Last April, as Concord Planning Board members weighed a rule change that would support the redevelopment of a historic downtown building, Mary Rose Deak urged them to “reject this evil project.”

She believed the food from a restaurant in the building contained “nanotech,” which she described as black specs coming out of cell phones and computers, that was a hazard to the health of its customers.

Before she could go further, Planning Board Chair Richard Woodfin cut her off, threatening to have her removed from the meeting. Multiple city councilors were in attendance.

A year later, Deak, 70, sought to fill a vacancy on the city’s zoning board.

Alongside her resume was a written endorsement from City Manager Tom Aspell recommending that city councilors approve Deak to fill a three-year alternate position on the board.

On Monday night, without any discussion, the Concord City Council unanimously approved Deak. As a member of the board, she will consider and make judgments on projects like the one she testified about last year.

Within a day of voting to approve her, and after being asked about their vote, councilors are now walking it back.

After initially telling the Monitor that he “didn’t give it much thought,” At-Large City Councilor Fred Keach said he now regrets voting for Deak’s appointment.

At first, he said, he “had not connected the dots of who she was,” but approved the appointment as part of a “rather routine” process.

Keach submitted a request Tuesday to reconsider it, which should occur at the next city council meeting.

“We shouldn’t just accept a nomination at face value,” Keach said. “The more I reflected, I really didn’t feel like I had done my due diligence.”

Nominations to government committees in Concord are made by either the city manager or the mayor. For new appointments, both have said they consistently ask for a resume and meet with applicants, sometimes multiple times, to ensure they understand the responsibility, would be a good fit, and, especially for more technical boards, are qualified for the position. Appointments then get voted on in bulk under the council’s consent agenda. This is the process for hundreds of positions on dozens of city committees.

Deak’s appointment wasn’t discussed at the meeting before it sailed through approval, and according to several city councilors, it went unnoticed behind the scenes. Deak did not attend the council meeting Monday, and has not responded to a request for comment.

The Monitor asked Mayor Byron Champlin about the nomination last Thursday night, four days before the council vote. He said he hadn’t taken note of the nomination and that he’d look into it. After he voted alongside the rest of the council to approve Deak’s appointment, he deferred comment about it to Aspell, saying, “It was his nomination.”

Aspell could not be reached for comment.

City Councilors receive nominations for city boards weeks before the broader public has access to them.

Aspell nominated Deak in April, which was communicated to councilors. However, due to the city’s process, the nomination wasn’t made public until this month, just days before the meeting when the agenda was released.

Councilors have time to raise any concerns about a nominee in advance and in private, sparing someone the potential embarrassment of questions about their qualifications being raised in a public meeting. However, the public doesn’t get that chance.

City councilors have defended the reduced transparency as a fair and respectful protection of those who step forward to volunteer for city service. But that window for questions wasn’t utilized in this case.

This appointment, and immediate double-take, has led some councilors to question the thoroughness of the appointment process, especially for the zoning and planning boards, which have unique voting powers in the city.

“We have a responsibility to exercise a little more oversight than I think we have in the past,” Keach said, though he didn’t propose a specific change. “This is an example of why that needs to happen.”

Amanda Grady Sexton, a fellow at-large councilor, said she thought the city should formally review the nomination process, and should require a public hearing for anyone up for a spot on a board with voting power.

Not everyone agrees.

Ward Councilor Jennifer Kretovic said that, on paper, Deak appears to be a desirable candidate. She’s a longtime city resident with a specialized background expertise, according to her resume.

Deak’s work history includes the state Department of Environmental Services, Army Corp of Engineers, and Massachusetts General Hospital as a chemist, researcher and environmental monitor. It lists no employment after 2014.

In 2022, Deak’s car caught fire and burned when it was parked on Capitol Street, right near the State House, as she used a stove to make coffee and a cup of soup. She also ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination to succeed Cinde Warmington on the Executive Council last fall. Posts on her Facebook page claim that a tracking chip was involuntarily placed in her brain and that the food in school cafeterias contains toxins.

Kretovic opposes the idea of hearings for nominees, saying it would put too many barriers and scrutiny in front of people who would otherwise seek to serve their community.

Concord’s committees broadly give city leaders advice about everything from bike lanes to ethics violations by local officials, and councilors rely on their perspectives. They’re also a kind of on-ramp to city politics for those wanting to gain experience.

The zoning board has five members and five alternates, who step in as substitutes as necessary. It is quasi-judicial, with the power to grant construction and development exceptions to the city’s building rules. Something as small as wanting to add an in-law apartment to a home or to change the location of a shed to as large as the hundreds of apartments and major box store proposed at the Steeplegate Mall can end up under the microscope of the zoning board. Several of the current members are lawyers, and board decisions can end up in court.

The city’s numerous boards and committees have fallen under scrutiny in recent years, primarily for their lack of diversity. With the hope of filling some lingering vacancies and of making it easier for more people to apply, especially those outside the usual circles of city politics, a list of all the committee vacancies was added to the city website earlier this year, and an online application portal is in the works.

Kretovic said she hadn’t realized she knew Deak when voting for her, and only later connected the face and name. But she emphasized that zoning board members get training, and she still thinks Deak deserves a chance to serve. The city is trying to encourage more people to step forward, she said, and if issues arise with someone’s service, the council has ways to remove them.

With decades at the helm of City Hall, Aspell is deeply trusted by most city councilors. The City Council conducted his annual evaluation before Monday night’s meeting in a non-public session, as it has consistently done.

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.