CONCORD, NH — The Concord City Council approved $1.2 million for design and permitting fees for an updated Memorial Field on Monday night after a public hearing that lasted two and a half hours.
More than a dozen people spoke in favor of the project, including students, parents, sports boosters, and business leaders. A handful of people spoke out against the proposal, including a firefighter who said the city and the school district needed an agreement on usage and future maintenance, and a few Penacook residents, including two school board members from the Merrimack Valley School District who did not believe they should pay for upgrades due to the heavy usage of the facility by the Concord School District.
David Gill, the director of the parks and recreation department, gave councilors an overview of the updated plan, which included a nearly $10 million price drop from a previous presentation earlier in the year.
The new plan, about $22 million, was split into two phases: $13.9 million for the most important repairs, including a new track and field, lights, a press box, and expanded parking, as well as renovation and drainage repairs for softball and baseball fields that have not been done in more than five decades. That price tag has some wiggle room, since it includes 15 percent financial padding in case there are issues and back-and-forth among all involved over whether the main field should have sod or artificial turf.
Grants could also lower costs.
The school district had already issued the city a $600,000 check to jump-start the process.
Gill said the timeline would be a year for design and planning, with construction potentially starting in April 2028, if approved, and completion in April 2029.
The plan before the council was to approve $600,000 for the city's half and whether to bond that money or raid reserve accounts.
During the two and a half hours of public testimony, nearly every walk of life in Concord was represented.
Emma Sisti, a defense attorney who lives near the park and whose children play sports, spoke in favor of the project. She also spoke about the lack of field access for a lacrosse nonprofit she worked with.
Roy Schweiker, a former Concord mayoral and school board candidate, acknowledged there were issues with Memorial Field, but thought the plan needed to be scaled back.
"I hate to call it a 'master plan'… it seems like they've already got their plan," he said. "All they want to do is have some consultant, pay them a million dollars to rubber-stamp it, and say, 'This is a good plan'… once again, this is part of the usual part of the city's process."
Schweiker also thought there should be more study as to whether artificial turf was safe.
Katrina Malone, a parent and football booster, also supported the plan.
A softball player in the Concord Co-ed Softball League, she also confirmed flooding issues at both softball fields. The field, she said, "was not just for student athletes," and there were safety issues for the adults, too. She also said Memorial Field's condition was embarrassing.
Alan Robidas, a battalion chief with the Concord Fire Department, worried about the city-district arrangement, noting that a business would never agree to a deal without a written agreement. He said there should already be information about how the cost of the project is going to be split between the entities. Robidas said he had been filing LLC paperwork for more than a quarter of a century, adding, "I can honestly say, through the lens of my business experience, you have put the cart before the horse." He said the city had champagne tastes on a beer budget.
Robidas was also critical of the school district, saying that if they controlled the project, they would have built a stadium like the one the New England Patriots play on.
"There is no end in sight for the money they would spend," he said.
Alique Valeras, a Concord High School student who plays alto sax in the marching band and competes in track and field and cross country, mentioned the perils of trying to navigate bulges.
"We literally can't do anything about that because when we are marching, we're supposed to be looking forward, and all that nonsense," he said, to giggles from the councilors and audience. "It's hard for us to focus on both… playing and not tripping, looking professional."
Valeras and other students were praised by councilors for making public comments.
Robert Washburn, a former city councilor, said the field needed to be repaired, but he saw problems with the plan, including a lack of decision on the footprint of the renovations and how the design should be financed — borrowing instead of using the "ample surpluses available" to the city. He also agreed with Robidas but added he would personally pay for it either way, since he was both a city and school district taxpayer, but everything needed to be in writing.
Cortney Levesque, another booster parent, also supported the appropriation, saying athletic events had to be booked in other communities because of issues at the field.
Jennifer Chase of Penacook spoke about economic issues facing several people in the village and said they shouldn't pay, even though she had no problem with sports and enjoyed seeing Merrimack Valley students play. She also questioned the agreement and split with the school district. Chase pointed to more than 600 signatures from village residents opposing the proposal.
"We've been sitting on this for 12 years… I don't know why we can't take a couple of hours (to arrange an agreement)," she said.
Madeleine Mineau, a Zone A Concord Board of Education member with children involved in sports, also spoke in favor of the project as an individual, not as a board representative. She said using the field was a community endeavor, and many students have already missed home meets because of issues at the field. Mineau also pointed to the cost and usage issue, saying SAU 8 taxpayers paid 95 percent of the cost of the design proposal through city and district tax bills.
"I did want to bring that up," she said. "Certainly, the district does not use the field more than 95 percent (of the time)."
While not speaking in their capacity as Merrimack Valley school board members, Jessica Wheeler Russell and Tracy Bricchi spoke out against the expenditure.
Russell said the taxes were higher in Penacook "due to state funding issues" while not acknowledging her district had a town meeting form of government and members of the village and surrounding towns voted to preserve those higher tax rates. She said the district paid for its own athletic field repairs, around $182,000 annually. Russell said MV was being treated unfairly and pointed to SAU 8's usage of the field — ranging from 52 percent of baseball permits to 83 percent of the football field permits. She also criticized the more expensive artificial turf.
Russell also pointed to the district's free and reduced lunch numbers, noting they were higher than the state average and higher than SAU 8.
"We have a higher need in our community, and it shows in the numbers," Russell said.
Meredith Cooley of the Concord Greenspace Coalition and Chris Galbraith of North Branch Construction, also parents, spoke in favor of the proposal.
Several football players, along with Mike Leonard, their coach and a teacher at CHS, and Steve Largy, the district's athletic director, who had been working with Gill on the plan, also spoke in favor of the design funds.
Judith Kurtz, an at-large city councilor, said she would support the appropriation but also wanted to direct staff to bring a memorandum of understanding between the city and the school district.
"We have kicked this can down the road for long enough," she said, while also criticizing deferred maintenance at many of the city's facilities.
Ward 2 City Councilor Michele Horne spoke out against the proposal and offered a litany of reasons, with clear frustration, about what the councilors were being asked to consider, mentioning some of the same things as Robidas. Too many things needed to be resolved, she said, including revenue sharing, the lack of a concrete agreement, how access to playable fields would be decided and divided.
"These questions should be answered before we design, not after," Horne said.
Horne said there was an even bigger question: how much more can the taxpayers shoulder?
She later voted No.
Nathan Fennessy, another at-large councilor on the joint committee, noted Concord owned the field and that it was the city's responsibility, like other city holdings. Speaking about the animosity between the boards, he said things had improved with the school district when he was first elected to the council. Fennessy said he and Ward 10 City Councilor Jeff Foote met 10 times with school officials and cut costs by millions. He also said it was not an issue of just fixing minor things. Drainage repairs will cost millions of dollars.
Ward 9 Councilor Kris Schultz said she would vote against the proposal, and "hated that," and blamed the city and school system's financial woes on "decades of failed economic policies." She said those who benefited from the economic system should pay more. Schultz called herself "an FDR Democrat" and liked investing in projects.
"Too much of a burden has been put on the backs of the middle class, even the upper middle class, and working class, and poor (too)," she said.
She later voted No.
Ward 5 City Councilor Stacey Brown thanked Horne for her eloquence and said there were many "excellent suggestions" from the community but said it was too soon to approve the design funds despite the need. She then turned to a frequent target of hers, the Beaver Meadow Golf Course clubhouse project, and said it was embarrassing that Memorial Field was left in disrepair while the clubhouse was replaced. Brown also questioned the lack of an agreement between the entities.
When Fennessy asked whether she would approve the project if an agreement was already in place, she said, No, not without reading the specifics.
Brown later voted No.
Brent Todd, who represents Penacook in Ward 1, appreciated Horne's statement and encouraged staff to move forward with an agreement.
Foote said he would support the proposal and pointed to "so many positive things" from the community, calling it "overwhelming." Temporary fixes would not work and it is why the city is where it is today, he said. Foote added, "This is the capital city… we have to do better."
At-Large City Councilor Fred Keach said he would support it regardless of the lack of an agreement requiring the field to be repaired.
"We are going to need to do it one way or another," he said.
Ward 7 City Councilor Jim Schlosser said the Penacook residents need a fair shake, but it also needed to move it forward. He agreed not to appropriate additional money until an agreement was reached and the Penacook tax issue was resolved.
Mark Davie, of Ward 4, and Aislinn Kalob, of Ward 6, both "reluctantly" supported the proposal, with Davie urging staff to find grants and start a capital campaign to raise private money.
Kalob said, "It feels kind of like ordering from DoorDash and splitting it into four payments… I'm not loving the bonding aspect."
Kalob reviewed the records and found a 2012 report with recommendations that were never considered or implemented.
After debating whether to use reserve funds or bonding, and after a snafu involving voice or roll-call votes, the council approved the proposal 12-3, with $600,000 to be bonded.
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