Sanbornton, population 3,000, is loved for its small-town character and spirit in a state where volunteers are a life force — until they’re impossible to find.
Belknap County’s largest city by land area currently has three vacant seats on its Planning Board. Since last August, Sanbornton has been without a code compliance officer to check land use compliance and issue building permits, affecting all new construction.
In the most recent election, no one volunteered to run for the three-person Board of Aldermen. At the last minute, a well-known write-in candidate claimed enough votes to win in a field of one.
“In the military, they tell you to do more with less,” said Brandon Deacon, president of the Board of Aldermen. “But you can only do more with less for so long. So you’re not doing anything with anything.
“My personal opinion is that, for some reason, there is a reluctance to serve as a volunteer. Young people and even the elderly are no longer willing to volunteer.”
Vacancies related to construction and land use are concerning, Deacon said. “It’s irreversible if done and expensive to fix.”
Across New Hampshire and across the country, cities are grappling with a crisis of disengagement in municipal service. The declining number of volunteers and the diminished appeal of participating in local government are affecting paid and unpaid positions and reducing municipal labor pools.
During the 2024 solar eclipse, Colebrook in Coos County had to recruit a Lakes Region volunteer community emergency response team to direct traffic and parking.
The city’s highway and sewer departments have been down to two people for more than a year, City Manager Tim Stevens said. One position has been vacant for eight months.
“When you’re missing one, you’re missing a quarter of your workforce,” he said.
“Cities are struggling to get participation, both at board meetings and at open public meetings,” said Charlie French, community and economic development program leader at the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, which trains residents interested in municipal service, approximately 1,200 people last year.
“Getting people involved has been a challenge.”
Infinite factors, few people.
Experts point to a situation that appears to have exploded since the pandemic, extending a longer trend.
Possible reasons include: People have very little free time. Cities have aging populations. Values have changed amid growing apathy toward government. Average people avoid positions that smack of politics and could expose them to attacks on social media.
Meanwhile, wage levels for municipal jobs have not kept pace with those in the private sector. For many, compensation has become more important than long-term benefits, which used to be a big draw for local government work.
According to a report from the National League of Cities, which tracks municipal government, municipal hiring has recovered to pre-pandemic levels but is still stable compared to 25 years ago. Local government employment levels have declined since 2008 at the same time as the population has grown.
Municipal labor shortages are common. Town and city governments are competing with private sector teleworking jobs and more flexible work schedules.
Longer hiring processes can leave communities at a standstill for public officials. Local governments take an average of 130 days to find qualified candidates, compared to 36 days in the private sector, according to the League of Cities.
In a 2023 survey, state and local government human resources managers complained about frequent job reopenings due to unqualified candidates.
The fight gets old
In Colebrook, City Manager Stevens worries that the volunteer pool is drying up in a self-sufficient city that used to be filled with active committees.
“We’ve seen a downward movement of volunteers coming out,” he said. “We used to have a garden club that maintained Main Street and it’s not getting old anymore.”
Stevens has proposed that Colebrook Academy and the Elementary School, with 315 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, form a club and raise donations to place flowers, flags and photographs of veterans as part of the students’ community service requirement.
“Sometimes you need younger, stronger people to get things done,” he said.
He hopes some residents will step forward and receive training for the Community Emergency Response Team, which helps with city emergencies and special events like the eclipse earlier this year.
Allenstown, in Merrimack County, has not had a conservation commission since its only member died. Fifty percent of the city’s land is located within Bear Brook State Park. No one has volunteered for the commission in the past six years, and conservation decisions now fall to the Board of Aldermen.
“Filling the committees is a struggle, and most of the time it’s the same people who fill a lot of the committees,” said Derik Goodine, the city manager.
Eaton (population 402), a Carroll County city in the Mount Washington Valley, has been searching for a deputy tax collector and city clerk for four years, said City Manager Lianne Boelzner, who also oversees planning and zoning.
Eaton has two full-time paid employees: the city manager and the city tax collector. Deputy Tax Collector is a volunteer position that must be filled by someone in Eaton.
“Part of the problem is that we are an aging community,” Boelzner said.
During COVID-19, younger people moved to Eaton for quality of life, he said. But they came with families and jobs, which meant less free time to volunteer. It has become an uphill battle to fill seats on the Eaton Planning Board.
Two years ago, when no one wanted to run for the Eaton Select Board, “we went through the voter checklist and started calling people.”
The residents’ comments are eloquent, according to Boelzner: “They don’t have time. They don’t believe they are qualified. “Older people want to travel and younger people have families.”
“We held the elections with the moderator position empty. Our Planning Board president took on the role of moderator,” Boelzner said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do in the future.”
Pay more for less
Some cities, especially in more populous southern New Hampshire, appear to be less affected, but it varies from city to city. Trustees in Bedford and Goffstown in Hillsborough County report that there are abundant volunteers for boards and commissions (enough to form quorums) and that there are no long-term vacancies.
Raymond (population 10,600) in Rockingham County searched for a town planner for four months and finally found one with experience but without the desired municipal background, said Town Manager Ken Robichaud. To attract qualified applicants, Raymond had to double the planner’s salary to $87,000.
“People are leaving that type of job, retiring and getting older, and not many are going into that field. It took me six months to find a DPW (public works) director,” said Robichaud, who has worked in city government for 22 years. “People no longer go to the municipal level like before.”
Margaret Byrnes, executive director of the New Hampshire Municipal Association, said a shortage of employees and volunteers has been bothering New Hampshire for some time.
Getting people to run for elected office can be a campaign in itself. The political climate and its crude display on social media can also be deterrent factors. Although local government is nonpartisan, “it can be difficult to be in the public eye,” Byrnes said. “You’ve always needed to have thick skin. It might (need) to be even thicker now.”
Catherine Souza works at her computer in the basement of Orange Town House. As the city’s only paid employee, she sometimes has to close the office to run errands.
DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER
Orange, at the base of Cardigan Mountain in Grafton County, boasts the motto “298 people, one mountain.”
“In Orange, people have been here a long time,” said Catherine Souza, who works 10 to 12 hours a week as secretary of the three-person Select Committee. She is the town’s only paid employee. “People are rooted in the community. “When people move, that’s what they like: for the community to be really involved.”
But even in Orange, getting volunteers to serve can be a matter of pressure. With a lack of interest in the Select Board, highway agent and town clerk positions in the most recent election, the Select Board chairman and previous elected officials had to convince three write-in candidates to fill the vacant positions.
“I wish we had more people available to give their time to our community,” said Select Board Chairman Aaron Allen.
Leon Rideout, president of the Lancaster Board of Aldermen, believes the North County city of about 2,900 has been lucky.
Lancaster recently had nine applicants for city manager and was able to fill the paid position in a month and a half.
Rideout is also optimistic about volunteers.
“I think a lot of people move to Lancaster and after a while they become very civic-minded and want to help the city. We went through ups and downs” of interest, like in other locations, she stated. “But it ends up working. When they serve on a board, they feel like they are making a difference “and volunteering becomes a regular part of their life.
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