School Charter Reform Questions Hearing Shows Deep Divide In The Concord Community

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Hearing Reveals Rift In Capital City

While the primary motivation was the middle school issue, the commenters’ comments showed that the continuing rift between new or newer residents demanding new buildings and long-time residents who think the projects are too expensive and school taxes are too high is still intact.

This, nearly a generation after the elementary school consolidation project began in 2005, which led to the destruction of structurally sound historic buildings in the city.

With the exception of a few speakers, nearly all the opponents of the questions were new residents to Concord or parents of younger children, mystified as to why a new middle school, which will cost close to a quarter of a billion dollars when interest is included, had not been constructed yet. At the same, nearly all the proponents of the amendments were long-time residents of the city frustrated with the autonomy of the board and district and their fiscal decisions.

Elizbeth Lahey of Mountain Road opened the hearing, opposing the amendments.

Lahey was concerned about the length of time it would take to build a new school at Rundlett compared to the east side. She also worried about losing state aid.

Molly McCrum of Hayward Brook Road, who works for the district and is also a parent, said the proposal of requiring a vote would “hinder flexibility,” “delay necessary decisions,” and “increase bureaucracy and administrative burden,” which would consume time and resources. She wondered if people would be so active in future decisions.

Robert Mancini, who gathered signatures, said he was disappointed in a legal notice offering a negative connotation to residents trying to regain voting rights with these two processes. Instead, he said, people should “accentuate the positive” — by empowering voters to make choices about their schools, choosing locations to minimize the heavy load taxpayers bear, and choosing locations that preserve wildlife and trails. He added it was a sharing of authority with taxpayers, not removing authority of the board, which would improve healthier communications and the city’s well-being.

Rebecca Mancini said one of the issues between the public and the board was trust — something that was crucial to restore. Allowing the public to play a role in the decision-making process would accomplish this, she said. The voters should have “a greater part” in “the farthest-reaching decisions, which the ones the amendments speak to.” The past, where the board makes decisions for and has no requirement for citizens to be a part of any decision, she said, had passed.

Stephen Michlovitz, an abutter to the project on South Curtisville Road, also spoke in favor of the amendments. He said voters should be able to make decisions and criticized a new plan to have a traffic committee 10 months after already deciding to build the project on the east side.

“This decision should have been made prior to that vote,” he said.

Michlovitz said the board had been silent about other studies and work done and did not address any of the existing safety concerns. He also wondered how students from three schools would be evacuated safely in an emergency like a plane crash or bomb.

Charlie Russell, a long-time resident and another proponent of the amendments, said they were constitutional and offered the citizens the right to redress when government structures were not representative. Many provisions exist for the public to vote during this process, he said. Russell also cited the state’s “right of revolution,” Article 10. Change was inevitable, he added.

“Reform is what this petition seeks to do,” Russell said.

Debra Samaha, a resident of 45 years who raised two children in Concord, said she had lost confidence in the board and its autonomy. She also rattled off a bunch of “F words” to convey her thoughts. Those words included frustrating, forsaking their responsibility, fiscally irresponsible, and that she was fed up. Samaha said she was tired of hearing the board cut people off during meetings and blaming the community for delaying the project when the board had fritted away time.

Dan Reilly, another longtime resident who raised children in Concord and was a former police officer, called himself a member of the “great silent majority.” He called on everyone in the community to come together and decide how money was spent on big-ticket items for the school system.

“We have to keep in mind that we can’t tax senior citizens out of their homes,” he said. “Shortly, I will be a senior citizen. I’d like to stay here in Concord for my golden years.”

Reilly noted the new elementary schools had not been paid off, and the board should not have spent money the community did not have.

Another long-time Concord resident, Lynne Bloomquist, said not everyone knew what was going on but they deserved the right to vote. She was concerned about traffic but called the building plans “beautiful” while adding, “I’m not sure that is what we need or want.” Student populations, too, were changing, and the focus should be on needs, not wants, and not buying everything on credit, as people do with their home budgets, she said.

Rebecca Lovell opposed the amendments, calling them “reactionary” because they were connected to the change in the school’s location and would delay the project. She noted the project had already been in the works for eight years. The delays, Lovell said, could raise the project’s cost due to higher costs.

“Our community and the education of our children should not have to wait any longer,” she said.

Lovell worried Rundletts’ roof could collapse, or something else might make the school inhabitable. She also suggested most residents “do not have the bandwidth to keep on with everything going on in Concord” while raising families and working full-time. Lovell said change was “hard” and added the process reminded her of her children, who often want to change the game rules when they start to lose.

Chris Galdieri, another parent, however, supported the amendments because it was a vote of “no confidence” against the school board. It was necessary, he said, to look at the cause of why the amendments existed: Because in December 2023, “as far away from a school board election as possible,” there was a 6-3 vote to build the school in East Concord. Two votes to move the school were by members on their way out the door. One was appointed to the seat, he said. The board also gave no reason for moving the school before deciding to do so, which he called “striking.”

Instead, Galdieri said, there were “weird grudges” by members about certain parts of the city.

“Can I get a show of hands about anyone who hired a babysitter to be here?,” he said. “No? I didn’t think so.”

Galdieri called the board’s discussion about equity “pretty rich,” considering a board member was removed when she became homeless. The public does not get any straight responses about infrastructure costs, buses, and environmental impacts, “We get no answers,” he said. The board, he added, had earned the public’s distrust.

Amanda Savage also spoke against the amendments and said she agreed with many of the comments made by Lahey.

Amanda Carter, who works in the construction industry, also opposed the amendments and challenged some of the organizers’ cost assertions. She said market conditions across the industry had significantly changed since the pandemic. Carter also said she worked with a company on a Nashua school project that used creative solutions to reduce costs. The company involved in that project was also involved with the Concord project.

Ellen Kenney, an educator of more than 40 years in Concord, said the amendments did not eliminate the autonomy. It empowered residents to become more involved and make the best decisions, she said. Kenney said there was a rapid loss of biodiversity, and the destruction of acres of trees would be devastating to the ecosystem. Environmentalists working on the project were trying to make a wrong decision better, but that was not possible while cutting down 28 acres of trees.

“I just want to make a comparison,” she said, while board President Pam Walsh attempted to cut her off before she could finish her last two sentences, “an acre is approximately a football field.”

Jeff Wells, another signature gatherer, reiterated that the amendments did not impact teachers, curriculum, or the district’s delivery of high-quality education, only the movement of school buildings and sale of land.

Tracey Lesser of Ward 1 also opposed the amendments and mentioned her role as a charter commission member elected in 2021. She said members preserved the original proposal 10 years before to have zone members elected to the board to ensure greater access. Lesser then challenged whether the public should be allowed to petition to change the charter if they were unhappy with a decision.

“We are opening ourselves up to retribution every time there is a decision isn’t liked,” she said.

Lesser said the board might need to act quickly.

Nicole Fox, another opponent, a parent who is also on the middle school building committee, and worked with Concord Greenspace, said she did not agree with the decision to not build at Rundlett.

But everyone was focused on creating the best project on the site decision now. She said the school was “desperately needed and should not be delayed any longer.” Fox said the changes would “jeopardize the independence” of the school board. She also said the charter was changed every 10 years and “we believe that this was the best opportunity to make changes to the charter, if necessary, when charges can be considered in a holistic manner.”

Fox suggested anyone unhappy with the decision could elect new school board members in November.

Reagan Bissonnette, also of Ward 5, strongly opposed the amendment since it would delay the construction of a new building even if she did not think it should be built in East Concord.

“I do not want important decisions made by the school board to be made by a majority vote of residents of Concord,” she said, “because people may or may not put in the time necessary to understand all the nuances of the issues and that is what we elect our school board members to do.”

Her partner, Gilles Bissonnette, also opposed the amendments and read a letter from another Ward 5 member who could not attend the meeting.

Long-time resident, educator, and former school board member David Parker, also of Ward 5, opposed the amendments, while long-time political activist and parent James McConaha supported them.

Meredith Telus, Ashley Babladelis, Clara Dietel, Nancy Guilbault, Rachel Goldwasser, Robert Dietel, Charles Gilboy, and Noemi Wierwille also made varying comments against the amendments and for a new middle school.

Bewilderment Validates Communication Point

After approving not recommending the first ballot question, a couple of board members said they were confused about the point of the second ballot question — which made a valid point about the structure of the meetings and the lack of back and forth between board members and the community.

Both Bob Cotton, an at-large school board member, and Cara Meeker, a Zone B (Ward 5, 6, 7) member, did not understand the motivation for the second question.

Cotton said he understood what the second question said but needed to understand why there was interest in limiting the school board from selling land. He said there were “surplus or potentially could become surplus” properties and they should not be kept from selling anything based on a November vote, which is not the best time to sell property.

“I don’t understand what the driving force behind that is,” he said.

Meeker agreed.

“I think the amendments are reflecting a sentiment, right now, more than they are reflecting an actual logistical change for the charter,” she said. “And I caution (voters) to be very careful, when they read this language … I think a lot of folks don’t know yet what impacts these have.”

However, disappointingly, the board’s public hearing structure does not allow any school board member to engage in give-and-take with the public. None of them also seemed to have asked any of the petitioners privately precisely why the second question was proposed.

Board members should consider this a slight dereliction of duty. Was there not even a hint or curiosity about the motivation for limiting land sales? The current process does not allow for actual discussion in a public setting about any issue facing the board, the district, and the community.

Rumors have circulated that influential people in the city are interested in developing the current Rundlett site. And anyone who looks at 20 acres of land with a minor wetlands setback surrounded by tiny single-family homes fetching $400,000 a piece, or lots in the city selling for $100,000 to $150,000, or the Isabella Apartments on South Main Street, valued at nearly $40 million on less than acre, realizes there is dumb money to be made. Some voters, though, want to control that process. There is also a NIMBY issue of maybe not wanting a large apartment building full of families in your backyard, even if zoning allows it.

At the same time, there has been talk about expanding the Concord Regional Technical Center on the RMS site. This makes one wonder why it is OK for a regional technical center but not a middle school. Or, also, how many tens of millions of dollars will taxpayers have to fork over to revamp the building for a new CRTC on top of everything else. Those items include elementary school consolidation that will not be paid for until 2041; the new middle school project, which is going to cost the average homeowner another $400 to $500 annually for another 30 years; SAU 8 residents are paying the highest education tax rate in 27 years, with the highest assessments in the history of the city; and property taxpayers are still overtaxed for bonding that has long since been paid off.

There is also the issue of the 60 acres of land abutting Broken Ground and Mill Brook that could be sold — and almost was in 2005, if a middle school is not built in East Concord.

The district also has other properties it could sell, including the former Eastman Elementary School and other holdings.

Zone A School Board Member Jessica Campbell also made a passionate plea to the public to become more involved. She said, in the wake of gun shootings in schools, kids not having winter coats, or kids being hungry, there was a need for energy from the public to become more involved.

“There is a whole other world out there,” she said. “We welcome you to come and volunteer and help us.”

Fact-Checking, Surprising Comments, Other Thoughts

To paraphrase the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, while everyone is entitled to their opinions, people are not entitled to their own facts.

Several people who spoke against the proposals seemed to need help understanding the process or why there was even a public hearing. Others, too, made surprising statements, considering their prior public statements about “rights” and “democracy,” which the two provisions seek to obtain for voters in Concord — something they have not had for more than 60 years.

Fox mentioned the charter being reviewed every 10 years.

However, that ended in 2022. The previous charter, which Lesser was involved with, voted to eliminate the 10-year review. The voters also approved it. So, there is no review scheduled for 2031.

While promoting her work on the charter commission, Lesser did not mention members approved and forwarded the end of the 10 year review process, either, although she spoke before Fox.

In other words, this means the only way to reform the charter or change things is more empowerment by the exact process activists used via initiative petition.

Since both questions would expand the rights, specifically voting rights, it was surprising to hear Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director of ACLU New Hampshire, oppose this.

While he was speaking personally and not for the organization, he has been known throughout the state for purporting to support “individual rights and liberties.”

Just like it’s not your parent’s marijuana, it would appear to not be your parent’s ACLU either.

Gilboy mentioned Concord was a city with an elected school board and not a town. He said the amendments were “not realistic for a community and a school district that’s the size of Concord.”

This was amusing since two of the largest school districts in the state — Bedford and Londonderry, are third and fourth behind Manchester and Nashua. Both communities have voting rights on everything involving their schools annually. SAU 8 in Concord is now fifth in the state — or smaller than Bedford and Londonderry, again, where residents have voting rights.

Nearly every community in the state, New England, and the Northeast have school boards, voting rights on buildings and budgets, or a strong mayor system where the taxing authority is decided by an elected person, not autonomous appointees making taxing decisions.

Telus also commented similarly, saying since Concord was a city, not a town, people should not be allowed to voting rights on school issues.

It was another puzzling statement since residents of the village of Penacook, in the Merrimack Valley School District, are city residents — thousands of them, actually, and they get to vote on everything involving their schools.

Galdieri made a relevant point about two of the votes to move the school to the east side, from an appointed member and a second member who was a lame-duck school board member.

However, the appointed member who was installed to replace a board member who no longer lived in the zone she was elected in, had been elected several times before to represent those voters. He was also a long-time educator. It was not like he was just placed there to be a cheerleader for the relocation of the middle school project.

Do you have a news tip? Please email it to [email protected]. View videos on Tony Schinella’s YouTube.com channel or Rumble.com channel. Follow the NH politics Twitter account @NHPatchPolitics for all our campaign coverage.

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