Participants
Everyone heard or named as taking part. Names follow the district’s own documents where they exist, then on-tape self-identification and the chair’s or clerk’s address; a first name only is kept where nothing more is on the record.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Tracy Pope | School district moderator (presiding) | Called the session to order, read the procedures again (0:02:00), and moved both articles to the ballot. Labeled Mrs. Pope in the dialogue file; full name per the 2/1/21 minutes. |
| Frank Sprague | Chair, Claremont School Board | Introduced the board and district officers (0:01:30). |
| Rebecca Zullo | Board member | Led the Pledge (0:00:26). |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member | Joined late; read Article 1 (0:06:58). |
| Jason Benware | Board member | Read Article 2 (0:07:59). |
| Michael Petrin | Board member | Spoke for the budget subcommittee’s review (0:09:43). |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member | Present per the chair; not otherwise heard. |
| Heather Whitney | Board member (vice chair) | Not named among those present. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Introduced the administrative staff (0:00:55). |
| Donna Magoon | Assistant superintendent, SAU 6 | Reported the voters’ submissions for each article: none (0:07:29, 0:09:06). |
| Richard Seaman | Assistant superintendent of finance, SAU 6 | Introduced as present. |
| Jeff Small | Technology director, SAU 6 | Introduced as present. |
| Ben Nester | Director of special education, SAU 6 | Introduced as present. |
| Matt Upton | School attorney | Introduced as on the line. |
| Mary Woodman | School district clerk | Named by the chair as the district clerk; not heard. |
| Unidentified | Participant | Told the moderator that Petrin had his hand up (0:09:33). |
Order of business
No posted agenda is on hand. The moderator read a fixed script; the list below follows it.
Items in the order taken up, with dispositions.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:07 | Call to order; Pledge | Moderator Pope; Zullo leads the Pledge. |
| 0:00:41 | Introductions | Superintendent introduces administrators; chair introduces officers and members. |
| 0:02:00 | House Bill 1129 procedures | Restated: written submissions closed at 4 p.m. that day; no live comment; voting March 9. |
| 0:05:53 | Article 1, election of school district officials | Read by Lovett. Submissions: none. No board discussion. “This article will be moved to the alternative ballot as posted.” |
| 0:07:44 | Article 2, main budget | Read by Benware: $37,785,406; default $37,762,398; board recommends. Submissions: none. Petrin’s remarks. Moved “to the alternative ballot as posted” (OBSERVATION). |
| 0:10:40 | Voting information; close | Polling places, identification, walk-up and absentee voting, the supervisors’ registration session. |
Discussion timeline
Times come from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/11281 SchoolDistrictMeeting020421.mp4.CSV). Quotations are the transcript as it stands, ASR errors included; bracketed words are editorial.
Topics in recording order.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:07 | Call to order | Pope: “welcome you to the February 4th virtual deliberative session”. | |
| 0:00:55 | Staff | Tempesta introduces Magoon, Seaman, Small, Nester and “our school attorney. Matt Upton”. | |
| 0:01:30 | Board and officers | Sprague: “Mrs. Pope is our school district moderator. Mrs. Mary Woodman is our school district clerk.” “There are five of us present.” | |
| 0:02:00 | Process restated | Pope: submissions “had to include the name, address and ward of the voter and were verified against checklist for eligibility”; “No live comments or questions from registered voters were, or will be allowed” at either session. | |
| 0:04:25 | Voting day | Pope: drive-up voting March 9, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., by ward; voters must “press their driver's license or state insured identification card against the window of their vehicle” [state-issued]. | |
| 0:06:58 | Article 1 | Lovett reads the election article. Magoon: “there are no comments, concerns or requested amendments for article one”. No board member speaks. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:07:59 | Article 2 | Benware reads the operating budget article, “totaling $37,785,406”, default “$37,762,398”, and “the school board recommends this article”. Magoon: “there are no comments, concerns or requested amendments for article two”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:09:43 | Petrin on the budget | Petrin answers the charge of “this budget just being rubber stamped and passed through”: the subcommittee met “Spending probably at least ten hours, five different meetings”; “not at all a rubber stamp budget”. These are the remarks the 2/1/21 minutes place in the first session. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:10:40 | Article 2 moved; voting information | Pope moves the article to the ballot as posted, then repeats the polling places and adds “Walk through voting will be allowed in all three voting places.” Absentee voting is available, and “The supervisors of the checklist will be meeting at the City Clerk's Office Saturday, February 27th, 2021, from 11 to 11:30 a.m.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:12:16 | Close | Pope: “That concludes tonight's meeting.” | |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer’s aid. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one cites the rule or record it rests on, as that rule read on the meeting date, so a reader can check the reasoning. A flag marked OBSERVATION has no confirmed rule behind it; POSITIVE marks practice worth noting on the other side of the ledger.
MEDIUM No minutes of this session were located
This session was the one at which the annual meeting acted on the warrant: both articles went to the March 9 ballot here. The clerk minuted the first session (2.1.21 Minutes from Virtual District Meeting, filed in the November 3, 2022 special-meeting packet), but MAP.md records no minutes or other Drive material for this one. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes open to public inspection “not more than 5 business days after the meeting” (statutory wording, 2019 codification).
Severity follows the project rule (html_briefing.md §5), mitigated limb: the session was noticed (the 2/1/21 minutes say the warrant and agendas were on the SAU 6 web page, and voters were mailed the schedule), the clerk demonstrably minuted the first session, and only the minutes are missing. Because the first session’s minutes surfaced in a 2022 packet, these may yet exist in a share or packet this page did not search; the finding is “not located”.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification); 2.1.21 Minutes from Virtual District Meeting; MAP.md section 140 (plain text, unpublished).
OBSERVATION Both articles went to the ballot on the moderator’s word, with no board motion, second or vote on the record
The second session is where, as the district’s attorney described the House Bill 1129 process on January 13, the moderator introduces each article, takes a motion and a second, and the board then debates it (show 11262, dialogue row 159), and the moderator then asked the board who would make the motions (show 11262, row 312). On this recording no motion, second or vote is taken on either article. After reading each article and the report that no submissions had arrived, the moderator closed discussion and said the article “will be moved to the alternative ballot as posted” (0:07:44, 0:10:40). Members read the article texts, and Petrin spoke on the budget (0:09:43); no one proposed an amendment.
Because no amendment was offered and no voter submitted anything, the outcome would likely have been the same with a vote. The point for the record is that the session that replaced the floor deliberative session produced no recorded action by the body that was to act for the voters. Whether the enacted law required a vote is not graded here: the chaptered text of 2020 N.H. Laws ch. 8 (HB 1129) was not read for this page, so this remains an observation. The first-session minutes also place Petrin’s budget remarks at February 1; they were made here (see the 2/1/21 page, flag 1).
Sources: Dialogue/11262 SchoolBoard011321.mp4.CSV (attorney’s description, rows 159 and 312); HB 1129 (2020), bill status page (chaptered text not read); Dialogue/11276 SchoolDistrictMeeting020121.mp4.CSV.
POSITIVE Voting instructions were complete and added walk-up and absentee options
The moderator closed with the full voting information on the record: hours, the three ward polling places, the identification procedure, that “Walk through voting will be allowed in all three voting places” for voters without a car, absentee voting for those “temporarily absent from the city” or unable to appear because of disability, and a supervisors-of-the-checklist session on February 27 for voters who could not register during the clerk’s office hours (0:11:40). This went beyond the drive-up minimum the attorney had described in January and carried out what Magoon had told the board on January 27 about voters without a vehicle.
Sources: Dialogue/11281 SchoolDistrictMeeting020421.mp4.CSV (rows 44 to 46); Emergency Order #12 (March 23, 2020).
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Laws and rules cited on this page