{"id":9297,"date":"2024-01-06T11:26:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T11:26:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"New-City-Council-53570549\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=9297","title":{"rendered":"Concord City Council breaks the ice before work ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Incoming
Incoming Concord city councilor Jeff Foote, center, from Ward 10 gets a laugh as he introduces himself to the group during a council orientation at the community center in Concord on Wednesday night. Incoming councilors Michele Horne, left and Ali Sekou look on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Mayor
Mayor Byron Champlin, councilors Stacey Brown, Judith Kurtz, and Jennifer Kretovic (all standing) are part of the green group in an exercise of different personality types at the council orientation Wednesday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"City
City councilors Nathan Fennessy (left), Amanda Grady Sexton, Mayor Byron Champlin, Stacey Brown, Judith Kurtz, and Jennifer Kretovic (all standing) are part of the green group forthe\u00a0exercise\u00a0in personality types at the council orientation at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday night, January 3, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"City
City councilors Nathan Fennessy (left), Amanda Grady Sexton, Mayor Byron Champlin, Stacey Brown, Judith Kurtz, and Jennifer Kretovic (all standing) are part of the green group in exercise in personality types at the council orientation at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday night, January 3, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"City
City councilor Brent Todd talks with Concord Mayor Byron Champlin before the start of the council orientation at the Community Center on Wednesday night, January 3, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Mayor
Mayor Byron Champlin welcomes all the city councilors to the council orientation at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday night, January 3, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"City
City councilor Karen McNamara (left) talks with Mayor Byron Champlin as councilors Fred Keach and Stacey Brown talk at the council orientation at the Community Center on Wednesday night, January 3, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"New
New city councilor Ali Sekou listens to introductions at the orientation meeting at the Community Center on Wednesday night, January 4, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"New
New city councilor Ali Sekou listens to introductions at the orientation meeting at the Community Center on Wednesday night, January 4, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

Each member of the Concord City Council stood next to signs identifying them with a color\u00a0\u2014\u00a0red, green, blue, yellow \u2014\u00a0each representing a distinct personality type.<\/p>\n

The colors reflected the lighthearted scores they received on a personality test they took at the city-wide community center Wednesday night when the new city council met for the first time.<\/p>\n

Judith Kurtz\u00a0said the council gave her an opportunity to become more involved with the community. Michele Horne saw her role as a voice for the working class, while Jim Schlosser approached\u00a0his new position as a way to continue his work to\u00a0reduce homelessness in the city.<\/p>\n

Despite their different motivations for being on Concord\u2019s city council, a common thread united\u00a0the group \u2014 a shared commitment to embracing differences and collaborating for the city\u2019s common good.<\/p>\n

Gathering over sandwiches, salads and cookies, the new group convened to discuss procedures and protocols but also to get to know each other and lay the foundation for the work that lies ahead over the next two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking on the council is not anything that any one of us does. But all of us as a unit, as collaborators, can do lots of good work,\u201d said Brent Todd, Ward 1 councilor.<\/p>\n

Mayor Byron Champlin had invited facilitator Ellen Koenig\u00a0to kick off the meeting with an ice-breaking activity, having all of the councilors take a personality test before they begin their roles as a city council next week.<\/p>\n

After completing the test, each council member moved to their assigned area\u00a0that corresponded to characteristic traits.<\/p>\n

Councilors Nathan Fennessey, Jennifer Kretovic, Stacey Brown, Judith Kurtz, Amanda Grady Sexton and Champlin all exhibited a similar inclination toward addressing issues based on feelings and community sentiment.<\/p>\n

Councilors Paula McLaughlin and Todd were characterized as individuals who tended to be more reserved and focused on conceptualizing the potential implications of decisions for future generations.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, councilors Fred Keach, Karen McNamara and Jeff Foote emerged as action-oriented, people-focused decision-makers, eager to take on initiatives.<\/p>\n

The newly elected councilors \u2013 Horne, Kris Schultz, Sekou and Schlosser \u2013 displayed a blend of qualities from various colors, showcasing a varied range of characteristics.<\/p>\n

None of the traits were negative. However, no council member fell within the yellow category, representing those who make decisions grounded in data and facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might be different from each other but what we also need to appreciate is the complexity within ourselves and have a little compassion for ourselves if we screw up or lose it and make compassion for each other,\u201d said Schlosser. \u201cI think there\u2019s diversity \u00a0between people, but also in each of us.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each member of the Concord City Council stood next to signs identifying them with a color\u00a0\u2014\u00a0red, green, blue, yellow \u2014\u00a0each representing a distinct personality type.The colors reflected the lighthearted scores they received on a personality test they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":9298,"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":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=553]Sruthi Gopalakrishnan[\/Author] Monitor staff","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":[540,12],"tags":[94,24,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[506],"class_list":["post-9297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homebox7-cm","category-town-city-government","tag-concord-nh","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/42614809-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9297","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"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/553"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9299,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9297\/revisions\/9299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9297"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=9297"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}