Council votes to formalize Human Relations Committee

LACONIA — City councilors approved the creation of the Human Relations Committee as a standing committee during their meeting on Monday night.

The vote was split 5-1, with Ward 5 Councilor Steven Bogert against the motion. The vote occurred following a public hearing during which residents of Laconia and surrounding communities expressed their opposition to creating the committee. About 30 citizens attended the meeting.

Appointments to the committee could begin in January. The mechanics of the process will be subject to review by the council’s subcommittees on appointments and government operations and ordinances, after Jan. 1.

Bogert made a motion to table the question, which did not receive support.

“The creation of a committee is one of the most important decisions a city council can make. The committee shall serve a defined purpose — defined purpose,” Bogert said, who also represents the city as a Republican in the Statehouse. “If we look at each of our current boards, we would see that they serve a distinct, defined purpose. They all fulfill a statutory need for the city.”

The Human Relations Committee has been, for 25 years, a mayor’s committee. It was created during the tenure of former Mayor Matt Lahey, who, working with former Police Chief Bill Baker, sought to assist a group of refugees in their resettlement to the area.

Today, the committee is involved with various educational and social programs in the city, most notably the annual remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr. and his work during the Civil Rights Movement. Members of the committee also volunteer their time in assisting with Laconia Multicultural & Folk Festival, which was created by the committee and is now organized primarily by a separate, nonprofit group.

Recently, the Laconia Human Relations Committee organized a countywide forum on homelessness, held at the auditorium at Laconia High School. That forum was well-attended, and organizers collected donations for local charitable organizations during the event.

Public sentiment criticizing the committee began when a group associated with the Real Life Church downtown presented their concept for temporary shelters for people experiencing homelessness called “God Pods” to a group from the Human Relations Committee. Councilors then discussed making the mayor’s committee a standing city committee in order to ensure the council would have oversight of their operations.

Over the last month or so, residents of the city and other towns spoke in public hearings on the matter, expressing opposition to creating the standing committee.

On Monday night, members of the council expressed their outrage regarding a letter to the editor published in The Laconia Daily Sun which asserted the Human Relations Committee was working to bring 250 refugees from other countries to be resettled in the city. Councilors said the claims made in that letter were false.

“I’d like to encourage our local newspaper, the editors or whoever’s in charge of the information that goes into that paper, especially in the letters, to have some sort of verification to verify some of the information that people write about,” Mayor Charlie St. Clair said. “Stuff that this council has done — or they say it’s been done — or things like that. Buzzwords, the 'midnight meetings,' '2 a.m. meetings,' 'secret meetings,' whatever.”

“If everybody wants to listen to the garbage that you read on social media, all the letters that end up being published in The Sun that have no truth to them whatsoever, go right ahead, but that’s not how I base my facts,” Ward 3 Councilor Bob Soucy said.

The claim made in the letter penned by Robert Jones of Meredith aside, members of the public at the public hearing were generally against the creation of the committee, aside from two who serve on it.

“I’ve been a member of the committee for quite a number of years, and it’s a privilege to see the committee do its work. And I hope that the greater Laconia community has benefitted from that,” David Osman said.

Ronnie Abbott of Gilford said he’s met members of the committee and has a good rapport with them, but considers making the committee permanent would be retaliation toward an incoming mayor and council.

“I don’t feel like this should be the group making that decision,” Abbott said.

Councilor-elect Mike Conant, who will serve Ward 6, said he appreciated all the work, volunteer time and effort members of the committee have made, but would like to see issues resolved before the committee is made permanent. He asked councilors to keep the item tabled.

“As it’s currently comprised, it’s broken and inefficient and it has no definitive purpose,” Conant said. “Why we would create a permanent committee when there’s no clear purpose, no policies, no values, no mission statement? That just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Archie Keltz of Laconia said the committee works with controversial topics, and asked councilors if they want to support everything they may or may not stand for.

“The nature of this committee’s work, in its best light, is the subtlety — giving voice to the marginalized, touchy-feely issues, that I really don’t think that the next iteration — which is very similar by the way — of the city council is going to want to approve every single statement that comes out of the mouths of the HRC in whatever form it takes, because the nature of their speech is going to be somewhat controversial, no matter what they say, because they’re subtle issues, they’re complex issues,” Keltz said.