Jennifer Kretovic sees the ethics complaint against her and members of the Golf Course Advisory Committee as really about one thing. 

“This is a discourse and a disagreement about the golf course clubhouse,” Kretovic said at Monday's council meeting. “This is about ripping out this project before it ever even comes to this council.” 

Kretovic wanted City Council to dismiss the complaint on Monday, instead of referring it back to the ethics board, she said. To her, the committee members have been wrongly put in the crossfire. 

“Let them go,” she said. “Release them.”

Kretovic remains a staunch advocate behind the push to build a new clubhouse at the city-owned course – a project that has proved controversial with residents who view it as luxury more than a need. Complaints include its nearly $8 million price tag, the fact that it serves golfers as opposed to the general public and the city’s decision to allow the building to deteriorate instead of investing in it. Others have argued the city has no business running a golf course in the first place.

After residents lambasted the City Council over the project at the end 2023, the city went back to the drawing board but the resulting proposal was largely the same, with one big difference: This time, the clubhouse won't get its own public hearing because it will be folded into weeks-long budget deliberations. 

The ethics complaint, filed by resident Marcy Charette, takes issue with “general public” representatives on the Golf Course Advisory Committee also being course members and accuses them of having a conflict of interest on the clubhouse proposal.

However, Kretovic emphasized, it is the mayor who nominates and the City Council that confirms the membership of the golf committee, and it was a separate building committee that had the most power over the clubhouse design development. The complaint doesn’t address those people. 

Kretovic, who lives next to the course, has often pitched a new clubhouse as a community resource in an overlooked neighborhood. If people have a problem with her making that argument while also being a golfer, let the ethics board review that instead, she said. 

Other councilors wondered whether they ought to do more to clarify in city rules what it means to be a “general public” representative on this committee. Currently, it’s not defined beyond being separate from a “season user” member.

Kretovic was the lone council vote against sending the complaint back to the ethics board, which failed to take up the matter before the 45-day clock ran out. She first asked Mayor Byron Champlin if she could weigh in on an ethics complaint that names her. He said she could. 

The ethics board was instructed by the council to take the complaint up “as soon as a quorum can be convened.” The clubhouse project will be debated as part of the city budget process, which is scheduled to begin May 15 and wrap up on June 5.

Councilors also voted on Monday to:

■Table $84,000 of reserve funds for position to coordinate the city’s efforts to reduce homelessness after a possibility arose for outside funding from the NH Charitable Foundation. 

■Increase some local property tax exemptions for seniors and veterans;

■Sign off on grant funds received to restart the Concord Police Department’s K-9 program; and

■Nix the demolition review committee, putting certain demo requests before the Hertiage Commission instead and simplifying the demolition review process.

In the audience, residents held signs calling for the council to follow through with the project to put lights on Keach Park. The issue wasn’t on the agenda, but has recently been put in doubt by a committee recommendation not to move forward. Several posters contrasted the less than $400,000 already borrowed for the lights with the $8 million clubhouse proposal. 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the 45-day window for the ethics complaint to be heard. The original story was incorrect due to an editing error. 

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.