For McNamara, Concord City Council Seat Is About Public Service

CONCORD, NH — Running for public office is not always an easy endeavor.

It takes time and commitment. The candidate really has to want to put in the work to get elected and then, the harder part, in some cases, performing the role. The time also has to be right.

For Karen McNamara, it was not something she would have considered years ago.

An educator in Manchester, she and her husband raised a family in the city. Sure, there was time for volunteering and work with nonprofits — as many Concord residents do. But now, with her children grown, McNamara said it was time to try to run. She said her campaign for the open Ward 4 city council seat, which will be decided on Tuesday, was part of extending her “service-first” ethos. She spoke with outgoing Councilor Meredith Hatfield, who moved to Hopkinton, as well as others, including other councilors, to discuss their roles, what they do, and what they give.

It seemed, to her, like a good future fit.

While door-knocking, she encountered a younger mother who asked her, point-blank, how do you find the time?

“My kids are out of the house,” she said. “My children are adults. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that makes a huge difference’.”

McNamara said she has been “loving” the experience of running, so far, hearing the concerns of residents adding she found it “helpful, to me, and it is also educating. I feel their passion; I feel their needs. I find it very exciting.”

One thing that has been surprising is how many voters ask her about her political affiliation — especially since Concord city council races are nonpartisan. Another is how many people are concerned about the city’s future and were unhappy about the direction of the city. McNamara said, if voters did not have concerns, they would not take the time to talk to a candidate coming around to speak to them about voting. Sometimes, the conversations will be short; other times, they will be longer. One, she noted, spoke with her for around 90 minutes.

“(Voters) really have passions for the home that they live in and their community,” she said. “That’s what I’m finding.”

The city’s pay-as-you-throw program has been by a number of voters, she said. Where she came from, the trash collection was part of the property tax bill, similar to what it was like in Concord not that long ago. A lot of residents, she said, do not want to pay the fee for the purple bags — and noticed how easy it was to not have to buy them during the coronavirus pandemic. A lot of businesses, too, especially smaller ones, have their recycling picked up in a lot of neighborhoods even though they are not paying for the purple bags or solid waste removal in their property taxes.

“It all adds up,” she said.

McNamara wondered if it would be good to show neighbors, in their tax bill, the amount of trash they were putting out or water usage, too, in water bills, so they could compare themselves with others. She noticed she recycled more after pay-as-you-throw was implemented, not unlike a lot of other residents.

Another issue is housing, which is a concern for many these days. From there though, voters are also thinking about poverty in the city, and the pockets, here and there, in not only Ward 4 but elsewhere, too, McNamara said. Both The Friendly Kitchen and the Coalition Shelter are in the ward, she noted. The city needs to manage both “the best we can, to support our homeless, and support those taxpayers who live in the areas.”

Unlike other wards, which have available parcels and some large developments coming, most of Ward 4 has already been developed. There is a large parcel along College Drive that is located in the Merrimack River floodplain and a handful of lots here and there. The ward’s residents, however, will be affected by future development at the Lincoln Financial property, which was just purchased by Brady Sullivan at nearly half the offering price. Another is the New Hampshire Department of Transportation parcel on Stickney Avenue, which Brady Sullivan was also eyeing, but the city is taking advantage of its right of first refusal.

Part of the housing strategy is to be creative, McNamara said, and engineers can do a lot.

“I know there are things (developers) are working on, already,” McNamara said, pointing to the Langdon Avenue Yard Rail project. “The Employment Security building is another one. But we need something that will be moderate- to low-income. But for some of the low-income (residents), we need to provide the services. You can’t just build it, put ‘em in there, and then walk away. It has to be layered with services that will keep them living independently, successfully.”

The city, she said, thinks like that, and she wants to make sure officials continue to focus that way, even though it is difficult.

With the Yard Rail project, she hoped a bus route would run there so it would be accessible beyond personal vehicles.

Finding the balance, too, should be part of the strategy while acknowledging many of the homeless population in Concord have to want to need to get help. She found this during previous advocacy work — no one can force anyone else to get help; they had to find it for themselves. She would listen and help find resources but could not make people take control of their lives. Preparing to help them, getting the resources lined up, and “they’ll take them if they choose,” she said.

There is also the issue of public safety.

McNamara was surprised to see the increase in calls for the fire department without a lot of new hires. A lot of that increase was due to COVID-19, which will subside. At the same time, she was puzzled by the lack of a fourth ambulance being put into service when it was clearly needed. McNamara recently received the endorsement of Local 1045, the firefighters’ union, with a number of them telling her how tough it was in the city lately.

McNamara said street conditions, too, have been raised by a number of residents, but the city has been chipping away at repaving, something that voters see as a positive, especially when considering the length of the CIP list. She said preserving high-quality city services, and making sure neglect does not lead to higher repair costs, was also an issue raised. McNamara also heard from a resident about parking permit issues, especially after the addition of more paid meters that are used by state employees or people visiting the Statehouse for business on Centre Street.

Getting new business development, too, would be a priority. The Employment Security project, which will eventually lead to a payoff, hopefully, of the downtown tax increment finance district, was a good, recent agreement. At the same time, McNamara said, that project is not enough. The city needed to get creative about the types of businesses that move here, whether they are big or small, to ensure they expand the tax base. Part of the city’s future success will be to just get through the next year, especially at the end of the pandemic, with a hope that things will truly get back to normal, she said.

While the city no longer has an economic development position, and it may not have worked out as well as everyone had hoped it would, McNamara said officials and city residents really had to support new businesses while “working as a team when they get here.” She added, “It’s not, ‘OK, dump, buh-bye’; it’s that collaboration we have to have with these small businesses, large businesses … a partnership. What are we doing to reach out to these (businesses)? I don’t know yet.”

McNamara said business roundtables “were key,” bringing all kinds of different people together, not to complain, but find solutions to some of the city’s problems. All involved should be using data “to drive our needs,” she added,

One might think McNamara, a reading essentials teacher, would have considered a run for the Concord board of education. She did think about it in the past. But, like everything in life, it was all about timing. In the past election, she was involved in putting in 150 hours to finish multi-sensory Orton-Gillingham phonics instruction and a political run just did not fit in her with her schedule.

“This works for me, now,” McNamara said. “Who’s to say I might have run if I didn’t have the commitments in my life at that time. But that wasn’t for me, at the time.”

If elected though, McNamara said, working with the school board as a councilor might be beneficial since she has been in the educator’s shoes — dancing around so many hats, with children, parents, and the school system.

“I think, as an educator, my ability to listen, to observe, to ask questions, to sift through data,” she said, “these are cool skills I have that I think makes me great potential for working in a team, working in a ward, being that spoke out to Concord … you’re working with all city councilors, to make decisions.”

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