Claremont School Board & City Council, Joint Meeting, August 9, 2016
A one-minute school board session that authorized the chair to sign a Stevens schedule agreement with the teachers, followed by the first joint meeting of the school board and the City Council in several years, which set up working groups on vocational training, marketing and poverty. The page is built from the CCTV recording's dialogue transcript; no agenda, packet or minutes survive in the district's online shares, and the city's records were not inspected. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
Bodies
Claremont School Board (Claremont School District, SAU 6), meeting alone and then jointly with the Claremont City Council
Date
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Start time
6:00 p.m. as announced by the superintendent at the August 3 board meeting (August 3, 2016 page); the school board session opens at 0:00:00 and adjourns at 0:01:04; the joint meeting is called to order at 0:01:07 and adjourns at 2:09:59. The dialogue transcript runs 2:10:02.
Location
Not stated in available records. The school board hosted (the mayor: "Thank you for hosting us this evening.", 0:02:25), and Councilor Nicholas recalls the "first year for this center opened" (1:09:43), which places the meeting at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center.
None located in the district's shares. MAP.md records no Drive material for this meeting: neither district share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (checked 9/26/26). City Council minutes, if any, would be in the city clerk's records, which were not searched for this page.
Quorum of each body
School board: all seven members are heard (five answer the joint roll call; Irish and Brent Ferland speak later). City Council (nine members): the roll call as transcribed names the mayor, Towle, Temple, Nicholas and Simonds, with other answers garbled, and Pope and Damren speak, so at least seven councilors are present.
Participants
Everyone heard or addressed on the recording. Names follow the speakers' own introductions, the mayor's roll call and the project's 2015-2023 roster and attribution report; there are no minutes to check spellings against.
Name
Role
Participation
Brian Rapp
Chair, Claremont School Board
Opens the school board session and the joint meeting (0:00:00, 0:01:07); answers the roll as Brian Rath (0:01:16). Raises welding training for Can-Am (0:57:01) and offers to share board packets with the council (1:51:21).
Chris Irish
Vice chair, Claremont School Board
Moves the chair's signing authority (0:00:38). Proposes a tech-center subcommittee (0:57:54), a single city-and-schools website (1:39:37), and enforcing the city's curfew (1:14:49); not heard answering the joint roll call.
Patrick Adrian
Member, Claremont School Board
Answers the roll (0:01:20); speaks on housing buyers, linking academics to vocational training (1:04:37) and coordinating existing programs; named to the vocational subcommittee (2:06:05).
Michelle Pierce
Member, Claremont School Board
Answers the roll (0:01:20). Says she has been a nurse for over 20 years and urges health-care training (1:06:38); raises property upkeep (1:23:10); suggested by the mayor to lead the poverty work (2:06:25); seconds adjournment (2:09:57).
Rebecca (Becky) Ferland
Member, Claremont School Board
Answers the roll, transcribed "Marilyn. Becky, here." (0:01:20). Not otherwise identified on the recording.
Frank Sprague
Member, Claremont School Board
Called in the roll as "Frank. Spread council." (0:01:20). Not otherwise identified on the recording.
Brent Ferland
Member, Claremont School Board
Addressed as Brant by Irish (1:49:46); proposes a joint capital-improvements subcommittee instead of a poverty one (1:48:33). Not heard answering the joint roll call.
Charlene Lovett
Mayor of Claremont
Reads the joint roll call (0:01:16), presents the city's goals (0:05:39) and moderates the discussion; leads the marketing subcommittee (2:06:20).
Carolyn Towle
City councilor
Called in the roll as Carolyn. Tall (0:01:20) and addressed as Councilor Tol (0:51:34); asks for work on targeted vocational training and poverty (0:50:29); named to the vocational subcommittee.
Scott Pope
City councilor
Addressed as "Councilor Pope" (1:00:37); a technical-center instructor who says "Because I do work for them." Asks that subcommittees be noticed (2:07:11). Says "when I was mayor" (1:52:04); not verified.
Nicholas (surname not established)
City councilor
Called in the roll (0:01:39) and addressed as Nick; the mayor's recognition is transcribed "Councilor Clawson" (1:45:52). Raises school capacity (1:10:20), the curfew, a poverty task force and joint purchasing (1:46:15).
Allen Damren
City councilor (identification medium)
Recognized as Councilor Darren (1:15:50); says he is a community college system trustee (1:17:34).
Bruce Temple and John Simonds
City councilors
Called in the roll as "Who's temple here?" and "John Simmons here." (0:01:39, 0:01:44); Simonds spelling per the project roster, unverified.
Unidentified councilor
City councilor
Recognized by the mayor in a phrase transcribed "Sister Mary Bergeron." (1:18:45); speaks on publicizing good news and not retreating from legal challenges (1:18:52, 1:20:05). The roll call's other answers are garbled (Keith. Raymond, Alexandra, Philosophy).
Middleton McGoodwin
Superintendent, SAU 6
Presents the district's view on poverty, expectations and early learning (0:16:48); answers on school capacity (1:11:20).
Cory LeClair
Assistant superintendent, SAU 6
Referred to by Pope as "Assistant Superintendent LeClaire" (1:29:56); describes the Nellie Mae community engagement grant (1:48:00).
Guy Santagate
City manager
Addressed as "Mr. Santiago" (1:54:23) and named "Guy" by the superintendent (1:41:39); spelling from the Valley News (Dec. 5, 2016). Speaks on water and sewer investment, revaluation and quality of life.
Bernie Fulton
Public comment
Addressed as "Mr. Fulton" (0:51:34); speaks on markets, data comparisons and resilience (0:36:41), and on the right-to-know duties of subcommittees (2:08:38). Spelling unverified.
Unidentified
Various
73 of 615 dialogue rows (11.9%), including one school board member who speaks about a shared publicity position (1:41:23) without a naming cue.
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda survives in the district's shares. The list below is reconstructed from the chair's and the mayor's transitions.
Motion called by Rapp, second Pierce, voice vote (2:09:59).
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/8568 SchoolBoardCityCouncilJoint080916.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording. Quotations are as transcribed; bracketed words are corrections, with the transcript's wording kept where the correction changes sense.
Chronological topics with the most concrete material first.
After the last revaluation "our valuation as a city dropped by about $110 million", and the value of a dollar on the tax rate fell from about 770,000 to 630,000. The city wants to grow the grand list and market values.
The superintendent, citing the 2015 book Our Kids: "The public school system wasn't created to deal with children of poverty." Teachers' expectations matter most: "We're talking about high quality teachers".
With half-day kindergarten, 44% of kindergartners were below benchmark in April; the transcript then reads "January 20th 1,672% in January met the benchmark" [read as January 2016, 72%].
"our students, the class of 2018, scored higher than the state average and national mean" on the SAT. Over five fiscal years since 2011 the budget increase "had been less than 2%", including the $12.5 million high school project, and "this fiscal year, the budget went up one quarter of 1%". "35 to 40% of the high school graduates go right into the workforce".
Fulton: "We do have class warfare in Claremont"; he cites a city-charter clause allowing the city and the school system "somehow collaborate on expenses" and asks for comparisons with similar cities.
Targeted vocational training with industry, and "what we can do to, deplete the poverty level in Claremont". The mayor cites 2014 data: "Individuals below the poverty level was 13.4%."
Rapp: Can-Am needs welders and the welding program is in Newport. Irish proposes a tech-center subcommittee with the colleges and employers (0:57:54); Pope lists other employers seeking skilled workers and asks that instructors and advisory-committee members be included (1:00:22).
Nicholas: the city does not enforce a curfew on its books. The city manager says lawyers think loitering and curfew rules may violate the Constitution (1:13:34); Irish: "If it's if it's on the books, we should be."
Damren, a community college system trustee, will meet the chancellor about workforce training and says the system's next budgets "are pretty darn tight".
An unidentified councilor: "we don't do the best job we can do, and that's publicizing the goodness"; on legal risk, "Let's find out." The mayor: "Risk assessment."
Nicholas asks what the two bodies buy together; Rapp names fuel oil and Damren electricity (1:46:48, 1:46:53). The superintendent: when the $12.5 million high school bond passed, the city "backed off in some of your plans to mitigate the impact of the taxpayer".
LeClair asks the groups not to duplicate work: "We have a community engagement grant for three years, funded and supported by Nellie May". Brent Ferland suggests capital improvements instead of poverty (1:48:33).
Santagate on water and sewer: "water and sewer is not a sexy new story"; on revaluation, a rising market is not captured until the next revaluation (1:57:55); the community center's $6.5 million cost against an asset of about 12 or 13 million (1:59:13).
Pope raises notice; Irish suggests a quorum-less subcommittee is "the non meeting"; the mayor disagrees; Fulton: "subcommittees of public bodies are public". Fulton calls it the most productive joint meeting since about 2008 (2:08:55).
These flags are a reviewer's aid, not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one names the rule it rests on, as that rule read on August 9, 2016, or is labeled an observation where no verified rule applies. They concern the school board's records and conduct; the City Council's own records were not inspected.
MEDIUM No district agenda, packet or minutes survive for either the school board session or the joint meeting
MAP.md records no Drive material: the district's shares hold no year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023. Two meetings are on this recording: a school board session of about a minute that gave the chair authority to sign an agreement with the teachers (0:00:00 to 0:01:04), and the joint meeting of the school board and the City Council (0:01:07 onward). The city's notice, agenda and minutes would sit in the city clerk's records, which this page did not inspect; nothing here says whether the city kept them. On the district side the record shows minutes were kept and posted in the ordinary course: the superintendent told the board on June 1 that minutes and agendas were generally on the website before each meeting (June 1, 2016 page), and at this meeting the mayor asks "The minutes are online, right?" (1:52:02).
RSA 91-A:2, II, in the text in force in 2016, required minutes with "names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions", open to inspection "not more than 5 business days after the meeting". This page applies the MEDIUM limb of the project's severity rule because the record mitigates the gap; what is missing is any surviving copy in the district's shares.
OBSERVATION The chair was authorized to sign a schedule agreement with the teachers before its final wording existed
Six days after the board tabled the Stevens schedule question to a special meeting (August 3, 2016 page), the chair opened a short school board session and reported "we're trying to hammer out an agreement with the scheduling with Stevens, and we're still waiting on some final wording", adding that he had not heard whether the teachers had approved it (0:00:09). Irish moved "that we give the chairman authority to sign the agreement when it comes to pass with the teachers" (0:00:38); it passed by voice vote with no further discussion and the board adjourned (0:00:47, 0:01:04).
No rule this page verified forbids a board from delegating signature on a pending agreement. Three points for a reviewer: the board approved a text it had not seen, on the schedule it had debated for more than an hour and a half six days earlier; no roll call or attendance was taken for this session on tape (the joint roll call follows it, 0:01:07); and whether the session was noticed separately from the joint meeting cannot be checked without the notice. The terms of the agreement, and whether the chair signed it, are not in this record.
POSITIVE Members recognized that the new joint subcommittees are public bodies that must be noticed
The two bodies agreed to form subcommittees on targeted vocational training, marketing and poverty (1:18:06, 2:06:05, 2:06:25). Councilor Pope raised notice: "when you were actually having an official meeting, I believe they need to be noticed" (2:07:11). Irish suggested that without a quorum of either board a subcommittee session would be "the non meeting"; the mayor answered "Fold? No." and then "It has to be." (2:07:42), and public commenter Bernie Fulton added that "subcommittees of public bodies are public" (2:08:38).
That is the law as it stood: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) extends the definition of a public body to "any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto", whatever the number of board members on it. Members correcting the point on the record, before any subcommittee met, is the kind of practice that keeps later meetings lawful. The chair also offered to share board packets with the council (1:51:21).
Google Drive: no packet folder, agenda or minutes. MAP.md: "neither share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (checked 9/26/26)." Not searched again for this page, per the run instructions for meetings with no Drive material.
City of Claremont: council notice, agenda and minutes for August 9, 2016 not inspected for this page.
Valley News, Dec. 5, 2016, on City Manager Guy Santagate's approaching retirement (cited for the spelling of his name)
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.