The Legislative Ethics Committee decided that nearly $3,500 in donations raised by friends, colleagues and one lobbyist on a GoFundMe page to help an executive assistant to House Speaker Sherman Packard after a fire seriously damaged her home were exempt from the state’s ban on gifts to lawmakers and staffers.

On March 11, a fire that broke out in a single-family manufactured home at 576 Chestnut Road in Farmington forced Anastasia Childs from the home. She escaped unharmed with her pets.

The town fire marshal determined the home’s electrical system caused the early morning blaze that required she obtain temporary housing.

A month later, House Communications Director Jennifer Tramp set up a GoFundMe page to help offset Childs’s bills.

“She lost everything in the home to the fire. Joi

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