Accountability posts

📋 SUNAPEE SELECTBOARD — February 9, 2026: What you may have missed

Three significant items were discussed or decided at the February 9th Selectboard meeting without appearing on the public agenda. That matters because residents had no way to know these topics would come up — and no opportunity to prepare or show up specifically to weigh in.

First: The board reviewed the town's 2024 audit, which found recurring internal control weaknesses in the finance department — the same issues flagged in prior years. The town manager stated plainly that Sunapee is "not running our business well" for a $25 million organization that has only one person managing its finances. At the same meeting, the board unanimously re-engaged the same auditing firm for 2025 without any public discussion of auditor rotation. None of this was listed on the public agenda.

Second: The board discussed restricting public access to virtual meeting links (Zoom/Teams) due to security disruptions. No formal decision was reached, but the conversation about limiting who can access public meeting links happened without public notice — an irony that shouldn't be lost on anyone concerned about open government.

Third: Senate Bill 661 in Concord could eliminate the NH Health Trust, which covers town employee health insurance. The board briefly acknowledged the risk and identified a backup provider, but the cost implications remain unknown. Again, not on the agenda.

Separately: A resident named Chris Whitehouse used public comment to argue that Sunapee's tax increases have run 4 to 6 times the rate of inflation over recent years, that 30% of residents are seniors and 16.1% live below the poverty line, and that effectively $535 of every $650 Social Security cost-of-living increase is being consumed by local taxes. The board gave no response — not an acknowledgment, not a rebuttal, not a commitment to look into it. That public comment is also absent from the official meeting minutes.

Meanwhile, the town still has no adopted policy to manage development on Class 6 roads after state law SB281 removed planning board and selectboard review authority — even as the board heard a separate, urgent presentation about Perkins Pond losing 35% of its depth and recording its first cyanobacteria blooms in 2025, with potential new development in the watershed cited as a major threat. The two issues were never formally connected in the meeting's deliberations.

Official minutes from this meeting have been published. Residents are encouraged to review them and attend the next Selectboard meeting to ask questions. https://meetingwatch.org/nh/sunapee/selectboard/2026-02-09/ #MeetingWatch #SunapeeNH