“I love being the Shrewsbury chief advocate on Beacon Hill” – Getting to know Hannah Kane

By Juan Perfetti

Hannah Elizabeth Kane and her husband, James “Jim” Kane, arrived in Shrewsbury in 1997, almost 20 years ago. They represent a good story of a family determined to get involved in local issues and support the place where they decided to raise their children.

As you may know, Hannah Kane is the current State Representative for the Eleventh Worcester District, representing the town of Shrewsbury and a part of Westborough. Her husband, Jim Kane, is the current Vice-chair of the Shrewsbury Board of Selectmen.

They have three children -“actually 4, but one was stillborn,” Hannah explained. All of them go to the Shrewsbury Public Schools. Two girls in high school: Madison, a sophomore; and Kaitlyn a freshman. Their son, Patrick, is a first-grader at Sherwood Middle School.

Hannah’s mother’s family came from England in the early stages of the foundation of the country, and her father’s family is mostly from Ireland. James’ family is from Ireland. So, no doubt why their honeymoon was in Ireland.

The Kane family are parishioners at the United Church of Christ, First Congregational Church of Shrewsbury. James grew up Catholic and, according to Hannah, he jokes saying that he has “dual citizenship.”

Early steps

Hannah grew up in Southern Maine, a place that brought good influences. Her mother was a teacher and cemented her interest in local dynamics.

Asking about her public life, Hannah told me that she “always” knew that at some point in her life, she would do that. “I grew up in Maine, and Margaret Chase Smith was the Maine US Senator. She was the first woman to serve as both, US Representative and US Senate. She was a Republican, but also she was very moderate, she also broke rank with her party when she thought it was the right thing to do. I grew up admiring her,” Hannah said.

When Hannah was in high school, the family moved to Fairfax, Virginia, because her father started working at the President’s Ronald Reagan Department of Education. She enjoyed living closer to the Nation’s capital because of her “love of history.”

After high school, Hannah went to Boston University, where she started studying political science but then changed and got a Business Management degree in 1993.

As a student, Hannah lived in Brookline. After graduating, she moved back to Maine and worked as a Product Analyst at Unum Insurance Company.

Coming back to the Commonwealth

Being in Maine, Massachusetts Lieutenant governor Paul Cellucci asked Hannah to co-work with him at the State Government.

Hannah moved to South-end, Boston, and started working on two big projects for the Weld/Cellucci administration: the redevelopment of the former 4,400 acres Fort Devens Army Base, and the merger of two quasi-public state agencies into the economic development authority MassDevelopment as Director of Marketing and Product Development. Her work helped generate over a billion dollars in economic development across the Commonwealth.

Was at that time that she met her husband. James, who grew up in Marlborough, was the Deputy Chief Policy Advisor for Governor Weld and was going to work in MassDevelopment, the same agency she was working at.

The couple lived at James’ grandmother’s house for 8 months, and then, when they started looking for a place to buy, they “fall in love with Shrewsbury”.

Falling in love with Shrewsbury

After working on the Weld/Cellucci administration, Hannah returned to the private sector as vice president of marketing services for a consulting firm, developing and implementing business growth and marketing strategies for her clients. Then, most recently co-owned Beaton Kane Construction, with her partner and Shrewsbury resident, Mattew Beaton.

Shrewsbury is the Town where Kane’s family decided to buy their home and raise their children. But Shrewsbury has also become sort of a hub for a political generation with strong influence at the State level, and Hannah is part of that generation.

On April 2014, Hannah was elected State Representative for the town of Shrewsbury and part of Westborough, succeeding her business partner Matt Beaton, who at that moment was appointed as the Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environment. Hannah was re-elected on December 2016 to continue as State Representative for two more years.

Town dynamics

For Hannah, one of the Shrewsbury “hallmarks” is its “stability”: “Shrewsbury have stability and the boards work together,” she said.

I asked Hannah about the political parties in town and their role in the community organization and local government, and she told me that there are no political parties at the local level.

“It’s more about getting out, meeting people in your precinct, talking about the issues, making yourself accessible. I really enjoy the fact that we are not a partisan election at the local level,” she explained.

By the way, Hannah and James are both Republicans.

Talking about the diversity in the town government, Hannah expressed that “we can always do better” and explained that she is spending a “lot of time” talking to people about running for local offices. But she acknowledges that is an issue with multiple factors: “there are times when we are searching for town meeting members because there are not enough people to fill up the ballots,” stated.

According to Hannah, in order to be more diverse in the Town, we need to be welcoming in a general sense. “And there’s a lot of work done in Shrewsbury to reach out, in terms of making people know different ways to get involved in the Town. I do as much as I can to get the people involved. I particularly, try to get more women involved, at the state level and national levels. Even though in Massachusetts 51% of residents are women, at the State House and Senate only 25% of us are elected,” affirmed.

When I asked her what are the biggest challenges for the Town, Hannah told me that in the short term, the most critical issue is “ensuring that we make a good choice” in the hiring of the next Town Manager. (Current Town Manager, Daniel Morgado, is retiring on July 2017)

“We have had stable and consistent management because we had two excellent long-lasting Town managers. So, the transition is very important. We also have a good member of the department heads who will be retiring in the next few years,” Hannah explained.

In the long term, Hannah considers one important challenge to be expanding the commercial and industrial tax revenue for the town.

“We are almost 90% residential in Shrewsbury, so one of our challenges always has been expanding the commercial and industrial tax revenue”.

For this reason, highlighted that she would be “very happy” to see more tax revenue coming from the new Lakeway Common complex, under construction where the Old Spags was. “That was an area that was closed for years and we weren’t getting the tax revenue that we could be getting for that spot,” Hannah said.

The state level

Beacon Hill, the State House in Boston, is the place where Hannah Kane works to represent the interest of the people of Shrewsbury (and a part of Westborough).

According to her, Massachusetts is “very, very different” from what you may see at the national level in politics. “You don’t walk around the State House identifying Republicans and Democrats. I work with anyone, I don’t care about what party you belong to if there is an issue, an interest, or a policy, that I like to involve with…There are several bills that I filled that are co-filled with Democrats colleagues,” Hannah expressed.

“Reagan used to say ‘give me 80% of what I want,’ and that is sort of the philosophy that I always try to believe. Negotiation is to understand both sides of the issue,” Kane affirmed.

At the current moment, Hannah thinks the biggest challenge for the State is to understand what changes that are going to occur at the Federal level that would impact the State.

Immigration is “incredibly” important

I asked Hannah about immigration and she told me that having a path for legal immigration is “incredibly important” for Massachusetts, because we have immigrant students from all around the World in colleges and universities, and leaders in the healthcare industry, that many of them want to stay in this country.

“What you want to have for an immigration program is certainty and understanding of what the methods are, the legal path of immigration… I think that right now there is no clarity. But certainly, we are a country that is made up of rules and laws,” Hannah Kane said.

Marihuana: the problem is the commercialization

In 2016, Hannah campaigned hard against “Question 4” or the Marihuana legalization for recreational purposes in Massachusetts. But her position was “really less about legalization and more about commercialization”.

“It wasn’t a philosophical objection, because I do think there is a public policy problem where there are a lot of people using the drug and buying it on the black market, but I disagreed that the 24 pages question, which was largely written by the industry, was the right way to aboard this public policy problem,” Hannah affirmed.

Hannah Kane is a member of the Joint committee on the Marihuana policy of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and from there they are looking to make changes to the approved Marihuana legalization law to strengthen the public health and public safety components.

Plans for the future

“My hope and goal are to continue servicing in the House of Representatives. I love being the chief advocate for Shrewsbury and Westborough on Beacon Hill house,” is Hannah’s first answer to my question about her future.

“Our future is very strong, the future of Shrewsbury and the Commonwealth is very strong,” stated Hannah.

Related

Gallery: Hannah Kane interview with Juan Perfetti