Concord Incumbents Cruise to Victory

About 15.5 percent of registered Concord voters went to the polls on Nov. 8, and elected one newcomer to the Concord City Council and returned every incumbent who had a challenger.

In the mayoral race, incumbent Mayor easily bested challenger John Cook, by a more than five-to-one margin. In Ward 1, incumbent Councilor was able to hang onto her seat for another two years, beating challenger Adam Czarkowski by 17 votes out of 362 cast. In Ward 3, incumbent Jan McClure beat challenger Kris MacNeil by 86 votes, out of 317 cast.

MacNeil said she was disappointed in the loss noting that many people who said they were planning on voting for her never showed up while McClure, , was able to get quiet support from behind the scenes and win the race.

“Gave it my best,” MacNeil said. “We gave it a shot. But I fear, we didn’t even send a message.”

After decided not to run for a fourth term in Ward 2, Jennifer Kretovic and Allan Herschlag ran competitive races for the open seat. Kretovic, however, prevailed, beating Herschlag by 11 votes out of 314 cast, with nine blank ballots, according to unofficial returns.

According Kretovic, Herschlag did not concede the race at the polls on Tuesday night. Later in the evening, she said she was “very excited” to be serving voters in Ward 2.

“I was shocked,” she said of the win. “It was so close. I really feel for Allan. I do, because, if it was the other way around, I know exactly how he would feel.”

Kretovic said that it was difficult to keep up with Herschlag’s campaigning saying, “I know he was out there all the time because I was following him everywhere … to know your opponent is out there campaigning and you can’t keep up, it was hard.”

Close races like the one in Ward 2 do not automatically implement a recount in Concord. According to the city clerk's office, if any candidate wants a recount, they need to notify the clerk's office in writing by the end of the week, which would be Thursday of this week, since Friday is Veterans Day.

At-Large Councilor Steve Shurtleff (2,624 votes) and Mark Coen (2,307 votes) ran unopposed and returned to office along with Ward 4 Councilor Amanda Grady, Ward 5 Councilor Rob Werner, Ward 6 Councilor Alan Bennett, Ward 7 Councilor Keith Nyhan, Ward 8 Councilor Richard Patten, Ward 9 Councilor Candace Bouchard, and Ward 10 Councilor Fred Keach, who also all returned to office for two-year terms.

Ballot questions

Depending on where voters in Concord lived, they either had to decide one or three ballot questions. All, however, were .

Voters citywide approved new redistricted voter ward lines brought on by the decennial U.S. Census. The question was approved by a healthy five-to-one margin.

Voters in the Concord School District also had two ballot questions forwarded by the .

Voters easily approved the first question, which approved a new charter for the school system, by a nearly nine-to-one margin. The change takes the charter and implemented a 60 percent super-majority voter approval of any change to the charter.

The second question, reconfiguring the way school board members were elected, was barely approved by voters after a last-minute effort to derail the proposal by of the Concord School Board. According to unofficial returns by the city clerk, 61.1 percent of the voters voted Yes on the proposal. Sixty percent was needed for approval.

Currently, all nine school board members are elected at-large. The new proposal will shift the election process to three at-large members and six district members, two from each district, of multiple wards. The new district members will be elected over a period of years so the current members of the board are able to serve out their full terms.

Opponents of Question 2 waged a last minute campaign to hijack the proposal, printing up signs that advocated a Yes on 1, No on 2 vote. No acknowledgement of an organization was printed on the signs. David Scanlan, the assistant Secretary of State, said on Nov. 8, that whoever printed the signs or any other campaign information was not obligated to file expenses since it was local initiative and not a state election. 

A number of former Concord School Board members and other education advocates wrote opinion letters urging a No vote. School Board President Kass Ardinger was also seen and heard at the Ward 5 polling location advocating a No vote. She also reportedly sent out a personal email to supporters urging a No vote, according to a number of sources.

Ward 5 was the only ward in the city where more people voted No than Yes. However, the proposal was pushed over the 60 percent threshold by more than two-to-one margins in Ward 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

School board

In the school board race, three candidates, including one incumbent, had no opposition and were elected to their posts.

Newcomer topped the ticket with 2,303 votes. Jack Dunn, the incumbent, came in second with 2,226 votes and newcomer Nick Metalious received 2,025 votes.

Metalious was almost not included on the ballot because, when he signed up to run, he was not registered to vote in Concord. He was still registered to vote in Loudon, where he unsuccessfully ran for the Board of Selectmen in 2009. He also unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Merrimack Valley School Board that year, according to the Loudon town clerk.

After realizing he was not registered to vote in Concord a couple of weeks after signing up to run for school board, Metalious went down to the city clerk’s office to register. Concord School District attorney Roger Phillips said that while Metalious signed an affidavit saying he was registered to vote in Concord but wasn’t, the fact that he later went back and corrected the problem allowed him to gain ballot access. In an interview before the election, Phillips said his interpretation of the school board charter allowed for the correction and was better than to have a free-for-all write-in campaign for the third school board seat.

More electoral shuffling

While some elected officials – like Bouley, Bennett, and McClure – have speculated that this would be their final terms, others will be redistricted out of their districts in the wake of new ward lines that will be implemented on Jan. 1, 2014, after the voters approved the ballot question on Nov. 8.

, who still lives in Ward 4, recently bought a new house on the southern part of the ward that will be redistricted into Ward 5 in 2014, meaning that she will no longer be the Ward 4 councilor at the end of this term. This would necessitate a face-off against Werner, assuming they both want to run again in 2013. Kretovic, who was just elected to the Ward 2 council position, will be redistricted into Ward 3 where currently McClure serves. MacNeil - who made the issue of redistricting a part of her campaign - will be redistricted from Ward 3 into Ward 4, where there will be an open seat due to Grady’s move.

Other elected officials, like state Rep. Mary Gile, who currently lives in Ward 3 and fills a Merrimack District 11 seat, will be moved into Ward 4, a completely new state representative seat, currently held by four Democrats and the only Republican representing Concord, state Rep. Lynne Blankenbeker. She will be allowed to serve through the end of her term in 2012.

The Republican-controlled Legislature is currently considering moving to one state representative per city ward, with some at-large members, instead of multiple members in a few city wards, as it is currently. Since three Merrimack District 12 state representatives – Rick Watrous, Helen Delogue and Chip Rice – all live on Wilson Street in Ward 7, they will also be affected by the redistricting.

Another ballot question

Voters will, once again, see another on the First-in-the-Nation primary ballot on Jan. 10, 2012.

The council recently approved of a charter change that would take away the voter approval process for new redistricted ward lines in the future. If approved by voters, the process would be done by ordinance, which would allow the council to draw new ward lines and hold public hearings about them but not require voter approval.