LEBANON — Five candidates are vying for two seats to represent all of Lebanon on the City Council.
Incumbent Tim McNamara is competing with challengers Kellen Appleton, Cory Grant, Paul Roberts and Ron Smith for two at-large seats. Erling Heistad, who has been on the council since 2010, is not seeking reelection.
Affordability and housing are top of mind for candidates in the crowded race. By-and-large, the group believes it is past time to update Lebanon’s Master Plan, which was last rewritten in 2012. The Planning Board has been working on updating the plan since last year and the City Council discussed how a new Master Plan might fit into zoning changes and planned projects at a recent meeting.
Andrew Faunce, current chairman of the Planning Board, is expected to step in to the Ward 1 seat to represent West Lebanon; he is running uncontested for current Councilor Chris Simon’s seat. Simon, who was first elected in 2022, is not running this year.
Eric Cole and incumbent George Sykes are competing to represent Ward 2 and in Ward 3, candidate Lori Key is facing a write-in challenge from Max Terzano.
Kellen Appleton
Appleton, 27, is a current member of the Planning Board and Pedestrian & Bicyclist Advisory Committee and a municipal planner for the Mount Ascutney Regional Planning Commission. She has not held elected office in the past. She has lived in Lebanon since 2020 and sees building more housing as the key to reducing the cost of living.
“My rent has doubled in the last five years, and, honestly, I still consider myself pretty lucky among the people that I know,” Appleton said.
Appleton believes that the City Council can promote the development of more dense infill housing through zoning reform which will increase housing supply, grow the tax base and spread out existing costs. She said building more housing especially in areas with existing infrastructure, creating long-term sustainable spending policies and updating the city’s master plan will help to solve the city’s affordability problems more effectively than short-term spending cuts.
More housing would also curb a growing concern that the city’s daytime population vastly outpaces the number of residents, increasing the cost burden on those who live in the city, Appleton said.
One of Appleton’s priorities on the council would be to ensure work continues on the Route 120 corridor zoning plan that was recently tabled by the Council for more discussion. She said that part of city has “some of the most exciting potential” for development.
Cory Grant
Grant, 43, is president of the Lebanon Outing Club, hill manager at Storrs Hill Ski Area and works in IT management. He has not held elected office before.
He is running to “be a voice” for residents and his goal is to prioritize essential services in the city, such as police, fire, emergency medical services and grounds crew while keeping an eye to fiscal responsibility.
“It all falls into a big blanket of public services,” Grant said. “If we start to shy away from some of that it opens up the window to what we would be inviting into the city and I don’t think a lot of the city residents would like that.”
If the city doesn’t prioritize emergency services it could “open it up to crimes, drugs, all kinds of things,” Grant elaborated.
“While it’s nice to have a welcoming approach to the city we need to keep what we have, protect what we have and then grow in a more respectful manner,” Grant said of housing development. “In other words don’t go out of our means, let’s step back and do some planning.”
Tim McNamara
McNamara, 69, is seeking what will likely be his last term on the council after 11 consecutive years, he said. He retired from a career at Dartmouth College, most recently as as associate director of facilities, operations and management, in 2024, and is a retired naval reserve officer.
He hopes to help navigate ongoing financial and housing challenges in the city and to participate in a conversation about what Lebanon should look like in 10 or 20 years through a revision of the master plan.
“We have to keep the increases down and to do that in this environment is going to require some sacrifices across the board,” McNamara said of the budget challenges which he expects will continue for the next few years.
McNamara also hopes to take an “intelligent, informed look” at capital projects — such as a proposed $40 million upgrade to the city landfill — and evaluate whether they are all necessary or how they can be pared back.
McNamara has devoted considerable attention to the housing problem during his years on the council, which he described as his “passion.” He hopes to continue work on a city-sponsored pilot-development of modular homes, the Barrows Street Cottage Project, which he recently announced had become too costly to continue as planned, but said in an interview that new ideas and feedback have come in from the community.
Paul Roberts
Roberts, 61, is a retired Plainfield police chief and has lived in Lebanon his whole life. He is making a second bid for City Council after falling short last year. Roberts has not previously held elected office, but was motivated to run because of high tax rates, “out of control” spending and a lack of transparency from the City Council.
From what Roberts has seen, the Council is taking on too many projects that go beyond overseeing city operations and is doing so without a clear picture of the cost or how they might impact the city, he said. For example, the city developing housing through initiatives like the Cottage Project and potentially leasing city land for a child care center on Seminary Hill.
The City Council should step back and identify “the basics” of city services, perhaps based on what was needed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Roberts said. This could help bring down costs without cutting investments that will come back to negatively impact taxpayers, such as the paving budget, which the council has slashed for the past two years to slim down the operating budget.
One of Roberts’ top priorities would be to work on a new master plan to help guide decisions on major developments, zoning changes and council projects.
“I think we need to put a moratorium on all of the capital expenditures we’re looking at and all of these zoning changes until we get a handle on the master plan,” Roberts said.
Other changes he would like to see include simplifying the zoning and building codes, calculating the cost and infrastructure impacts of proposed developments and calling on major employers such as Dartmouth Health to build workforce housing.
Ron Smith
Smith, 55, moved back to Lebanon, where he has family ties, from Bend, Oregon about six years ago. He has not held an elected office before and recently stepped back as CEO of a “local precision manufacturer.”
In his job, Smith said he spoke with many employees who were approaching retirement age but had no hope of retiring because of the cost of living in Lebanon, which was “very troubling.” He started attending City Council meetings and is concerned about “the decision-making process at the city and what priorities they were making decisions on.”
One of Smith’s biggest concerns is the criteria the city uses to determine capital expenditures; he would like to see a standard criteria to determine when the city will borrow money for a project. For projects that city officials know are coming, such as an expansion of the Lebanon landfill which has been on the horizon for years, the Council could set aside a small amount of money every year to build up funds rather than relying on loans.
Such spending plans and project priorities could be outlined in a new master plan, Smith noted. A master plan could also help to guide housing development.
While being “more careful about capital expenditures,” Smith said the Council could also focus on “shifting priorities” and invest more in recreation, for example, over infrastructure projects that may be unnecessary.
All voting will be by ballot on Tuesday, March 10 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Ward I votes in the SAU building, 20 Seminary Hill, West Lebanon; Ward II votes at the United Methodist Church, 18 School Street; and Ward III votes in City Council chambers, 51 North Park St., Floor 1.