Aislinn Kalob and Brenna Kehew Sculley have many things in common. They share many views on housing and homelessness and are prepared to tackle those issues as candidates running to represent Ward 6 on Concord’s city council.
Both are relatively new to the capital city: Kalob, a renter and a waitress, has lived here for about three and a half years; Kehew Sculley, who works for a professional development organization for women in government, moved here two and a half years ago.
Both are running for public office for the first time and say their novelty could bring a fresh perspective to the current council, where several councilors have served for over a decade.
“One thing about Brenna and I, and also, I guess, in a sense about Ward 6, is that we represent where Concord is headed,” Kalob said. “Concord is growing. There are new people moving to Concord.”
Ward 6 encompasses the heart of downtown, including much of the revitalized Main Street area and some of the city’s major employers and capital projects, like Memorial Field, a state office park and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
Kehew Sculley said she’s focused on Concord’s economy, something she hopes to improve by opening the door to new developments and expanding the city’s tax base. With more taxpayers, the city could invest more in businesses and services without raising taxes as much.
Kalob hopes to bring more transparency and outreach to city council, saying she wants meeting agendas and recaps to be more accessible online. In her “perfect world,” information about city government would be easy to find.
Both candidates also emphasized homelessness and housing availability and affordability as top issues in the city.
Spurring development
On housing, both candidates said they want Concord’s zoning ordinances and zoning board to be friendly to new development.
“That would be a concrete thing, would just be to work really closely with the Zoning Board and make sure it does not have any barriers to development where we think it’s necessary,” Kehew Sculley said.
She and Kalob both said they want to see more mixed-use developments in Concord, like the proposal for the Steeplegate Mall site. Kalob said she’d prioritize that as the city embarks on forming its new master plan.
“This is an incredible opportunity that we need to seize, bring the community to look at our zoning,” Kalob said. “Where can we change our zoning to make it residential, to allow apartment buildings, to allow single-family homes… homes for seniors?”
‘A rock and a hard place’
On homelessness, both candidates said there’s no silver-bullet solution.
When Concord Police cleared an encampment at Healy Park this summer, 30 people were displaced. Kehew Sculley said she could sympathize both with the people camped there and the city council. She feels councilors were stuck between a “rock and a hard place” in clearing Healy Park — she said she doesn’t want to displace anyone but encampments aren’t a permanent solution either.
“I think it was an unfortunate, necessary thing,” Kehew Sculley said. “However, we can do it in the most compassionate way possible would be my recommendation.”
Sweeping encampments, which Kalob agreed is a necessary function of city government, doesn’t solve homelessness; it merely moves people along to other parts of the city.
To fix the problem, Kalob said Concord should create a more streamlined way for people to receive services. After volunteering at a food distribution site and speaking with people experiencing homelessness, Kalob said that stood out as a main issue.
“That is one thing that I hear, is just the complicated nature of navigating the resources,” Kalob said. “You really need a case worker. You can’t go it alone.”
