Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown pushes danger
Readers deserve the full context behind HB 1675 and the campaign driving it.
Anyone who follows social media related to #NHPolitics knows that Claire Best Hawley’s years-long crusade against the NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence is not rooted in documented evidence. It stems from conspiracy theories tied to the 2015 St. Paul’s School case involving Owen Labrie — specifically claims that the Concord Police Department and prosecutors engaged in corruption and cover-ups during that investigation. She has no evidence to support those allegations because they are conspiratorial and false.
Best has repeatedly accused Concord police of misconduct, corruption and coordinated wrongdoing connected to that case. She has extended those claims to attack Coalition staff and local officials, escalating from policy disagreement into harassment.
Yet City Councilor Stacey Brown has amplified Best’s ethics complaint locally and supported legislation that would silence and defund the Coalition, even though the underlying narrative accuses Concord police of corruption during a period when her own husband served as a detective there.
That is an extraordinary conflict that demands transparency. If a councilor is advancing complaints involving Concord police, her spouse’s current employer, the public deserves clear answers. Instead, we are seeing silence.
The bill and ethics complaint that Best and Councilor Brown are pushing are politically driven efforts rooted in long-running conspiracy claims about the Concord Police Department.
The public deserve facts, not fringe narratives dressed up as reform or oversight.