Anyone in Concord doubt the financial, planning, expertise and math skills of the city and school district? A $75 million middle school soars to $170 million. A $4 million golf course clubhouse morphs into $10 million. How so? Hearings last fall showed high public dissatisfaction with process, lack of transparency, and price. Why aren\u2019t we kept informed? Government should be open, accessible, accountable and responsive. N.H. Constitution Part I, Article 8. Towns like Bow elect a budget committee to review plans, costs, and budgets, so residents are kept informed. Cities can\u2019t elect a budget committee. <\/p>\n
However, isn\u2019t it time for Concord citizens to organize a group to review and oversee projects and budgets, vet them, keeping us informed? Have elected officials and public employees forgot that all power originates and resides in, and is derived from, the people, and officers of government their substitutes and agents, and at all times accountable to them. Again, cited from the N.H. Constitution. The public\u2019s right of access to government proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted. That\u2019s the right-to-know law used to obtain government information not being publicly disclosed, to promote transparency, and keep tabs on these costly projects. It\u2019s overdue to form this Concord citizen oversight group. You don\u2019t need to be elected to have a role in making your government work. Keeping and preserving our democracy asks nothing less.<\/p>\n
Charles A. Russell<\/p>\n
Concord<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone in Concord doubt the financial, planning, expertise and math skills of the city and school district? A $75 million middle school soars to $170 million. A $4 million golf course clubhouse morphs into $10 million. How so? Hearings last fall…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,510],"tags":[505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","category-opening","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11405"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=11405"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}