The optics are not good for the Concord City Council, whose message for 2026 is to preserve the “Brand”……
The January 12th council meeting ended with fireworks:
Ward 5 Council member Stacey Brown was called an “Agent of Chaos” by Mayor Byron Champlin. Councilmember at large, Amanda Grady Sexton, allegedly said “she was going to do something” to Brown after a public face-off. This may have led to the cops showing up – possibly because a panic button was pressed. Sadly, the students from St Paul’s School who’d shown up at the meeting as part of some excursion tied to their school magazine had left before the newsworthy drama started.
Tony Schinella of Concord Patch posted a photo from the meeting, which showed Councilman Fred Keach (yes, he who had the DUI) standing and pointing his finger at a seated Stacey Brown. Grady Sexton chairs the committee for public safety to whom Concord PD reports. According to this article, Concord PD restricted the information on Keach’s DUI arrest… who does he have to thank for that? Concord PD or the Chair of the Public Safety Committee?
Now there are reports on moves to remove Brown from the Council altogether. Her crime? She asked some questions recently about funds that had disappeared from an account. Grady Sexton didn’t like it, and neither did Mayor Champlin. They shut her down before she had finished asking questions. Then they removed her from most of the committees she’d been appointed to.
I wonder what any of them would say if they ended up with a situation like Claremont’s, with a $5 million deficit in the school budget? Aren’t council members supposed to be asking about funds and how they are used? It’s constituents’ money after all, and the constituents elect them, including Stacey Brown for Ward 5.https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025-08-28/how-did-this-happen-uncertainty-continues-amid-claremonts-school-funding-crisis
Just from the photograph of the scene, it looks like Keach is a condescending misogynist who doesn’t like women who ask questions. Grady Sexton has been very comfortable disseminating or creating false or libelous propaganda about others, but she can’t handle the truth about a conflict of interest she has between her position as Chair of the Public Safety Committee and her job for the NHCADSV, helping police and prosecutors shape the media in pretrial publicity for criminal trials.
Grady Sexton stated that she doesn’t train police in her response to Brown’s assertions that she trains police for pretrial publicity, but that contradicts statements on her own bio about her relationship with law enforcement. I guess the truth is only valid when it’s going in her direction and worthy of tears when it’s not? There is ample documentation that shows law enforcement and the NHCADSV together.
As far as I understand it, there were no tears from Stacey Brown when she was told she couldn’t be on the public safety committee due to a conflict of interest (because her husband is in Law Enforcement – understandable). Nor were there any tears when she was removed from the committees she’d been on. But Grady Sexton suddenly turned herself into a victim over a perfectly valid ethics point that has been ignored for years. Other council members apparently turned on Brown for causing the tears while ignoring the fact that she had been ostracized from committees and shut down for asking valid questions.
Don’t poke the bear…..
A few years ago, two representatives tried to pass a bill, HB111, which would have removed immunity for public officials engaged in corruption. It received bipartisan support, but Concord Mayor Jim Bouley and several other mayors lobbied against it. Also lobbying against it was the Municipalities Association. https://www.nhbr.com/house-bill-targeting-public-officials-immunity-faulted-by-municipalities-police/
Concord’s former Mayor Jim Bouley owns the lobbying organization Dennehy & Bouley. www.dennehybouley.com . Amanda Grady Sexton worked closely with Bouley and his lobby organization on Marsy’s Law. They both got paid handsomely for it. Jessica Eskerland, who worked with the NHCADSV as well, has joined the lobby firm and is (or was) on the board of ACEC, which presumably does well out of city contracts requiring engineering.
In 2012, an Ethics Board was formed in Concord with a set of rules. https://www.concordnh.gov/DocumentCenter/View/22169/Board-of-Ethics-Rules
But from 2013 onward, during his tenure as Concord’s mayor, the City Council did not hold ethics meetings. On March 8th, 2021, by Ordinance number 3085, the City effectively vacated the Ethics Committee.
“Effective April 12, 2021, all current appointed members on the Board of Ethics shall be vacated, and on or after that date, new members shall be appointed in accordance with the appointment procedure
set forth above and in accordance with the following terms: one (1) member shall be appointed ot serve one year, two (2) members for two (2) years; and two (2) members for three (3) years; thereafter all regular appointments shall be for three (3) years. All members shall serve without compensation.”
So it would appear that the “Brand” that Mayor Byron Champlin wants to protect is that of police cover-ups of DUI arrests for Concord Public Officials, misogyny, tears, panic buttons, and the cops needing to show up.
What a great start to 2026.
