Sylvia Osiecki was eager to see some of the big plans in Concord she’s heard and read about – a new chapter for Storrs Street, new life breathed into downtown buildings – make progress. The city desperately needs to grow its tax base and take pressure off homeowners, she said.
“I’ve lived in Concord for 38 years, and I’ve seen a lot of good things happen,” said Osiecki, who once taught at the Dame and Eastman schools. “But it does seem like there’s a lot of governmental, bureaucratic red tape, I’m not sure… I know that there’s been some opportunities that the city has worked really hard to maximize on and, for whatever reasons… it hasn’t happened.”
This plea for economic growth was why, she said, she looked to experienced candidates in city races as opposed to unseasoned challengers.
“It takes a lot of time to build those relationships, and they need to be supported,” Osiecki said in the final minutes before the polls closed outside Abbot-Downing school. “I don’t know what needs to be done differently, but I just want to make sure that our leaders are still working on that.”
Other Concord city voters grappled with the same predicament: Are incumbents willing or even capable of changing the status quo?
Amid concerns about rising spending and costs, the answer to that question, broadly, was ‘yes.’ However, some of that support began to fray across the city.
Fred Keach, a former police officer who’s served on the council for 18 years, secured another four-year term with the tightest margin of any council race in at least a decade. Fisto Ndayishimiye, a community activist and first-time candidate, came within a percentage point of unseating the longtime incumbent. Each won half of the city’s 10 wards – three of those were neck-and-neck, split by margins of fewer than 10 votes.
Eventually, Keach pulled ahead and won by 68 votes – just 0.6% of the total votes cast.
For Keach, Ndayishimiye’s performance served as a sign of the times and a generational shift that led to a much closer election than the incumbent had anticipated. It was a lesson, he said, that politics works like business – “you modify or you get left behind,” – and that city councilors must listen to those who didn’t back them.
“What I saw tonight was anti-establishment: we’ve got to do something different,” Keach said.
Keach didn’t have a long list of things he plans to do differently in his next term.
“Personally, I’m not going to do a lot, but I recognize that message as people are not happy with the status quo, so yeah, you’ve got to listen.”
Jenny Boesch, a teacher at the Derryfield School who lives in Ward 5, declined to say who she voted for but indicated that Ndayishimiye had her support. She saw value in a new generation of leadership, something Ndayishimiye campaigned on: making Concord more welcoming and affordable to young people.
“He is a tremendous young man with lots of exciting ideas,” Boesch said. “I just want to encourage young people to get involved and be involved in this city.”
The slate of major capital expenditures already approved or heading down the pipe in Concord worries her.
“We may be over-committing ourselves, between the police station, the fire station, the [Beaver Meadow] clubhouse,” Boesch said. “That’s very concerning because it’s already difficult for young people to find housing.”
Ndayishimiye said that despite the election’s outcome, he still has work to do. He will “absolutely” run for local office again, but in the meantime, he wants to continue his community service and work to fulfill his campaign promises.
“I’m not going to wait until I win to do … what I’m supposed to do,” he said.
Ndayishimiye, though, wasn’t alone in newfound momentum from challengers.
While incumbent Mayor Byron Champlin won safely, with 63% of the vote, the rematch between him and Kate West was the closest Concord mayor’s race since at least 2011. He won 74% support in the last election and his predecessor, Jim Bouley, typically carried around 80% support in his 16-year mayoral run.
Meanwhile, a record number of voters for a city election – 7,151 people – cast ballots Tuesday, more than 2023’s record-setting total, when the city had its first open mayor’s race in 16 years.
Between the two elections, Concord added nearly 3,000 registered voters. Its population has risen by only a few hundred people during that period, per census estimates. It meant that with a 25% turnout, a slightly lower proportion of registered voters participated in this election compared to 2023.
At the polls, several voters stressed a desire to control city spending and let up on weary taxpayers.
Residents like Jo Shields, a self-identified Democrat who lives in Ward 1, said that for seniors like her, Concord’s property taxes are “pushing us out.”
Several candidates, including conservatives like Jeanne Chase, Robert Washburn and Andrew Georgevits, tried to capitalize on spending concerns, but those feelings didn’t translate into enough votes to seat a declared Republican onto the city council of New Hampshire’s blue capital city.
Georgevits, who lost a rematch to Kris Schultz in Ward 9, said he thinks Concord residents may regret their choice when properties are reassessed ahead of next year’s tax bills.
“The voters, as of this moment, are set with the status quo,” Georgevits said. “When these new tax assessments come out, people are going to say, ‘Well, what happened? What’s going on? We were promised lower taxes.’ And I just don’t see it happening with the current council.”
Despite Shields’s concerns over taxes, they didn’t factor into her decision on Election Day. Instead, a positive review of current leadership, which she said has prioritized downtown revitalization, upgraded city parks and generally tried to help people, swayed her vote.
Champlin said Tuesday night that residents’ worries about their property taxes were heard loud and clear.
“That’s why I say it’s going to be a challenging year,” he said. “We are going to have to take a hard look at what we are spending.”
With four and five-percent annual pay increases locked into contracts for nearly all city employees and rising debt service tied to the police station, expected to be approved next week, the council will have to make cuts in other places or usher in rapid and substantial growth in the property tax base to contain the tax rate.
As of January, a majority of the councilors will be in their first or second terms. Champlin and the at-large winners underscored their experience in their campaigns.
“I understand people want a steady hand…I think it’s important that the at-large councilors step up and help the mayor guide the direction,” Grady Sexton said, adding that the council would benefit from a more robust orientation in the next term.
West, running a second time, said she will keep trying and keep running. That she nearly doubled her share of the vote compared to 2023, she said, was a sign that her calls for a public comment period, and for more skepticism of some city projects like the golf clubhouse, resonated.
“It’s a longer goal than just election-by-election,” she said. “The reason why I will absolutely run again is that, when I canvas, when I get to knock on doors and see my neighbors face to face, that’s when we’re able to find common values that we agree on.”
Not winning, West said, meant either that her values weren’t aligned with the city or that she wasn’t able to connect with enough people. Tuesday’s result signaled to her that it was the latter.
“Which just means,” West said, “that I need to keep going.”
Jeremy Margolis contributed reporting for this story.
