Sound Off About Concord Middle School Project, Charter Commission

CONCORD, NH — The city has the opportunity to tell officials how they feel about a new middle school project and minor tweaks being proposed by a commission performing a 10-year review of the SAU 8 charter.

The Concord School District Charter Commission will host second and third public hearings at 7 p.m. on April 12 and May 10 at the SAU 8 Central Office, in the basement of 38 Liberty St. The April 12 hearing will be “for the purpose of explaining, in general terms, the Charter Commission’s proposed Preliminary Report and receiving additional comments on its proposal.” The second hearing is for the purpose of discussing the preparation of the commission’s final report.

The Concord School Board will also be hosting a middle school project update in the Rundlett Middle School media center from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Specifics about the meeting were not available at post time.

To view all the middle school project documents, visit this link.

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Charter Commission: Few People Attend Hearings

During the first public hearing for the Concord School District Charter Commission, members discussed its preliminary draft report (linked here), which includes at least five potential ballot questions for the 2022 election.

The commission is proposing removing old language from the previous charter. It is also changing the name of District seats for the board to School Voting Zone seats to avoid confusion between the school district and the district seats. School Voting Zone seats are currently six members elected in clusters of wards around the city instead of city-wide. The commission will also propose requiring candidates to report their campaign contributions — something that does not currently occur with candidates. The proposal will also allow board members to set stipend amounts for members. The commission would also like the board to be able to appoint the treasurer and clerk positions instead of allowing voters to elect them. A final proposal would add an amendment to update and clarify local charter amendments and revision processes, specifically adding back 49B state provisions for procedural and voting thresholds — after spending so much time between 2008 and 2012 removing the district's charter from the state process.

As was known before the 2021 charter commission election, since most of the candidates who won said they did not support the provisions, members rejected looking at the government and financial autonomy of the district, rejected looking at a public vote for bond approval and selling real estate, and rejected looking at allowing residents to vote on labor contracts.

Members also voted 7-2 against increasing or altering the current number of school board members but made motions to consider changing the at-large versus district structure and whether to only hold board member elections in non-national election years. And they also voted 9-0 not to work toward considering the Concord School District and Merrimack Valley School District merging their systems.

During the public comment period, two people attended to make comments: Linda Mead, who moved from Bow to Concord in 2017, and Charlie Russell, a local attorney who has been involved in school and city issues for many decades.

Mead called the inability to allow residents to vote on new school buildings or budgets “taxation without representation” and said the members should allow the residents to vote on many of the provisions the commission had rejected.

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Betty Hoadley, the commission chairwoman, said she expected residents to show up and speak to that issue, but none had. The city does not have a town meeting form of government. Hoadley told Mead she was coming from one form of reality when other city residents had another reality, and members would not reconsider the proposals.

Bill Ardinger, a commission member, said voters had the power to influence budgets and projects by electing new school board members.

Tom Croteau, another member, said some public hearings have a lot of input while others are not well-attended.

Mead, however, countered that the boards and the people involved did not want to hear from the public. She called many of the city’s processes “cliquey.” Mead likened the reaction by officials to issues brought up by parents and taxpayers as like being “patted on the head” — basically, they were not taken seriously or listened to. People, she added, were very busy, often too busy to offer opinions, and, at the same time, parents and taxpayers knew the fix was in, and public officials did not care what they thought.

Charter Commission documents are available online here.

Bill Glahn, a commission member and past school board member both in the 1980s and the 2000s, said just because members did not agree with Mead or did not put a provision into the charter did not mean that they did not listen to her or anyone. Often, he said, those town meeting-like votes bring residents to consider what is more important, a teacher or a new fire truck? If Mead and others did not like what the school board was doing, they should vote them out of office; the only way to change things in a democracy is to go vote, he said — ignoring the fact that town meeting and votes on budgets and projects were another form of democracy the commission was keeping residents from having.

Ardinger also suggested Mead run for the school board.

Russell, who had attended a number of the meetings, made some procedural and draft suggestions.

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