I first learned about Carlisle in 1978. I was an obsessed fifteen-year-old fly angler in Afton, New York, newly in the possession of Vincent Marinaro’s book on the Letort, In the Ring of the Rise. I took that book with me throughout my 24-year Air Force career. When I started thinking about retirement, Carlisle and the Letort were at the top of the list. In 1998, the Air Force sent me to Arlington, Virginia. While there, my wife, Hiromi, and I had several opportunities to visit Carlisle and confirm that this would be home. I retired in 2005, and we moved temporarily to Arlington. In 2007, we attempted to purchase a home here, but the bank we were dealing with exposed us to the shady mortgage practices of that period. Disgusted, we backed out. The market crashed. Finally, we were able to buy a modest home in a working-class neighborhood in 2012. My daughter and grandchildren briefly stayed there in 2013-14, and I moved in full-time at the end of that year, an Hiromi followed a few months later. I have been an active participant in the community ever since.
I served on the board of the local Trout Unlimited (TU) chapter, as the regional vice president for the state TU council, on the board of the Carlisle Area Dog Park Association, as a Carlisle Borough representative on the board of the Letort Regional Authority, and as a volunteer with the Carlisle Area School District and the Audubon Society, providing stream ecology lessons for local second-, fifth-, and seventh-grade students. I spent some time on the Cumberland County Democratic Committee. I wrote a community column for The Sentinel for a little over a year. Since February of 2017, I have been running for Congress, first in the 11th District, and now, after the state has redistricted, in the 10th District. I am looking forward to fighting for you and your friends and neighbors to help build strong communities and a strong nation.
I spent two decades overseas with the Air Force, and have served in diverse and integrated communities here and abroad. Besides the Letort and other local fly-angling opportunities, I was attracted by the promise of diversity and integration hinted at by the presence of the US Army War College and Dickinson College. I have been a regular attendee at borough council meetings, and have seen there the best of the community working to help others. I was especially proud of this community when it rallied around the borough council’s discussion and vote to pass a Human Relations Ordinance and create a Human Relations Commission to provide protections for the LGBTQ community. We are among the leaders in Pennsylvania in doing the right thing on this issue. Having moved frequently in the Air Force and having been overseas for so long, it is really a treat to feel like part of a community, and as communities go, Carlisle is tough to beat.
I continue to wish that more people would involve themselves in the local, state, and national political process. I have been telling people on the campaign trail for over a year that political participation and voting are no longer merely civic duties. They are survival skills. If we want a future that we can survive, a future that our children and grandchildren can survive, then we must fight for it. One of my first community efforts here was to try to get voter turnout for the 2015 election up to 51 percent. I failed. I told the Airmen that I left behind when I retired in 2005 that I would try to increase the number of educated, informed voters as a way to help justify their sacrifices. I continue to work on that as part of my election campaign. If you can think of no other reason to rouse yourself to study the issues and candidates and to get to the polls, please think of the sacrifices others are making so that you have that opportunity. Then, please make use of that opportunity. Don’t squander it. Beyond that, I am thrilled constantly to see local citizens stand up to work on projects from cleaning streets and streams, to helping the homeless, to helping disadvantaged youth, and on and on. We cannot and will not fix every problem, but I know this community cannot and will not ignore problems.
really hope to see more people participating in the political process. My intention in Congress is to focus national efforts on helping at the community level. While the national economy has recovered from the Great Recession, many communities have not. Some continue to decline. We need to direct more resources and revenue into county and municipal governments and more money into people’s wallets. When communities have more money, they can generate more demand, attract more business, and create more jobs. Carlisle is fortunate to have a growing population that helps generate more demand. However, a federal government calling for the end of programs like Chesapeake Bay restoration, Community Development Block Grants, and personal help like SNAP and housing assistance, will strangle the flow of money into local economies, including Carlisle. That will stifle demand, hurt businesses, and destroy jobs. We cannot allow that to happen. We need more programs to spur more growth in demand, business, and jobs. Our nation has the resources for this. Carlisle and other communities in the 10th District and throughout Pennsylvania need this help, and so does our country. When we build strong communities, we build a strong nation. – Alan Howe, Candidate for 10th Congressional District of PA