School District Charter Commission Approves Recommendations

After spending more than an hour fine-tuning its final report, the Concord School District Charter Commission voted on June 13 to send two ballot questions to the voters of this November. 

The first ballot question will ask voters whether or not they approve taking control of the district's charter away from the state Legislature. The second question is a proposal to change the way school board members are elected. Both ballot questions and the final report, after numerous housekeeping edits, were approved by the commission with a couple of dissenting votes. 

Commission members Kathy Conners and Chuck Douglas, a former state Supreme Court Justice and Republican representative to Congress, voted against putting the question on the ballot to change the way school board members were elected due to a provision requiring a 60 percent "super-majority" of voters for passage. Conners also voted against the ballot question taking back the charter from the Legislature and the commission's final report due to the inclusion of the super-majority requirement.

Douglas voted to approve the final report, but offered neither a pro nor con vote on the ballot question to take control of the charter. Douglas and Conners submitted a "minority report" explaining their opposition to requiring a super-majority vote to approve any initiative petition or citizen changes to the charter.

District school board representation

Former Concord Mayor Mike Donovan drafted and recommended the change on how school board members are elected, moving from a completely at-large system to combination of at-large and district seats. If approved by voters this November, Concord would have three at-large school board members instead of nine. Another six members would be elected in districts made up of city wards. 

Donovan said he created the proposal to get future school board members "closer to the people they represent." He noted that the proposal was not created as a negative reflection on any current board member. Concord is more than twice the size it was back when the at-large provision was created more than three decades ago, he noted. The change, he said, would give people outside of wards 5 and 10 "a better shot" of winning seats.

"Having to meet voters face-to-face is an important New Hampshire tradition," he said. "Running from a smaller district means that a person who may not be prominent but is well qualified, campaigns door-to-door, and actually looks people in the eye and talks to them, will have a chance of being elected to the school board."

Donovan said the 60 percent requirement was "a compromise" to get more support for the proposal.

Attorney Bill Ardinger, the husband of the current Concord School Board president, said he didn't believe there were problems with the current at-large system or that it needed to be replaced. However, the arguments made by Donovan motivated him to support allowing the voters to decide for themselves.

"While I may not personally be in support of the merits of the proposal, I am voting to place this on the ballot," he said. "It's well reasoned, it's well written, it's good work, and the voters should have a shot at it."

Conners agreed with the proposal because it would "be more democratic" and would allow people without huge name recognition to run and win. However, the super-majority requirement caused her not to support the proposal. 

"I will not support this question, just because it is 60 percent," she said. "One of the main reasons I ran for the Charter Commission is that it was my hope that we would have a ballot question that would have district representation. I guess I never anticipated that there would be a 60 percent (requirement) attached to it."

Conners added that it was "discouraging" for people in town who want to run for the school board but can't raise the money or make the time commitment to cover the entire city.  

"I would love to see it on the ballot without the 60 percent attached," she said. "I'm pessimistic that it will pass." 

Former Democratic state Rep. Jessie Osborne, however, countered that the change was badly needed due to the high cost of running for office.

"Having served in the district, I know first-hand what it costs, and it's quite a bit," she said. "I have lived here for 44 years and I've seen a lot of changes. I do feel that there are a lot of areas of the city that could contribute more but aren't able to because citizens aren't able to run. So I will support this."

The final vote was 7-2 in favor of the proposal. 

'Bringing the charter home'

On the main ballot question, taking the charter from the Legislature, Douglas stated that he supported "bringing the charter home," but was concerned about the super-majority requirement for future changes. He made a motion to replace all the 60 percent wording in the proposal with "50 percent plus one."

The motion was defeated by a 7-2 vote. 

Elizabeth "Betty" Hoadley, the chairwoman of the commission and a former school board member, said that the one thing that united all the members of the commission was the goal to bring the charter under the control of Concord voters. 

"There might be some parts of it that may be distasteful to certain members ... I would urge you, as the chairman, to support this, to send a strong message to the community," she said. 

Conners, however, said she wouldn't vote for it, noting that neither the city charter, nor any other school charter in the state, require super-majorities.

"I have a very hard time with something so monumental as taking back our charter, with local control, having a revised and new charter, and putting in an imposing 60 percent super-majority," she said. "If we are asking the voters to just give a simple majority to that big question, and yet, what they are voting on is a super-majority for all future amendments ... I can't support it." 

Osborne countered that if people in Concord were so intensely interested in changing the charter, they could gather the 60 percent to vote for the changes. 

"It's not uncommon for this to happen," she said. "Things can be done if you have the will. We need to be unanimous in taking this back to the city. I have full faith in the voters that they will do the right thing."

"A unanimous vote would be nice but I expect people to vote their heart … that is what they were elected to do … it's how they feel," said Clint Cogswell, a current school board member. 

Ardinger agreed.

"It would be a good thing if we could reach a unanimous report," he said. "(But) I respect Kathy's position on this."

Donovan said there would be an automatic Charter Commission election in another 10 years which would allow Concord voters to revise the charter again, if they thought it needed to be done.

The proposal was approved by a 6-1-1 vote. 

Hoadley then called for a vote on the final report, and after Ardinger commended the leadership of the committee and all of the member's hard work, the final report was approved by an 8-1 vote.