Even though Ridgely Mauck loves to golf, his city councilor’s loud opposition to a new clubhouse at the Beaver Meadow Golf Course never bothered him. In fact, he likes her better for it.
Mauck knows third-term city councilor Stacey Brown through the successful campaign by a local citizens group to prevent Concord’s school board from relocating the middle school to raw land east of the Merrimack River, an endeavor she championed and he supported.
At the city council table, with its fifteen members, he sees Brown as bringing needed dissonance to a board that otherwise goes along to get along.
“I’m not saying they’re all ‘yes men,’ but I think it’s always good to have people at the table who may disagree with the majority,” Mauck said. “She takes stances for what she believes. I like that aspect of her.”
Mauck didn’t like that city leaders had taken steps to limit Brown in the new council term, especially the city manager’s order that Brown must screen all her communication with city staff through him, while other councilors are free to contact department heads directly with questions. Mauck felt like his representative had been “muzzled.”
With the city council exploring sanctions against Brown, the Monitor reached out to constituents in her district to get their takes, asking if they approve of their councilor and whether she is a good voice for their interests.
Roughly half of the dozen who shared thoughts with the Monitor found her recent controversy troubling, but some of the same folks also found her concerns with city finances to be reasonable. Others remained strong supporters.
In her five years on the city council, Brown has always been vocal and a polarizing figure in city government. To some, she is a scrappy underdog unafraid to push for progressive proposals — like a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative — and against controversial ones — like a new golf course clubhouse — even if she ruffled feathers along the way. To others, Brown is recalcitrant, more interested in riling herself and others up about an issue than pursuing the kind of deal-making needed for someone who finds herself in the minority.
Shannon Mills had been somewhere between the two until recently. He voted for Brown. She had a good reputation among his neighbors. Lately, though, she’s been a disappointment.
“I find myself thinking, ‘this isn’t how I want my city councilor to behave on my behalf,'” Mills said. “I know she’s trying to be an advocate for the taxpayer, I just don’t like the way she’s going about it.”
Mills doesn’t agree with Brown’s assertion that the pushback she’s received is because Mayor Byron Champlin and City Manager Tom Aspell are trying to silence her opposition. It’s not about policy disagreements, he said, it’s about the way she disagrees.
“I’m concerned, like a lot of people are, about my property taxes,” Mills said. “There’s ways to do this without going ad hominem.”
In the last few months, Brown has grown increasingly impassioned about the city’s systems of financial oversight, questioning whether reserve funds have been misspent on programs and projects favored by the city manager’s office and why the trustees of the trust funds don’t have more rigorous oversight on how reserves get moved around. Some of her claims underpinning these concerns have basis; most have been disputed by city hall.
Brown’s lines of questioning have risen to accusations of fraud by city officials which, to many of her fellow councilors, has gone beyond the pale. To Brown, the opposition she has met along the way has always been contemptuous.
The friction erupted into personal accusations this winter, much of which has played out on social media. The tensions derailed a City Council meeting in January when Brown accused At-Large City Councilor Amanda Grady Sexton of ethical violations because of her position as director of public affairs for the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
Brown elevated the claims of Claire Best, a longtime critic of the coalition who has accused the organization and Grady Sexton of falsifying claims of abuse and manipulating victims to wring kickbacks out of wealthy institutions, most prominently the St. Paul’s School. These allegations, notably, tie in the cooperation of Concord Police, where Brown’s husband is an officer. Both Brown and Best testified in the statehouse this week in favor of a bill that would suspend much of the coalition’s public funding and place the non-profit under investigation.
Grady Sexton has rejected both Brown and Best’s allegations, describing an ethics complaint filed by the latter as defamatory and having “no basis in truth.”
Among the Ward 5 voters who shared thoughts with the Monitor, Brown remained polarizing. Notably, though, several who said they had voted for her, and who generally approved of her watchdog bent, said they don’t support her now.
“I’m in favor of city councilors digging beneath the surface. That’s what they should be doing,” Debbie Carley said. “What I’m not in favor of is using social media to make attacks on other councilors – or doing it in public for that matter.”
Carley felt that Brown’s complaint against Grady Sexton was childish. More broadly, though, Carley didn’t see her councilor as capable of working productively with those she disagrees with. She saw Brown as alienating would-be collaborators.
With other constituents, their impression of Brown as a maverick sticking her neck out for the taxpayers persisted.
Sarah Sweet worries that rising property taxes will drive up her rent. Brown, to her, is the only one on the council who has demonstrated that she takes that seriously.
If Brown has become bullish, that’s because she has been pushed there by the dismissiveness of peers and city staff, Sweet said.
“Maybe her approach comes off a little strong sometimes,” Sweet said. “But if they would just give her the answers about where the money goes, she wouldn’t have to come on so strong.”
Arnie Arnesen, the Progressive talk-show host and former gubernatorial candidate, doesn’t always keep up with local politics. But she feels she knows a thing or two about asking hard questions.
She has a question for fellow Ward 5 residents: What has Brown delivered?
“I get it. I want people to be seen. I’m angry about high property taxes, trust me,” Arnesen said.
“Stacey can nickel and dime people and suggest that this money is being misappropriated when 99% of the time it’s probably not,” she continued. “What she is doing is appealing to their frustration, but it’s not a real answer.”
Moreover, Arnesen said, Brown has taken both her accusations about city finances and about other councilors to an extreme – one that might not be on the radar of the average constituent.
In recent weeks, Brown has joined forces with Jason Gerhard, a former state representative who served twelve years in prison after helping supply a couple evading federal income taxes with ammunition and explosives in their months-long standoff with law enforcement. Gerhard is also known for his libertarian proposals in the State House, like one bill that would have led New Hampshire to secede from the union.
Gerhard and Brown tabled outside the Merrimack County Superior Courthouse last month, seeking to get a grand jury to investigate the city.
Brown’s accusations about the city and about Grady Sexton have also been shared by Terese Bastarache, a conservative activist from Loudon whose group We the People NH organizes for causes on the right.
To Arnesen, Brown’s arguments don’t hold water and are instead a play for the political limelight.
“That’s not a sign of someone who wants to see a city well run. That’s a sign of someone who seems to want to upend it,” Arnesen said of Brown. “How is that good for having conversations about how much you should spend on the cops and what you should do with the road?”
No one said they thought Brown should be removed from the council, as is being contemplated.
“We did elect her, ” said Mills.
At the February council meeting on Monday, the tumultuous conclusion to the last one went unaddressed, as did a new seating arrangement. Brown and Ward Nine Councilor Kris Schultz’ positions were swapped, placing Brown and Grady Sexton across the room from one another.
Champlin said the city has no update about potential actions against Brown that the council could pursue.
Regardless of their feelings about Brown personally, most of the constituents interviewed disapproved of a rancorous tenor they felt the city council as a whole has taken over the last year. Few felt they were aware of or could grasp the details of the dispute with Grady Sexton, and it was broadly viewed as an outgrowth of the interpersonal discord on the council.
Above all, Ward 5 residents worried about major financial burdens ahead, and said they want a city council capable of finding actionable solutions.
Deb Leahy remembers when Stacey Brown knocked on her door during city elections this fall. Leahy was clear with the councilor that her top concern is the amount of property value getting pulled from the Concord tax rolls by the state. While Leahy avoided speaking directly about whether she views Brown favorably, she said she’s disappointed her councilor and the full board aren’t focusing on the issue.
Mauck, the golfer who supports Brown, is worried about development.
“There are builders who don’t want anything to do with Concord,” he said. “All the councilors need to find a way to work through things without getting personal.”
Maureen Redmond-Scura is worried about how many capital projects are being approved all at once.
“There has to be a sense of every person on that board feeling that they have the respect of everyone else on the council,” she said. “Having these kinds of squabbles feels… not helpful.”