Ward 5 Concord City Council Candidates Debate Access To Services

CONCORD, NH — For the first time in more than 14 years, voters in Ward 5 will have a new city councilor. Who that councilor will be though won't be known until Nov. 2.

Rob Werner, a climate activist who was first elected during a special election in 2007, after the death of Marjory Swope, a longtime city councilor, decided not to run in November. That lead two candidates, Stacey Brown and Mark Coen, to file.

Coen, a longtime at-large city councilor, who was also first elected in a special election in 2006, is the president of Page Belting. He stepped down in 2019 but decided to run again, saying he had missed being a part of the process. While in the Coast Guard, he met his wife, and they settled in Concord about five decades ago.

“During this time in Concord,” he said, “what I really appreciated was the act of all the citizens of Concord, at all levels, in city government and city volunteerism. It was it's very dynamic, very active, so I had a taste of that, very early on, in my life.”

Brown, a native Granite Stater, had some experience, too, with the council recently, as her daughter, Francesca, navigated the process of attempting to change the city's chicken ordinance. She said while it was her daughter who did the bulk of the work, the process inspired her to get more involved. Brown, an Army veteran, former civilian employee for the NYPD, and former intelligence officer, also works part-time for the library foundation.

“As we grew our family, we learned first-hand about the expenses of child care and, like many women, I put my career on hold to focus on the full-time care of our children,” she said. “We moved our family back to my home state of New Hampshire where we discovered and fell in love with Concord's vibrant downtown, tree-lined parks, and neighborhood communities.”

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of debates co-sponsored by Concord NH Patch, Concord TV, and WKXL 1450 AM and 103.9 FM.

One of the primary responsibilities of city councilors is working on the annual budget, which was $109 million this year. Property taxes have been held to close to 3 percent or less for a number of years.

Brown said she would like to go through the budget and make sure it “matched our values” and supported the community, including the construction of the Merrimack River Greenway trail.

Coen said the trail would have to wait until decisions were made about the Interstate 93 widening project and what would happen with the railroad which runs along the side of the highway. He added, while the council had held the line on taxes, it was only going to get worse due to increases in employee wages and benefits as well as retirement costs.

“That’s going to be huge,” he said.

Both Brown and Coen were against defunding or disbanding the police but also said they support Concord officers wearing bodycams.

Housing is also on the minds of a lot of capital city residents — vacancy rates in Concord are around 1 percent and during the past 20 years, the city grew by about 9 percent, including 3.5 percent during the past decade. At the same time, most of the recent construction has been high-end single-family homes with the city focusing on market-rate apartments downtown.

Brown called the housing issue “complex” and said she would like to speak to more people before issuing any statements about it.

Coen said, during the past 15 years, a number of affordable housing projects have been built while, at the same time, the fear of more children in the school system had not occurred. New England, he said, was an expensive place to live, due to lack of access to land when compared to other communities and states. Concord, too, was “an attractive place to move to.” The reality, he said, “is that it is not easy.”

Some activists during the Black Lives Matter protests last year insinuated the city was segregated. Brown agreed with the point and noted during the pandemic, services seemed to be segregated, too, with limited hours at the library at the community center on the Heights where more immigrant families reside. Coen, however, challenged this and pointed to economics versus tenants being segregated on purpose, due to more affordable apartments on the Heights, when compared to neighborhoods like the West End, which is located in Ward 5. After some back and forth, both candidates agreed that access to library services and other line items could be increased.

City residents could consider a number of political reforms in the future due to a new school district charter commission being proposed and even one proposal to merge the Merrimack Valley and Concord school districts, leveling Penacook’s school tax rate and allowing some of those smaller communities to join other regional school districts.

Both Brown and Coen said a merger was worth looking into with Brown saying she would like more information and Coen said the entire situation was more about “turf” than anything else.

“To me, it makes sense,” he said. “Maybe it will happen someday.”

When it comes to considering a change from a weak mayoral system versus a strong mayor system, Brown said she would like to hear more about the proposal while Coen said the city was run well with its current, strong city manager, system.

Both were asked about whether city councilors should be paid more. Coen was against paying city councilors more than the $1,000 stipend a year now while Brown said it was an interesting question since “the privileged few” were only able to be councilors.

“I would be willing to explore that,” she said.

On whether or not the city council should have oversight of the school district budget, Brown said she would “lean toward ‘yes,’” due to the influence on property taxes, but “my view is limited.” Coen said there have been occasional proposals in the past to change this that have always been rejected by voters.

“I’m not saying it’s good or bad,” he said. “But it’s the way that the citizens want the difference; they want it separated.”

Coen added that a lot of residents do not understand that the city council has no role in the school district’s budget even though they are constantly called about it.

Both candidates were asked about the construction of a $4 million new golf clubhouse at the Beaver Meadow Golf Course, whether or not a needs and benefits study of all the city's recreational spaces should be undertaken, and other issues, too.

Brown promoted the need for more tree canopies in the city, to keep temperatures down during the summer, as well as a greater focus on climate change. Coen said traffic was on the minds of a lot of Ward 5 residents due to a number of institutions in the ward.

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