Concord's Mayor First to File for Re-Election

Candidates for municipal offices in 2013 have started to file to run for office.

The first one to sign up on Sept. 6, was Mayor Jim Bouley who was at the clerk’s office just before the officer opened.

Bouley said it had been “a great privilege” to serve the city and there was still a lot of work to be done. He said during the last six years, the financial situation had stabilized and improved, even though the state had downshifted costs, and economic growth had been limited. Bouley said he was proud of his work, and that of the council, especially on finances.

Bouley also pointed to the modernization of certain city services, including electronic purchases and fee payment, as well as a new website.

In the coming years, if re-elected, Bouley said, he looked forward to focusing on infrastructure issues, including the Main Street Complete Streets project, and “continue to move the city forward.”

Adam Czarkowski, a candidate for the open Ward 1 seat, said that after losing by a slim margin in 2011, he knew he had to run again. He said he enjoyed meeting and speaking with voters the last time around and thought it would be good to run again. Czarkowski said he was “excited” about the direction that Penacook was taking, especially the new infrastructure projects, but also wanted to work on getting a supermarket to the village.

“My only agenda is to really try and make Penacook better,” he said, “while at the same time, not overtaxing the taxpayers.”

At-Large Council Michael DelloIacono also signed up on Sept. 6, saying that he wanted to see through a lot of the projects that were going on in the city. He was also proud of the balanced budgets the city had approved and wanted to continue to work on moving the Main Street project forward.

“I’m happy with our progress, so far,” he said, “and there’s a lot of stuff going on that I want to see to fruition.”

In the future, DelloIacono said he would like the city to work with landlords to see how they could make their lives a little easier in order to get more market rate housing downtown. He said there was more than four years ago, “but there’s a lot of room to grow.”

Jennifer Kretovic, who is running in Ward 3, also signed up in the morning and around lunchtime, Fred Keach, who is switching from Ward 10 to an at-large seat also signed up.

“I’ve enjoyed the four years and I want to continue that,” he said. “I think the at-large position will allow me to do some things that are less specific to ward work … which is not an unimportant thing, but I’ve done it for four years.”

Keach said the last four years have been really tight, especially for infrastructure, and he would like the council to focus on paving roads and fixing parks, “the stuff that’s been neglected.” He said times have been tough and it was time to focus on those kinds of improvements.

“They aren’t sexy topics but they’re important,” Keach said.

At just before 9 a.m., John Cook, Bouley’s challenger in 2011, stopped by the clerk’s office on his way up to see the city manager about a zoning story he saw in the Wall Street Journal. Cook was mum about any potential run.

“I ain’t saying,” he said, although he did inquire about the last date to file, which with is Sept. 16.

“The 16th? Hmm,” he said with a laugh.

Later on in the day, according to the city clerk's officer, other candidates trickled in to sign up to run including Amanda Grady Sexton who is running again in Ward 4, J. Allen Bennett, who is running in Ward 6 again, Keith Nyhan, who is running in Ward 7 again, and Dan St. Hilaire, who is running for the Ward 10 seat.

Also signing up to run was Cassandra Rasmussen of Penacook who, like Czarkowski, will seek the Ward 1 seat. 

Rasmussen said she was motivated to run by the Bearcat issue – the city’s grant for a new armored vehicle for the SWAT team that Concord is a member of – but also how the city government is spending a lot of its money and the lack of respect that Penacook seems to often get.

“I feel, that the way things are going we the people, for the people, is actually we the government for the government,” she said. “In general, Penacook needs someone that is ready to stand up, callout what needs to be called out, not necessarily what I want to callout, but what the people of Penacook want to be called out.”

Instead of the Bearcat, Rasmussen believed the city should purchase better personal safety protection for the officers and spend money on training, as well as improving police protocol. 

Rasmussen pointed to problems with the Route 3 corridor project . She added that she would like to see improvements brought to Borough Road especially in the area near Lilac Street which has visual impairment issues that can cause accidents.

“My goal is to make sure the people of Penacook are heard again,” she said. “Sometimes our voices are put a little bit lower on the podium … we’re part of Concord. We deserve to be heard.”

Otherwise, it’s been quiet

“It’s been really quiet … really, really quiet.”

That’s how City Clerk Janice Bonenfant described the lack of response from the public about potentially running for municipal offices this year. She said, despite the outreach by the clerk’s office to media outlets and all the stories written about the 2013 city races, few people outside the process have checked in to find out how to get involved.

The same could be said over at Roger Phillips office, where the clerk is ready to sign people up to run for the three Concord School Board seats but on Sept. 6, no one signed up.

“We had no takers today,” Kathyrn Sneed, the officer manager, said in an email sent just after the close of the first day of signups.