Betty Hoadley is a member and chairperson of the district’s Charter Commission.
When the Concord School Board members voted Monday night to declare a vacant seat on that board, they were paying attention to business and doing their job.
The superintendent, after opening the organizational meeting, took a roll call of the eight members present and asked each one to confirm their residence in the ward zone or anywhere in the city, depending on how they were elected. Successful at-large candidates were elected by all voters while other candidates had been elected from one of three clusters of wards (known as a ward zone).
All passed the “test.” The ninth person was absent and did not confirm her residence in the zone which includes wards one through four. Later in the meeting, the board members present voted to declare that board seat vacant. A process for filling any vacancy is outlined in the district’s charter.
Former board seats have been declared vacant before. A member moving out of the city or a member applying for employment in the school district has been the more usual reason for a vacancy. Clearly, a member who was ill could resign. This, however, is the first one that involved a board member no longer living in a ward of the zone that elected that person.
Concord citizens may not recall exactly how the district charter has been recently changed. The Concord School District Charter Commission started its work in November 2021, and submitted its final report to the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the Commissioner of the Department of Revenue Administration in June 2022. The report was accepted.
In November, Concord voters passed an amendment that concerns voting zones, declaring board vacancies, and limiting the duration of a term for the new member who would temporarily fill that vacancy. That new member would only serve until the end of the calendar year when he/she would be replaced by the newly elected member from that voting zone.
This school board is simply doing the jobs defined by its own charter, the one that was voted on by Concord citizens last November. They should be congratulated on their scrutiny and their follow through on newly adopted charter procedures.