Concord voters cleared the way for potential social districts within the city, but kept the door closed to Keno.
After the first ballot question passed with 52% approval from voters, the city council can now decide whether to create designated outdoor areas for public alcohol consumption. A new state law passed this year allowed individual towns and cities to decide whether to legalize them.
In the same breath, Concord residents voted to continue to prohibit the operation of Keno games within city limits. Concord has repeatedly rejected the state-run, chance-driven lottery game, but a change in state law legalized the game more broadly and required individual municipalities like Concord to take action if they wanted the game to stay prohibited. Just shy of 60% of voters decided to ban the game.
Despite broad support for social districts, Mary Mayo, who’s lived near downtown Concord most of her life, said it was a “hard no” on authorizing public alcohol consumption — even with the boundaries and regulations of a social district.
“I do not believe that giving carte blanche for people to walk around holding liquor in their hands is beneficial to the welfare of the city of Concord,” she said.
Several voters said they were confused or put off by the backward nature of the questions — like voting “yes” if you didn’t want Keno.
“The politicians have twisted the language and that is ridiculous. You can’t trust the people to understand that,” said Bill Waldert, a Havenwood resident who voted to prohibit both social districts and Keno. “We don’t need people walking around with drinks in their hands downtown. We don’t need any more gambling in this town.”
His wife, Judith Waldert, shared his views.
“Granted, we are senior citizens,” she said, “but I don’t think that they would benefit the retail aspects of downtown.”
Eastman School
Voters in the Concord School District also authorized a potential sale of the Eastman School in East Concord. With voter approval, the Board of Education can now sell the 4.6-acre property on Shawmut Street, which has an estimated value of $2.5 million.
The measure passed easily in all 10 wards, with nearly 80% of the vote.
Linda Stephenson, who used to work at the Eastman School, said the cost isn’t worth keeping it. The Boys & Girls Club leases it as a preschool, bringing in $19,200 in revenue each year, but the district pays roughly $50,000 annually to maintain the property.
“What this district has to spend each month just to keep it up and running … it’s time to let it go,” Stephenson said.
In Mayo’s mind, the decision was simple: “Why not sell it?”
She saw no reason to keep it, and if anything, she said, the sale revenue could be put toward more pressing needs, like the recently approved construction of a new $155 million middle school.
“[If] the school district has an opportunity to liquidate the asset and invest it in the building of the new Rundlett, that’s a good use of the taxpayers’ money,” she said.
The Eastman property was built in 1936 and closed in 2010 when the Concord School District consolidated.
Now that voters have approved a sale, the Board of Education can move to offload the property and will have full discretion over who the buyer is and how much it sells for. Some leaders have promised to form a committee with people living in the neighborhood to oversee the sale, but voters won’t have a direct say over specifics.
Catherine McLaughlin contributed reporting for this story.