Members of the public rely on the minutes of City Council meetings as the most accurate reflection of those meetings.
But Concord City Council minutes don’t reflect the record. Not by accident, on purpose:
As you will see early in the recording of the July 13, 2026, Concord City Council meeting, the minutes of the previous council meeting became a bone of contention.
Corrections were called for by Councilor Stacey Brown, but the Mayor denied them. He had previously referred to Councilor Brown as “an agent of chaos”.
Now, the minutes for the previous meeting that will be made available to the public will never match up to the video record of that meeting on Concord TV/ YouTube.
Despite a request from Councilor Brown to accurately report that she did not recuse herself from votes and nor did another council member, the Mayor refused to correct the error. Brown called that section of the minutes “a fabrication”.
Mayor Champlain’s refusal to correct the minutes suggests the inaccuracy was not a mistake…but a deliberate rewriting of what happened- to hoodwink the public. Negative remarks about the city manager’s performance for his review have been scratched from the record. The public will just believe that everyone was on board with his pay raise, his performance, his benefits, and his double retirement accounts when that is actually not the case.
Councilor Brown has 4300 constituents in Ward 5. That’s 1/10th of the City’s population. That’s the percentage whose representation has been nullified because the Mayor refuses to change the minutes.
The public is left with access limited to permanently incorrect minutes.
This is not a minor problem; it’s a major issue. The city clerk or deputy clerk entered the minutes stating that two council members recused themselves from a vote when they did not, and the fact that they did not is actually recorded on video from that meeting.
The Mayor is not willing to have the record reflect what those councilors claim and what the live recording from the earlier meeting shows. It’s an alarming situation.
Reporting to the City Councilors and Mayor is the City Manager. In the case of Concord, the City Manager earns more than the Mayor of Boston. Under him are the police, whose misconduct has been covered up by the City Council. The council voted on his request for a three-month sabbatical. Only Councilor Brown reminded them that the sabbatical was “discretionary”. While he is away, the finance director is leaving. Councilor Brown had been excluded from the non-public meeting, where other councilors were informed of this. What else is going on in these non-public meetings, and is the privilege for the non-public meetings being abused to slip through things like the finance director’s departure while the city manager is off on his sabbatical?
Meanwhile, the Mayor has just sent the message loud and clear to the City Manager, staff, and police that accurate records for them all are irrelevant. Fabrication is fine.
Mayor Champlain wants constituents to trust him and the council. He purports to care about the “brand” of Concord. That brand is now “make it up and cover it up”.
How does he expect to gain trust from constituents while stating that he is not interested in accurate minutes of the meetings he presides over?
Councilor Brown stated in this recording that she was going to file a complaint since the Mayor was unwilling to change the minutes.
How many other city records are just “fabrications” – a word Councilor Brown uses in this clip, which is well worth watching.
You would never guess that Mayor Byron Champlin was appointed to the Governor’s ethics committee after reviewing this.
Disturbing.
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