Concord Ward Redistricting, Columbus Day Public Hearings Monday

CONCORD, NH — When the Concord City Council meets on Monday, they will consider replacing the name of the Columbus Day holiday to Indigenous Peoples Day as well as changes to where residents vote in the city due to major shifts in population after the 2020 Census.

Ward 10 City Councilor Zandra Rice Hawkins requested to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day on Sept. 13 and wanted the change implemented without a public hearing. After debating the issue, councilors rejected just changing the name. They did, however, accept a proposal to change the name and place it on the docket on Monday for public debate.

Three times during the past two weeks, a redistricting committee made up the mayor, at large city councilors, the former Speaker of the House, and other politicos, with the help of city officials, eyed new Census data and past ward lines to reconfigure the city’s voting wards. A number of proposed new ward maps were put together by the planning department while members also brought in their own ideas and concerns with the current ward configurations.

Many shifts were required, affecting thousands of residents, after significant growth in Penacook and northwest Concord as well as some growth in East Concord and the Heights — but diminished residency in the West End, the North End, and downtown neighborhoods.

The remapping required major changes to Wards 3 and Ward 5 but only tweaks to other wards — while a newly elected city councilor was redistricted out of her district but later, moved back in.

Columbus Day Change: Mixed Response

City councilors are eyeing three submission packets of emails concerning the name change request.

Inside, there was a mix of opinions on the change. Some support it while others oppose it. Not all opposing the change were of apparent Italian descent. A least one resident wrote the holiday should be eliminated entirely and not renamed while another suggested keeping the holiday but also naming another date in August, September, or the day after Thanksgiving, for city workers to honor indigenous people.

A handful of residents were also surprised the city council was even considering the topic — suggesting there were more important things for the councilors to be focused on.

Final Maps Offer Major Changes

During its first meeting, members of the redistricting committee were given maps and a homework assignment — to eye population growth, current ward configurations, population shifts, and deviations needed in each ward to come into compliance with 5 percent deviations due to past lawsuits.

Other goals included ensuring potential polling locations like a school or large meeting halls were located and actually be inside every voting ward. Ward 9’s voting location, the community center on Canterbury Road, is actually located in Ward 8 and needed a shift — which would require other voters to be moved into another ward on the east side of the city. Members also voted to include the prison population as a Census block even though none of them are allowed to vote.

At its second meeting in late October, members eyed a proposed map.

The shift of the 193 voters around the community center was easily resolved by moving 144 residents from Sheep Davis Road and other streets east of I-393 into Ward 8.

Members raised concerns about residents clustered along the border of the Concord and Merrimack valley school districts, Fisherville Road, and Manor Road and those were shifted around.

Another issue raised was whether it was a good idea to move nearly 425 residents in West Concord near Penacook into Ward 5 from Ward 3 requiring them to vote near City Hall, as much as six or seven miles away.

Another was whether Havenwood residents, who historically have voted in their own building, would be split into two wards (that was changed, keeping them all in Ward 9).

Yet another issue raised by Roy Schweiker, who attended the second meeting, was where the prisoners would be located and whether they could be split up based on a drive between both the men’s and women’s prisons. He suggested the placement of all the prisoners in one ward, anywhere from 2,200 to 2,600 people, would essentially eliminate half the population of a voting ward, around 4,400.

There were also some questions as to whether or not a Census Block next to the prison, with 406 residents, was the women’s prison or residents (it turned out to be residents, according to a check by Jim Kennedy, the city solicitor).

At Thursday’s meeting, more maps were eyed and a lot of the problems were resolved.

The 406 people around Penacook Lake who were in Ward 3 previously were moved to Ward 5. Other tweaks were also made.

However, during a discussion of the newly configured Ward 5 map, Sam Durfee, a senior planner with the city, said his new map redistricted Stacey Brown, the councilor-elect from Ward 5, out of the ward, something he did not realize at the time the map was created.

Since Brown had not been seated yet, there was some discussion about whether the change could be made without seating her in January, since the new ward lines would nullify the old lines. Kennedy called it “a double-edged sword” and wanted to look at the legal ramifications of such a decision. He said while the law required ward councilors to actually live in the ward they represent, voting on that map would undo the democratic process the ward voters just went through on Election Day.

Nathan Fennessey, an at-large councilor, asked if any other councilors or school board members would be affected by the changes and no one believed there were.

Steve Shurtleff, a state representative from Penacook and a former at large councilor, said when the Legislature reformatted the districts, all of them would be up for re-election regardless of the map changes. He also said it might be better to make a change and save money on a special election for the city, too.

Mayor Jim Bouley said he thought Durfee's latest map was “logical,” but the voters “acted in good faith” and “we should respect their choice” and adjustments should be made.

Most of the members of the committee verbally agreed with the effort to make the change.

Durfee proposed shifting 196 voters between School and Centre streets into Ward 5 and then shifting 289 voters around Bishop Brady, Jennings Drive, and Liberty Street, into Ward 4.

The change was agreed to and the maps were also approved and forwarded to the council.

Precedence For Not Redistricting Candidates Out Of Wards

When creating districts, the residency location of candidates and potential candidates, as well as establishing boundaries to create favorable or unfavorable conditions for political parties or groups, cannot be a factor in the establishment of the mapping, although there is some precedence.

The process of worrying about where candidates live or where parties are strongest is called “gerrymandering” and it is frowned upon — with a lot of political hay made about gerrymandering, on both sides of the political aisle, too.

But the city has made these changes in the past so there was precedence for Brown being protected with a shift back into the district.

In 2011, as another redistricting committee was eyeing changes after the 2010 Census, a proposal was made to move a section of Ward 5, about 250 people who lived between I-89, Clinton Street, and the border with Bow, into Ward 7. Steve Henninger, the assistant city planner at the time, noted the change would have forced Rob Werner, the Ward 5 councilor, into a different district. The area was then moved back into Ward 5.

Another proposed map change in 2011 also shifted District 5 Road, a part of Ward 3 where Jan McClure, the city councilor at the time lived, into Ward 5. That was also nixed.

Another issue in 2011 was changes made to the ward lines which moved two potential candidates at the time out of their districts — Jennifer Kretovic, who was in Ward 2, was proposed to be moved into Ward 3 while Kris MacNeil was being moved from Ward 3 into Ward 4. At the time, MacNeil was challenging McClure for the Ward 3 seat and Kretovic was running for the open Ward 2 seat with Allan Herschlag (Kretovic would win by 11 votes and be redistricted into Ward 3 later; she would lose a challenge to McClure in 2013 but would win the Ward 3 open seat and get re-elected to the council in 2015; MacNeil would lose the challenge to McClure while her Walker Street home was redistricted into Ward 4).

Then-state Rep. Mary Gile, a Democrat who lived on Penacook Street at the time, was also redistricted out of her ward. She later ran for one of the two Ward 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 floterial seats and easily won. Gile passed away in October 2019.

Bouley proposed a charter amendment question to the 2011 ballot to change the process of ward redesigns to become an ordinance change and that was approved easily at the polls in 2011. Also during the 2011 map configuration discussions, Concord eyed six and nine ward designs, in an effort to get all of the Merrimack Valley School District families into a single ward, but rejected those concepts.

New Voting Locations

Also being proposed? New voting locations for Wards 4 and 5.

If redistricting is approved, Ward 5 residents will vote at the Christa McAuliffe Elementary School in 2022 while Ward 4 residents will vote at the Green Street Community Center at 39 Green St. between the police station and city hall, the former Ward 5 voting location.

Bouley thanked Jim Richards, the president of the Concord Board of Education, who was also on the committee, for allowing the city to use the McAuliffe school in 2022.

“(The city) shares facilities for recreation,” Richards said. “I think it’s just a cooperative aspect of the two bodies.”

There were comments about parking around the McAuliffe school but city officials said they would work to set aside areas for handicapped drivers and voters as well as improved signage, too.

The Concord City Council meets at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 8, in the city council chambers at 37 Green St. Councilors will be meeting from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in a non-public session to discuss acquisition, sale, or lease of property.

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