Concord mayor warns city council of ‘difficult choices’ ahead

Concord Mayor Byron Champlin set the tone for the City Council’s next two years with a sober look at the spending decisions ahead.

“Concord has a good thing going, but this success is neither accidental nor free,” he said this week after taking his second oath of office as the city’s mayor. “Without a doubt, the next two budget cycles will be challenging… We are going to have to make difficult choices.”

The council, which has two new voices, will be pressed to balance past and upcoming investments in city projects and employee pay increases with the impact on taxpayers, especially the city’s financially vulnerable residents. An upcoming property revaluation is expected to shift the biggest tax increases onto manufactured and multifamily housing.

At the same time, Champlin was optimistic about chances to pull in new commercial tax revenue, pointing to Penacook Village and Storrs Street as places with high potential.

“The Steeplegate Mall site still holds enormous potential, and we are seeing young entrepreneurs who love Concord step forward to make their mark,” he continued. “We need to ensure that, as these opportunities unfold, they are facilitated by the city to the greatest extent possible.”

The group will sit for its first regular meeting Monday night with an agenda that includes tucking away a $2 million surplus from 2025 and broadening the area where city savings can be spent. They will also weigh the nomination of a former deputy attorney general, Ann Rice, to the zoning board.

Taking their oaths and getting training from city staff, the returning councilors enthusiastically welcomed new members Mark Davie and Aislinn Kalob from wards four and six, elected in November to open seats on the fifteen-member body.

Meanwhile, city leadership took steps to constrain Ward Five Councilor Stacey Brown.

Brown is an outspoken member of the council, both on city and community issues, especially the middle school reconstruction. In recent months, she has increasingly peppered city staff with questions about city finances, both in council meetings and directly – specifically how money is spent from the recreation reserve, a component of the financing plan behind the new Beaver Meadow golf course clubhouse. Brown has frequently landed in back-and-forth exchanges on this issue and others with the mayor, other councilors and the city manager in recent months.

When councilors were assigned to advisory committees on Monday by Champlin, Brown had not been reappointed to the more weighty seats that she previously held – those dealing with transportation, energy and the environment, parking and community development. Most other councilors had retained most or all of their assignments, with some picking up new ones. Committee memberships, alongside meeting management, are among the few powers Concord’s mayor has to act single-handedly.

Typically, all communication between elected leaders and employees runs through the city manager, but councilors can contact upper-level staff directly with questions.

“There’s one exception to that, and that’s Councilor Brown,” Aspell said at council orientation Thursday. “Councilor Brown, everything you do going forward will go directly to me.”

Aspell stressed to the full council that they embody the city’s “brand,” as a community, as a venue for business and as a large employer.

“What does discourse look like at city council meetings? How are disagreements handled? How do you treat people in the community, how do you treat staff, how do you treat each other?” Aspell said. “The community is paying very, very close attention to that.”

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