MANCHESTER, NH – On Tuesday night, recent events surrounding Intown Manchester took the stage at the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA) meeting, beginning with comments during the meeting’s public comment session.
Beginning the public comments, recently resigned Intown Manchester Executive Director Sara Beaudry said she took full responsibility for any issues with the organization, with the city voicing concerns over a lack of financial transparency in recent years.
However, she also said that in her 10-year tenure with the organization, she had never been asked for a financial audit until the beginning of the pandemic, with the cost of the audit providing additional strain given the departure of a major sponsor in 2019 and the inability to hold fundraising activities in 2020 due to the pandemic.
She also felt that Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig made issues with the organization personal, and asked the BMA to either fully engage with the organization in the future or not engage with it at all.
Other speakers during the public comment session also criticized city hall’s response to Intown, such as Bonfire Restaurant and Country Bar Owner Pat Mills.
Mills told the board that since the termination of several members of the Intown staff that worked to clean up the downtown area, he said he has noticed an increase in used needles, human excrement and other refuse in the downtown area and urged the BMA to not play politics with the board and instead work with them to once again beautify the downtown area.
Later in the meeting, Craig challenged assertions stated regarding the city’s reaction to the Intown Manchester situation. While she was appreciative of the work done by the organization to support the downtown area, she said that the organization had been in debt long before the pandemic and that the organization’s most profitable year was actually in 2020 when the organization laid off three people and received Paycheck Protection Plan funding.
Craig also stated that the city’s fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers was paramount and while the city would pay unpaid wages of Intown employees, it would not pay for bank fees or other debts incurred by the independently-run organization.
Alderman Joseph Kelly Levasseur (At-Large) criticized Craig’s claim that the organization had violated its contract with the city, stating that the contract actually expired in 2015, something Craig said was false. Levasseur also echoed Beaudry’s claim of a lack of collaboration between the city and the organization.
Intown Manchester has acknowledged they are behind in audits and said that accounting information used by the city to direct Melanson CPA to do a control report, was unaudited and incorrect, and they dispute information the city has disseminated regarding the state of their finances.
For the past 25 years, Intown Manchester has operated on a fixed budget of $258,000 generated by a special tax assessed on businesses operating in the downtown Central Business Service District. That amount pays for salaries for staff and maintenance workers, office rent. They receive no taxpayer or city funding. All other expenses are covered through Beaudry’s fundraising efforts through special events throughout the year and the sale of decorative promotional banners. Over the years Beaudry exceeded fundraising goals, at times nearly doubling her budget through sponsorships.
The city releases tax money gathered from downtown businesses in quarterly installments. After the July meeting the city began parsing out money in monthly payments of $21,500. Those payments stopped after the October installment. A $17,000 payment was made in November. The monthly $21,500 installment for December has not been paid out.
On Nov. 16 aldermen held a non-public meeting during which the matter was discussed. As a result, the city has requested a plan of correction from Intown Manchester within 60 days. A meeting was held on Tuesday prior to the aldermanic meeting between the Intown executive board, Planning Department head Leon Freniere and the mayor.
