The Concord City Council meeting had been testy before the topic of committee assignments came up, but the first regular meeting of the new term ended abruptly after Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown accused a fellow councilor of a financial conflict of interest.
A blistering back-and-forth between Brown and Amanda Grady Sexton led to a prompt recess, then a closed-door meeting with the city attorney before the meeting was adjourned. Grady Sexton rejected the accusations.
The quarrel brought to a boil a growing contempt between Brown and most of her peers on the council over her conduct inside and outside of council meetings, including claims of financial wrongdoing by city administration, and frequent discussion of these assertions on social media.
“The council, I think, is fed up,” Mayor Byron Champlin said in an interview after the meeting. Champlin said he expected some kind of sanctions against Brown, but didn’t provide details. “The general public does not see what we see.”
Tensions boiled over when the council turned to an item Brown had pulled aside for discussion. She endorsed new guidelines for a committee that discusses homelessness, where repeated absences could mean the removal of a committee member. She said she felt this rule should apply across the board, to city councilors on all committees, and referenced a recent tally she distributed online, claiming to show the attendance record of each council member at city committee meetings. Multiple councilors said her count was inaccurate.
Brown was not reappointed to her previous major committee assignments this term and pointed fingers at those she felt hadn’t been up to par.
Brown then said that Grady Sexton, an at-large councilor, should not be able to chair or serve on the public safety advisory board because she had a conflict of interest, which Brown said had been the subject of an ethics complaint earlier Monday.
The city’s ethics code states that a conflict of interest exists when a city official takes an action that would directly financially benefit them or a family member.
Grady Sexton is the director of public affairs for the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Brown argued that because the organization provides media training to police departments, Grady Sexton could not ethically serve on the committee.
“The person who trains law enforcement officers in pre-trial publicity should not be the chair overseeing the police officer budget,” Brown said.
Grady Sexton forcefully disavowed this assertion, both in the meeting and after the council had recessed.
“I do not train the Concord Police Department. My organization has never trained the Concord Police Department in terms of any recent history that any staff person has,” she said. “My organization does train police officers, and when they do so, there is no monetary value attached to that in any way.”
The public safety board, Grady Sexton continued, is an advisory committee that makes policy recommendations to the full city council. It does not set the police department budget, as Brown alleged.
“There is no perception of an ethical or a conflict of interest in any way, and certainly no financial benefit to my organization or to myself in terms of our relationship with the Concord Police Department,” Grady Sexton said to Brown during the meeting. “I would appreciate it if you stop making allegations as such on social media or here.”
Both during continuing council discussion and in the ensuing recess, Grady Sexton demanded Brown stop repeating the claim. Brown, who faced an ethics complaint last year related to her spouse’s position as a city police officer, persisted.
During the recess, multiple councilors approached Brown, some appearing to try and talk her down, others expressing disgust with her comments.
“You are f—ing out of line,” At Large Councilor Fred Keach said to Brown.
A few moments into the recess, Champlin abruptly gaveled and announced the council would clear the room to meet with the city solicitor.
New Hampshire’s open meetings law states that a body may convene privately to consult with legal counsel.
Two police officers arrived during the recess, but left shortly after they were called.
The closed-door conversation lasted about 20 minutes, with Grady Sexton departing partway through. The council adjourned quickly after reconvening.
Before this exchange, the meeting had been marked by a firm pushback from city administration against allegations by Brown that staff had misappropriated money from city reserves, which they refuted in detail. Those claims will be examined in subsequent reporting.
Brown has posted online that she thinks the mayor and city administrators are retaliating against her because of her outspokenness, particularly about the city’s golf course.
“I’m getting the sense the mayor doesn’t like folks who ask questions,” she wrote in a constituent newsletter.
Champlin, after the meeting, said that Brown was “absolutely bent on making unsubstantiated allegations” and had crossed the line.
“Items of little significance are constantly pulled off the consent calendar in order to be the platform for long speeches that are full of innuendo, disguised as financial oversight,” he said after the meeting. “Every time you refute the allegations, it doesn’t make any difference…I don’t know how many times staff has to reiterate the same facts over and over again.”
