5 Concord At Large City Council Candidates Vie For 2 Seats In November: Watch

CONCORD, NH — Five candidates, one incumbent and four challenges, are competing for two four-year at large city council seats and will be on the ballot in all 10 wards of the city on Nov. 7.

The incumbent at large councilor Nathan Fennessy as well as Taylor Hall, Matthew Hicks, Judith Kurtz, and Kevin Porter all participated in a debate on Monday at the Concord TV studios at Concord High School. Concord NH Patch, Concord TV, and the New England Take podcast are hosting the 2023 debates.

In an opening statement, Kurtz said she and her husband moved to Concord to raise their family after living all over the Northeast. She grew up in a small town, surrounded by farms, and called Concord a beautiful place. If elected, she hoped to encourage transparency and consensus-building in government.

Porter works in housing, specifically raising capital to allow manufactured homeowners to “buy the land underneath their homes,” he said, operating as co-ops. Housing and energy were two of the critical issues facing the city. Porter has lived in the city for about nine years and has been a regular visitor for two decades.

Hicks, who grew up in Concord, moved back to raise his family and has lived all over the city. As an educator, state representative, and planning board member, he said the city's most crucial issue was affordability, with escalating taxes, housing costs, and energy.

Hall said he was raised to have a sense of community and had lived for about 10 years in New Hampshire. He and his wife settled in Concord about five years ago. He said leaders who supported their communities could make the city a thriving place to live.

Fennessy said he was asking for four more years to build on the progress made during his first term. He said expanding the tax base was an important priority if elected to a second term.

All the candidates agreed that with Mayor Jim Bouley stepping away after so many year, it could create instability and opportunity on the council, since there would be a new mayor and at least four new councilors, too.

Fennessy said the transition would be “very important,” and Bouley was leaving the city in a much better place. He said meeting with all the newly elected officials to get a feel for where they are coming from which would set the city “on a great path.”

Hall agreed Bouley had done a lot and said the next council had to work to ensure stability, including revenue-neutral policies, and continue to build the community.

Hicks said the mayoral candidates had “big shoes to fill,” but there were also incumbents who would assist the new faces. He suggested bringing council meetings to different parts of the city, like Penacook and the Heights, to educate people on how they can be more involved in the government.

Kurtz liked Hicks’ idea and said new leaders needed to work hard to learn about everything happening at the city council. It was an opportunity, she said, to eye the next 10 years as well as zoning and the master plan.

Porter said he traveled a lot as part of his job and learned a lot while visiting other places. He called the city “special,” and everyone was running to see Concord thrive and succeed.

Homeless crime problems have been exploding in recent years to the point where, in 2022, more than 20 percent of all arrests in Concord were homeless people. At the same time, councilors are essentially volunteers. The candidates offered some ideas on what could be done.

Porter said the issue was “a serious concern,” but one bright spot in the crisis was assisting veterans with a housing-first model.

“(It) makes all the sense in the world,” he said. “It’s hard to get a job or store your clothes or anything else if you don’t have a place to rest your head.”

While it was hard to build more housing, Porter said it was essential to find ways to expand units. He also called on the council to work with other organizations and said he supported first responders whose jobs had greatly changed.

Kurtz agreed with supporting public safety and said affordable housing was part of that support so police and firefighters could live in the community. She called on the city’s homeless committee to work with other organizations together so they would not “undermine each other’s work.” Kurtz said reorganizing the committee and tracking the data from the new police social worker’s effort — “(it) should free up other officers to respond to violent crime.”

Hicks said hiring a social worker was a step in the right direction. At the same time, the police department was understaffed, down more than a dozen officers. He suggested separating the homeless population into those unhoused by choice and those in other situations — so that those who want to be housed can find opportunities.

Hall said at different points in his life, he had been a couple of paychecks away from homelessness and called for empathy. At the same time, he wondered how many were not from Concord and said orgs and others should help those who “truly, desperately need help.”

Fennessy said the police department was down 19 officers and that a low amount of staffing could not be sustained for an extended period. The lack of patrols, too, was making it challenging to keep crimes from being committed. At the same time, the city has made “some big strides, at least in the last four years,” in getting new units into the queue, including a mix of market rate, workforce, and affordable.

“It’s very significant,” he said. “There’s been an increase in supply, but, obviously, there is a lot more we can do.”

The candidates were also asked about tax rates, the huge solid waste tax increase on the horizon, the pay-as-you-throw program, ideas about economic development, whether councilors should be paid more considering the suggestion childcare and transportation be paid for councilors and people attending meetings, the Beaver Meadow Golf Course clubhouse project, and Memorial Field meetings with the school district.

Watch the full debate below.

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• Matthew Hicks, Concord City Council At Large Candidate
• Kevin Porter, Concord City Council At Large Candidate
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