In the latest in a series of restrictive actions against an outspoken city councilor, Mayor Byron Champlin barred Stacey Brown from participating in the annual evaluation of City Manager Tom Aspell.
Brown responded by producing a deeply critical written evaluation of Aspell that she posted online and gave to the city clerk to be circulated to the council.
“The City Manager has failed to demonstrate good financial stewardship, staff management, and resource oversight,” she wrote. “His mismanagement of city finances, staff, and resources has resulted in higher taxes, loss of experienced staff, council tensions, inequitable treatment of neighborhoods and public spaces, and reduced public trust.”
Champlin sent a letter to Brown in late April that she would be excluded from reviewing Aspell, which is normally done in non-public session. “In accordance with guidance from the city solicitor and applicable conflict of interest standards, you will not be participating in the city manager’s evaluation process this year,” he wrote.
Because Brown’s spouse is a city police officer, Champlin went on to say that her assessment of the manager could impact her spouse’s job.
“While he does not exercise day-to-day supervision of your husband, he retains significant oversight and authority over his employment with the City,” the mayor continued. “As such, your participation in determining the evaluation and compensation of the City Manager constitutes a conflict of interest where the City Manager’s decision may have a direct impact on your husband’s employment and compensation.”
Brown argued that the mayor can’t unilaterally bar her from this duty.
“The mayor has no authority to exclude me from something like this,” she said.
As far as Apell’s $250,000 annual salary, Brown thinks it’s too high.
“The City Manager’s compensation significantly exceeds salaries of other town and city managers in New Hampshire, and is now approximately three times the median household income in the city,” she wrote. “This high salary persists even as taxpayers endure repeated tax increases and strained reserves.”
Aspell did not respond to an interview request for this story on Wednesday.
The evaluation
Alongside approval of the budget and setting policy, the manager’s evaluation is among the most essential functions of the council, which serves as Aspell’s collective boss.
Under Concord’s form of government, the manager is the chief executive and runs all city administration. The council, as representatives of the public, oversees the manager. Councilors aren’t allowed to exercise any authority over singular departments or employees.
Brown has participated in the city manager’s evaluation every other year since she was first elected in 2021, she said.
“We have one employee,” Brown said in an interview. “That’s a huge responsibility for us…The public holds us accountable for holding our employee accountable for the promises that we made and the priorities that we set. This is following through on that.”
The evaluation process, at Aspell’s insistence, has remained private and has gotten less transparent in recent years.
The assessment itself is held in non-public session, with the city citing a provision of New Hampshire’s Right to Know law that allows public bodies to meet in private to discuss “the dismissal, promotion or compensation of any public employee or the disciplining of such employee.” The council also has a manager’s review committee, comprised of five council members, which also meets in non-public session at some point ahead of time. This year it met on April 2.
Meeting behind closed doors to review chief executives is common for most municipalities, although in the most transparent communities these reviews are held in public. Several towns and cities have made the substance of the evaluation public upon request, including Keene, Salem, Laconia and Durham.
Concord has declined Monitor inquiries for a copy of Aspell’s evaluation, including in each of the last two years.
In 2022, the city changed its evaluation process to create fewer paper records after a Monitor reporter requested access to those records.
Per the city charter, the evaluation is to occur in April and, at its conclusion, the council will state in public session whether his “overall performance in office has been satisfactory or unsatisfactory.”
The city’s legal interpretation of this language is that Concord residents want this process shielded.
“The voters of Concord have expressly restricted the content of the City Manager’s evaluation to the City Council,” and have only authorized a public statement of whether the City Manager’s performance is satisfactory or unsatisfactory,” then City Solicitor Danielle Pacik wrote to the Monitor in July 2025. A nearly identical response was sent to the Monitor in March of this year.
While affirming Aspell’s dedication and service last year, some councilors raised questions about the rigorousness and transparency of the evaluation process and expressed doubts about whether raising his compensation to nearly $250,000 was appropriate.
Ward 2 Councilor Michele Horne, at the time, described the review as arbitrary and relying on personal opinions.
“It’s just 15 people sitting around a table saying ‘does he pass or fail?’” Horne said in a July 2025 interview. “Evaluations I’ve had to give a fifteen-year-old cashier were more stringent.”
Conflict of interest?
The mayor’s letter argues broadly that because Aspell is her husband’s indirect boss, Brown can not objectively assess the manager’s performance.
City rules state that a conflict of interest exists when an official takes an action that would affect their financial interest or that of a family member. Specifically for city employee-related conflicts, language added in 2023 states that a conflict exists “when the matter before the public body involves the department” in which the family member is employed.
Wade Brown is a police sergeant with the criminal investigations division.
Champlin said this conflict of interest had been present throughout Brown’s time on the council.
“I’m not sure why, prior to me becoming mayor, this conflict was not pointed out or was not acted upon,” he said. “But I am taking action on it now.”
His probe into a potential conflict this year was prompted by the fact that the manager is considering a new police chief hire this year, Champlin said. Subsequently, the manager and chief could then need to choose a new deputy chief. Thinking of that process, he said, brought what he sees as a preexisting chain of command issue “into relief.”
“Even though lower-level promotions are left with the chief, they’re usually made in consultation with the city manager,” Champlin said, “and the city manager is the only person who can terminate an employee.”
If the worry was that Brown would praise the city manager to curry favor, her written evaluation of Aspell was far from glowing.
She said Aspell demonstrates “weak financial oversight, excessive compensation, and reactive rather than strategic fiscal planning. The end result is that Concord taxpayers are now faced with an almost unsustainable tax burden.”
Her assessment was wholly negative, reiterating her previous criticism of Aspell’s administration around whether city reserves had been allocated appropriately, why he recommended some city projects be fast-tracked over others, among other things. It also outlines additional issues over the last year, including how she feels he handled former city planner Anne Marie Skinner’s departure, the city’s persistent reputation among many developers as a difficult place to do business and a botched appointment to the zoning board.
Asked if there are things she thinks Aspell does well, Brown replied, “These are my biggest concerns, and I think they overshadow any positives.”
‘Even-handed as possible’
Champlin’s letter to Brown states that he “was asked” to consider a potential conflict. Speaking with the Monitor, the mayor said he had no recollection of being asked by someone else to look into it.
This isn’t the first time Brown has been in the crosshairs of conflict of interest accusations tied to her husband’s employment. In her five years on the council, she’s been challenged on a range of issues, from whether she can vote on the decision to close a city street for an event to whether she can vote on the city budget. She has consistently pushed back
Brown has largely viewed those accusations as politically motivated. She said she holds the same view of the mayor’s decision.
“I have been very public about my concerns regarding practices by the city,” she said. “So I feel like this is backlash to that.”
Champlin disputed that depiction, saying that the friction Brown has had with city staff and other councilors over the last year “has nothing to do with this.”
“I’m sorry that this has put Council Brown in an awkward situation,” he said. “As the presiding officer of the city council, I’m trying to be as even-handed as possible.”
Per the council rules, any councilor can raise the question of a conflict of interest by a peer or disclose one on their own part. Preliminarily, the mayor makes a determination about whether a conflict exists, and it can be confirmed or challenged by a vote of the full council.
Brown argued that Champlin isn’t allowed to unilaterally banish her from the evaluation outside of a public meeting, where it can be discussed.
He disagreed, but left the door open to a challenge.
“The city council rules give me the responsibility for making a preliminary determination on the conflict of interest. And under that under that authority, that’s what I did,” Champlin said. “If the City Council in a subsequent meeting wanted to question my ruling, the City Council certainly can.”
The council’s May meeting will occur on Monday.
Editor’s note: This article was changed to correct the year the City Council changed its conflict of interest rule, and another quote from Mayor Champlin was added.
