Another View: Concord Councilor Brown Still Spreading 'Chaos' After Mayor's Warning

By Damien Fisher, NH Journal

No, that wasn’t a deleted scene from the “Star Wars” cantina sequence; it was Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown appearing with conspiracy theorist Claire Best and her outspoken ally, state Rep. Ellen Read (D-Newmarket), on the Gracie Gato podcast.

After being warned by Mayor Byron Champlin that her recent unhinged behavior, mostly parroting Best’s unfounded theories, was creating serious problems for the city, Brown embraced her status as an “agent of chaos.”

“Because I’ve discovered the city is acting inappropriately regarding public funds, so if I’m disrupting illegal acts, and for that, they are calling me an ‘agent of chaos,’ I’ll own it,” Brown said on the podcast.

Top Left: Rep. Ellen Read (D-Newmarket); Bottom Left: Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown; Top Right: Gracie Gato; Bottom Right: Claire Best.

But Brown’s claims that she uncovered illegal acts by city employees are simply not true, according to Champlin’s warning letter last week.

“Fabricating or repeating allegations without evidence damages the credibility of the City and destroys the morale of our valued employees, volunteers, and your fellow councilors,” Champlin wrote.

Champlin did not respond to NHJournal on Tuesday. He is reportedly out of the country, having left after sending the letter to Brown. Champlin’s official warning and Brown’s public recalcitrance could mean a showdown when the mayor returns from vacation.

In January, after a major blowup with Brown during a council meeting, Champlin told the Concord Monitor that drastic steps would be taken. He reportedly instructed City Solicitor John Conforti to explore ways to remove Brown.

“The council, I think, is fed up … The general public does not see what we see,” Champlin said.

The general public is free to watch Brown at meetings, making unsubstantiated accusations, on YouTube, pushing bizarre “citizens’ indictment” theories with an anti-government felon, and now on podcasts, morally regressing. The spot on the Gracie Gato show featured Brown agreeing with Best that laws against adults soliciting minors for sex online should be revised.

Best’s journey from self-described Hollywood producer to becoming a conspiracy troll targeting the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence began with the 2015 convictions of Owen Labrie. Labrie was a senior at elite Concord prep school St. Paul’s School when he was accused of soliciting a freshman girl over the internet and sexually assaulting her.

A jury convicted Labrie on charges of misdemeanor statutory rape, misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child, and felony solicitation of sex from a minor over a computer. Best and her family have deep ties to St. Paul’s, and she formed a special bond with Labrie in the wake of the charges. Best believes that Labrie was framed as part of a wide-ranging criminal enterprise operated in part by the Coalition.

Best’s theories, which feature CIA mind control, child trafficking, fraud, and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, former U.S. Sen. John Sununu, and somehow a company that performs drug tests for retail employment candidates, became part of Read’s attacks on the Coalition this year.

Read tried and failed to push a bill that would have stopped all state funding for the Coalition pending the outcome of a House investigation into Best’s accusations. The bill was tabled last week when it went to the House floor for a vote.

After Read’s bill died and Brown received her warning from Champlin, the two joined Best on Gato’s podcast. Gato is perhaps best known in New Hampshire political circles for being busted while attempting to cast an illegal ballot on behalf of her dead mother.

She was a producing partner with Best. The pair tried and failed to get a docuseries made that would catalog “corruption.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.