A Year Later, The Concord City Council Tweaks Its Code Of Ethics

CONCORD, NH — Thirteen months after a ward city councilor was accused of conflict of interest, and 11 months after undertaking the task of tweaking language in the council rules, Concord city councilors approved new language for its code of ethics.

At issue was a vote cast by Ward 5 Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown in January 2022, a few weeks into her first term, concerning a nearly $12,000 donated by the Concord Public Library Foundation to the Concord Public Library. When the item came up for a vote, essentially a procedural vote to accept the money, an exchange occurred toward the end of the more than four-hour meeting between councilors as to whether Brown could interact with other councilors when a question about the organization was raised. Brown offered to clarify the issue but was told she would be in conflict if she did since it involved her employer.

After calling for a vote, Mayor Jim Bouley motioned to Brown, so she could recuse herself but she refused. Brown voted on the proposal and Bouley suggested the Rules Committee take up the matter, with some assistance from the legal department, to clarify whether Brown should have recused herself.

In March 2022, some changes were proposed, including removing the words “a person” and replacing them with “an officer or elected official,” since officers and appointees should also be included in the policy.

Several residents spoke about the changes, including some who defended Brown, even though she committed to rescuing herself from conflicts during a debate before being elected to the seat, since her husband is a Concord police detective. But the council tabled the changes for 30 days.

Another round of updates was made to the ordinance in April 2022, with the Rules Committee meeting again in May 2022.

From there, the issue languished and was placed in the council’s “unfinished business” section of its monthly docket for many months.

More changes were proposed in December 2022 and January, and the council took up the matter, without prior announcement that they would, on Monday.

Jim Kennedy, the city solicitor, gave councilors an overview of some of the language changes, including ones made last year, and clarified the definition of a conflict of interest, employees, and family members of employees. It also specifically created a conflict of interest when an elected official has a family member employed by the city, essentially barring them from anything connected to the employee’s job, including union negotiations and votes on proposals.

The revisions allow councilors and others to appear before the city’s political bodies if they are directly affected by an issue — like being an abutter to a requester of a variance or if they were an applicant, requesting zoning relief, planning changes or anything else, before a body. Officers are also banned from appearing on behalf of any private interest before a public body.

Kennedy was asked about “personal capacity” — the ability of councilors or officers to attend meetings and raise issues, not as councilors but as personal citizens and he said that would be allowed.

Brown raised the issue of being able to attend meetings and speak as a private citizen.

“As long as I state I’m a private citizen, as a personal opinion, that’s OK,” asked Brown.

Kennedy said it would be.

Zandra Rice Hawkins, the Ward 10 city councilor, asked if she could attend and speak at meetings on behalf of others who could not attend meetings. Kennedy said no, she could present her own individual interest but not another person’s interest.

Bouley said about a decade ago, councilors were never allowed to attend public bodies under the council rules, but that was loosened.

“We’ve come a long way from where we started,” he said.

The vote on the changes was unanimous.

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