1:26]  STEER:  You’re welcome.

[1:27]  CRAWFORD:  Hi, my name is Karel Crawford. I live in Moultonborough also, and I have lived in Moultonborough for 48 years. I live there with my husband, who is a retired New Hampshire state trooper. He served for 25 years with the State Police. I have two grown daughters and three grandchildren. My two daughters were brought up in Moultonborough K through 12, went on to college, and now they live in different states. My background: I’ve served the town of Moultonborough in several different capacities for the last 38 years: school board, select board, and then 14 years as a state rep. I represent the towns of Moultonborough, Madison, and Tamworth. For the last six years in Concord I have taken a leadership position: I am the clerk of the statutory committee of Transportation. I enjoy that very much, and it really gives me the opportunity to work with all parties. I would say our committee is one of the best in Concord.

Professionally, I own Red Hill Driving School. I’ve taught driver education for the last 28 years. I’ve worked in Moultonborough and Inter-Lakes, and now I work in Plymouth, where I have the contract. I love working with 16- and 17-year-olds. They keep me young.

[2:54]  STEER:  And did you know each other previously?

[2:59]  CANDIDATES:  No. First time we met.

[3:00]  STEER:  And then I guess we’ll start with Karel. Why are you running?

[3:07]  CRAWFORD:  Well, I think you’ve asked me that before. There’s always work to be done in Concord. I feel that with my experience in town and school and my job, there’s a lot that can be done better, and there’s a lot that can be done in Concord that hasn’t been done. With my experience and my connections down there, and it does take a lot to reach across the aisle, I’m a very open person and, I believe, a very independent thinker, and I think Concord needs people like me. Let me put it that way. That’s one of the reasons why I’m running.

[3:49]  RANDOLPH:  Sure. To boil it down very simply, I believe in serving others. I grew up in Pennsylvania in a hardworking family where money was tight and our fortunes kind of waxed and waned depending on what sort of scheme we were involved in at the time. So I have a very strong urge against people that take advantage of other people. My values were shaped early by family and by youth group. I remember volunteering in soup kitchens as a child and being a little hesitant at first, a little afraid at first, but that was really early on where I learned that if you take the time to talk to people and you listen, the people there weren’t bad people. They were there because they needed help.

Really, every career I’ve had throughout my life has been focused on service in some way or another. I’ve worked in mental and behavioral health for over 20 years. As a social worker, I hear every day about the needs that people have right here in our community. It’s not an abstract thing for me. It’s families who can’t afford their home, seniors who can’t afford their home. It’s people who are in bad situations who can’t afford to leave because they can’t find a place to rent. It’s people who continually see their services cut, and it’s just the current climate.

One of the most concerning things to me is when I’m working with teenagers, over and over again, I hear how they feel hopeless. They feel like they don’t have a future. I could only sit on the other side of the couch for so long and listen to that before deciding somebody’s got to do something, and we can do things. I believe in people. I believe in serving people, and that’s why I’ve decided to run.

[5:20]  STEER:  You both work with young people. To broaden that a little bit: is there a particular reason they feel so hopeless, and are you having the same experience? Your interaction with them is different.

[5:32]  CRAWFORD:  My interaction is definitely different. To be honest, when the kids are with me, it’s because they want to be with me, because they want their driver’s license. If conversations get too heavy in the vehicle, I really do stop that, because I’m not there to be a social worker; I’m there to be a teacher. But I see a different kind of kids, I guess. I find kids having a lot of energy and a lot of hope and dreams. I love to hear about kids’ dreams. I do let them talk about that, because it makes me happy when I know kids are looking forward to their future.

[6:18]  RANDOLPH:  Yeah, I also obviously enjoy working with teenagers, and not just teens but working with youth about their dreams. What concerns me: like I said, I’m in the schools. I see people at my office in Plymouth and in Meredith and Sandwich. I see the need. I see those dreams slipping away from students who have concerns: Am I going to have a place to live? Am I going to be able to find a job? Am I going to be able to afford to live in New Hampshire? So many young adults that I work with don’t stay in New Hampshire. They go to school here and then they leave. I talk to so many seniors and families whose children are moving away. I talk to so many people who are afraid of not being able to keep their home. So I am inspired by the youth and I enjoy working with them. I’m also deeply worried about the anxiety and the stress that seems to be on the rise in all of us.

[7:05]  STEER:  Now, there’s a tax cap constitutional amendment on the ballot. I don’t know too much about it, and I just wanted to get your two cents on how you feel about it.

[7:20]  CRAWFORD:  Sure. I’ll let you go first. Try to explain it.

[7:24]  RANDOLPH:  Yeah. My problem with the question (it’ll be Question 2 on the ballot) is that it’s very complicated. It was put together in a pretty rushed fashion, and it crams a lot of questions into one. There are two questions there. One talks about capping the budget so it can’t rise past the previous year’s inflation plus new development. The other talks about administrative fees within the SAU.

I’ve been studying the thing for months, and I’m still pretty confused by it, especially in our district, where we have Moultonborough, which has one town and one school, but we have Madison and Tamworth, whose students go to elementary school and then come to Kennett here in North Conway for high school. It’s a little confusing as to how that will work, because one part of the question refers to towns and one part refers to SAUs. If Madison and Tamworth vote for the cap but North Conway doesn’t, how does that interact? I haven’t found a good answer to that question yet.

I think we need to be responsible with our spending. I have lots of thoughts about schools and school budgets. I think there are better ways we can be responsible with spending. This question is top-down. It comes from the state onto towns. We already have a process for controlling school budgets. I think this question is too complicated and it’s going to have too many unintended consequences. That’s why I’m encouraging people to vote no.

[8:38]  CRAWFORD:  I agree with some of the things you’re saying, absolutely. To be honest, at the beginning of the whole process I was a definite no. Then I listened, because what you have to understand down at the legislature is you’ve got people at the well debating a bill, and I try not to make a decision until I hear the debate, because you could change my mind very easily with statistics I didn’t hear before.

When it came down to the tax cap, I was concerned that the state was overstepping. I was concerned because it’s a local issue, and I’m all about local issues. I like local control. When it finally came about and I saw that it was really keying in on administrative cost, it rang a bell with me. When my kids went to Moultonborough Academy, things were different. It was a long time ago, and we had one principal in the high school and one principal in the elementary school, and the middle school was taken care of by the high school principal. Now we have three administrators, I believe, and we have a superintendent for one district. We’ve always had that, and we have a lot of cost up front that I think, with a little bit of strategy, can be taken care of. But in Moultonborough, you’re talking about up to 6%. I don’t think we would go over 6%.

[10:16]  RANDOLPH:  (attribution uncertain) I think 6% is the increase over the previous year. That would be the administrative costs, over 6%.

[10:24]  CRAWFORD:  6% over, right.

[10:26]  RANDOLPH:  And the budget is capped to inflation.

[10:29]  CRAWFORD:  Inflation, exactly. Tamworth and Madison, like you said, it’s a different situation there. I think a three-fifths majority is going to be very hard to pass in a lot of districts. Although we might have a huge turnout in a lot of districts just because of the tax cap. If it passed, I can see going in and tweaking this bill big time, because you’re right, it is very convoluted in certain sections. I’m not going to say yes or no to it at this point in time, but I think three-fifths is a big challenge, and I don’t think it’s going to pass in many districts.

[11:14]  RANDOLPH:  Well, that tweaking, I think, is part of the problem. I think this bill is going to cost more in administrative costs, paying people to figure it out, and in legal fees from people challenging it, than it’s going to save.

[11:23]  CRAWFORD:  Well, I guess we’ll have to see.

[11:25]  STEER:  Now, if a special education student comes in, obviously they need the care. As far as I can tell by this bill, it’s not going to affect special education?

[11:39]  RANDOLPH:  No. On the surface, the way it’s written, it should not. The problem is, when you’re capping costs to inflation, we all know that prices right now are not staying in line with inflation. We know the cost of fuel, the cost of energy, the cost of materials. So we can say we’re capping our budget to inflation, but prices are outpacing inflation, and at some point there’s only so much room to cut. We can say we’re not going to take away from classroom instruction, we’re not going to take away from special education, but school districts are going to be forced to make choices to stay under this cap. And we like local control. Management likes flexibility; they like the ability to make decisions unique to that school. With this question, we’re not having meetings. We’re not sitting down and giving people a chance to talk it out. It’s being imposed on people, so it’s going to take away a lot of that flexibility.

[12:24]  CRAWFORD:  But you have to remember that the cap is for two years, and then you’re going to vote on it again after two years. It doesn’t start until 2028, I believe. I did take some excerpts out of it. It doesn’t include school-based administrative staff, classroom instruction, instructional support services, special education services, transportation, food service, or facility operations and maintenance. So there are a lot of things it does not include. And honestly, if we did have that cap, we could vote to go over it. We have that flexibility. So it is convoluted, and I know it’s a hot-button issue for everybody. I think we just have to see how it turns out.

[13:19]  STEER:  This next issue is near and dear to Conway’s heart, but I think it would apply to Moultonborough and maybe to a lesser extent Tamworth and Madison. Conway is a tourist town, as everybody knows, and the influx of tourists means a larger population that town services have to take care of: fire, police, ambulance, public works. All of that is beefed up because Conway is not a town of 10,000. It’s a town of however many people end up here at the moment, and that could be huge in the summer, or in the winter when ski season is going. So the town has been pushing Concord for a couple-dollar fee on top of per-night lodging stays, and they would like that money to go back to providing some of these services, like fire and police. It hasn’t been able to get through Concord yet. I’m wondering how you would look at that. I’m not sure who we start with first.

[14:28]  RANDOLPH:  You do that one first. I took the tax cap.

[14:31]  CRAWFORD:  (laughter) Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t believe I voted for that; I think I voted against it. The only reason I voted against it is because you’re targeting one town. Moultonborough probably could benefit from that; we’re a tourist town, and we’re really low on police, though our fire is good. But the bottom line on that whole bill was that it targeted just one town.

[15:01]  STEER:  You mean it was targeted toward Conway?

[15:03]  CRAWFORD:  Conway only. That’s how I interpret it. I believe that’s how the bill came up.

[15:10]  STEER:  I’d have to look. There have been several iterations of this bill.

[15:14]  CRAWFORD:  If there are, I’m not aware of them, but I thought it was just for Conway. If it were for the whole state, you’re talking about another tax, basically. I think it should be up to local control. If the state opened that up for every town as an enabling bill, to allow towns to do what they want, then I’m all for that. Yeah, I’d be all for that.

[15:37]  RANDOLPH:  Yeah, I’d have to look more at the specific language of the bill. Opening it up to be voted on by town, that would be interesting. I do think those are the types of solutions I would like to look into. I’d like to look into those types of taxes rather than putting so much pressure on the property tax. At the top, we really have a philosophy problem. I think we have people at the top of the GOP who wish to reduce government to the point of it being eliminated. We need to be efficient with government, but we need services. When we continually cut business taxes, when we continually cut taxes that support services, when we continually cut fees and programs, that money has to come from somewhere, and it gets put on the towns and on property taxes.

So I would like to see proposals like that. I’d have to look at the language, but are there ways we can raise money from corporations, from people coming here from out of state to spend money, rather than from an elderly woman I talked to two weekends ago in Tamworth? She had lived in her home for 30 years, and she was terrified she was going to lose it because she couldn’t afford her property taxes. She couldn’t get people to come out to her house to do work she needed, because no one can afford to live here. Businesses can’t hire employees. So I would love to see solutions like that. Again, we have to look at the language to make sure it’s not causing more harm than good, but we need to work on all this pressure that’s coming down on property taxes.

[16:53]  STEER:  I do remember a lot of tourist towns were banding together to support that legislation. I think Portsmouth, and I can’t remember the others; there were a whole bunch. Those bills bounce around so much in Concord, but we’ll look for that. Going back: if reelected or elected, what committees would you sit on?

[17:20]  CRAWFORD:  I’d stay on Transportation. Transportation is what I know. It’s where I’ve been for 14 years. It’s a great committee. It doesn’t matter to me who’s chairman or who’s in the majority or the minority, because we all get along. We’ve always gotten along. That’s where I’m staying if I get reelected, for sure.

[17:42]  STEER:  Now, when you say transportation, that’s not like highways?

[17:45]  CRAWFORD:  That’s not highways. On the state Transportation committee, we cover speed limits, we cover licensing. Right now, I’ll be down there next Tuesday to cover two bills we have to settle on and exec, for motor-driven cycles, because nobody knows where to put those electric bikes. We’ve been working on that for a few years, to be honest with you. That’s really what we do in Transportation.

[18:19]  STEER:  I’ve been completely baffled by the car registration issue. I know you worked on it a little bit.

[18:27]  CRAWFORD:  I don’t think we talked about it. You mean registration or inspection?

[18:31]  STEER:  Oh, I’m sorry. The inspection.

[18:33]  CRAWFORD:  Yeah. I’ll be right up front: I didn’t vote to eliminate inspections. What I was looking for, and what we’ve tried to get from the Department of Safety and the Division of Motor Vehicles, was something that wouldn’t eliminate inspections entirely but would at least inspect the important things: brakes, tires, things like that. But I have to be honest, that hearing was a very interesting hearing. It was loaded with people. I think we had two people asking us to keep it, and the rest said get rid of it. It was all because of garages that were dishonest with people, saying you can’t have your inspection because of a little bit of rust. It was the deception of it, I think, that turned people off to inspection. I thought we could really work together and make something that would be safe, because safety is my thing. I’m all about safety. So I was kind of disappointed that that passed.

[19:40]  STEER:  And is it still in the courts, or I guess we’re not doing our inspections?

[19:46]  CRAWFORD:  I think everything has been pretty well taken care of. I think the last thing is the environmental piece, and I believe they’re going to be exempting New Hampshire.

[19:57]  STEER:  There are a couple of questions in there. So, Bryan, what committee would you sit on? And do you have a point of view on the inspections?

[20:04]  RANDOLPH:  Sure. I don’t know that one as well, but I have talked to several people in Moultonborough specifically, some garage owners who are very concerned about it. They’re very concerned about having unsafe cars on the road, and because they run legitimate businesses, they’re worried about losing revenue. I don’t have a strict opinion on it, because it’s not an area where I’ve put most of my focus, but I have talked to a lot of people who are very concerned about it and about the implications. I agree that unethical practices are frustrating, so I think we need to look at that.

As far as committees, I feel Health and Human Services would obviously be a logical fit with my background in mental health and social services, and education is also something I’m really passionate about. So I’d have to decide between those two. But I certainly think we could look at the way we are helping people in this state, and we need to invest in our people. I would love to invest in people rather than giving cuts to wealthy corporations. When we invest in people, we all do better.

[21:02]  STEER:  I guess we’re going back to Karel. Are there any topics you would like to discuss or tell people about?

[21:09]  CRAWFORD:  I think the biggest issue I want to deal with, to be honest with you, is donor towns, because I don’t believe people understand the consequences of getting rid of SWEPT. In 2025…

[21:29]  STEER:  Tell people what SWEPT is.

[21:30]  CRAWFORD:  SWEPT is the excess statewide education property tax you collect on your taxes. It’s basically kept by your town. Moultonborough would be the premier donor town if SWEPT were taken away. In 2025, we had a bill that wanted to do that. It didn’t pass Ways and Means, and it didn’t pass the House; the House vote was something like 201 to… (number unclear in captions). And I’ll be honest, every Democrat voted for that bill. They voted yes to get rid of SWEPT. I don’t think people realize, especially in the town of Moultonborough, how critical that would be, because of the anticipated money we would have to give to other districts: about $5 million out of our budget. We would have to come up with $5 million after we gave that to the state, so the state could distribute it to Manchester, Nashua, all those towns that are looking for money for education.

But you know what the sad part about donor towns is? That money isn’t going directly to education, because there’s no mechanism to point it that way. That money goes to reduce taxes in other towns. It’s never been a mechanism for education; it has never been directed toward education, because there’s no mechanism to do that. The money is distributed, and the towns can do with it what they please. So I believe it’s taxation without representation. No, absolutely not. I don’t want my $5 million going someplace else. I want it to stay right in Moultonborough. That’s how I feel. The donor town issue is an important one for me.

[23:11]  RANDOLPH:  So I’d love to respond to that.

[23:14]  STEER:  Sure.

[23:15]  RANDOLPH:  You can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe New Hampshire hasn’t had donor towns since 2011.

[23:22]  CRAWFORD:  Yes, but…

[23:23]  RANDOLPH:  Right. So I know we’re not currently doing that; I hear there was a bill to do it. This is a complicated issue, and I understand. I live in Moultonborough. I really appreciate the schools. I love our school. My daughter was born during COVID, and she was extremely shy. She did the universal 3K and 4K, which Moultonborough offers for free, and it was life-changing for her. She was super shy and delayed in speech, but because of those programs, now she won’t stop talking. She’s six years old and she’ll talk your ear off. She made friends. She got to go to the school, meet the teachers, and get to know the building. I can’t imagine her going into kindergarten without those programs. So I understand that in Moultonborough we take our school seriously. We take our budget seriously, and we don’t want to impact people negatively here.

I also don’t believe that just because she was born in Moultonborough, only she should get those services. That really bothers me. I don’t believe we should have such high inequality between our towns and our schools, where because you are lucky enough to be born in a town with a lot of property value and a low student population, you get tons of services, but if you’re unlucky enough to be born in a different town, you don’t. That bothers me. And I believe there’s a way we can do it that’s more fair, one that isn’t just taking money away from towns. I believe we need people in Concord who can talk to each other and work together to solve problems. That’s where my experience comes from: listening, talking, and making solutions.

[24:44]  STEER:  It does seem like there’s a disparity between Moultonborough and, say, Tamworth, and you’d represent both. So how do you…

[24:50]  CRAWFORD:  That’s a conundrum. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Tamworth’s tax rate is different than Moultonborough’s, and Madison’s tax rate is different than Moultonborough’s. Representing all three towns, it’s very difficult to come up with a solution. How do you make those all equal? Does Moultonborough give Tamworth and Madison money? I don’t see that happening. I really don’t.

I agree that maybe we should get along better down in Concord. I’m one of those people who gets along with people. I have a lot of friends on the other side. But what is the solution? Years ago, they had a formula called the Augenblick formula that they used to disburse money to all the towns in New Hampshire. Unfortunately it wasn’t fully funded, but Moultonborough never took any money from that formula, because Moultonborough didn’t need it, and other towns didn’t need it either. That’s how the donor town thing came about, when Claremont filed their lawsuit. So I don’t know what the total answer is to make it fair to everyone.

I live in Moultonborough because that’s the town I chose to live in. That’s the town I chose for my family to grow up in. My husband got transferred to Troop E. It used to be in Moultonborough…

[26:22]  STEER:  Where is it now?

[26:23]  CRAWFORD:  It used to be in Moultonborough. Now it’s in Tamworth.

[26:26]  STEER:  Oh, I see.

[26:27]  CRAWFORD:  Yeah. Moultonborough was its base back in the old days when we moved here. But I totally agree that property taxes are high. We can’t stop the DRA in Concord from giving us a valuation that is astronomical, 7-something billion dollars. That’s the equalized value, and that’s how they do property taxes. I’m never going to vote for an income tax or a sales tax. Never. I will never do that. As for the interest and dividends tax, that really is an income tax. You’re taxing people’s interest on their 401(k)s and their dividends. To me, that is an income tax, so I’m glad we got rid of it.

What other taxes can we use? I’ll tell you, the state of Maine right now is $1.4 billion in the red, and they have a property tax, a sales tax, a lot of taxes. My daughter lives in Maine. She is taxed to death over there. So what is the answer? They have all those taxes, yet they’re still in the red. We’re in the black. We have a great reserve of funds in our coffers. I don’t know. If you can come up with an answer, that would be great. Maybe you’d run for governor. (laughter)

[27:51]  STEER:  Well, there are a couple of minutes left. Do you want to respond quickly?

[27:55]  RANDOLPH:  Yes. Right now, I will solve the entire problem of the budget for New Hampshire. (laughs) No, it is complicated, right? On interest and dividends, I would be in favor of bringing it back but raising the limit. I think the income threshold was very low, and I would be in favor of raising it. When it was in place, the majority of that tax was paid by people at the very top. And business taxes have been consistently cut, in a way that benefits large corporations. They’re not doing much for small businesses. A half a percentage point isn’t really going to do much for a small business, but it could be millions of dollars in lost tax revenue from a company like Walmart.

Part of the reason we’re in the black is that we did a tax amnesty where we brought in $170 million from businesses that had not paid their taxes over the past 10 years. That really helped our budget this year. We’re not going to have that next year. So I think instead of cutting taxes, we should be collecting the taxes businesses already owe, because they aren’t even paying the ones they have. Why should we give amnesty to businesses that haven’t paid? Why should we waive fees for businesses that haven’t paid their taxes and then reward them by cutting their taxes even further?

[28:57]  (speaker unclear):  Yeah. Why do I have to pay taxes if they don’t?

[29:00]  STEER:  Anyway, we’ve got a couple of minutes, or 30 seconds. We are with the District 3 candidates, two of the four in the district. There’s so much more we could talk about. This is Bryan Randolph, Democrat, and Karel Crawford, incumbent Republican, and the election is November 3rd?

[29:17]  CANDIDATE:  November 3rd.

[29:18]  STEER:  So you’ve got your choice between these two and two other people.

[29:21]  RANDOLPH:  It’s been an honor. I’ve really been enjoying the process, and I’m looking forward to talking to everyone soon. I ask everyone to vote. It doesn’t matter what party you are. Please, this is not an election you sit out. Please get out and vote on November 3rd. Thank you so much for having us.

[29:33]  STEER:  You’re welcome. Thank you for coming.

[29:35]  CRAWFORD:  Thank you.