The County Political Mullet, Raise insensitive the Front, Next Day Retaliation in the Back

The raise around here lately is handed out as an incentive, and is equivalent to what some call a years salary!!

Around here, money works a lot like fertilizer: spread it where it is supposed to go, and things grow; pile it up in the same little corner, and before long the whole place starts to stink.

That is what makes Ossipee’s latest round of raises, role overlap, and conveniently timed back-room maneuvers feel less like normal government and more like a compost heap with a budget line.

Because when the same hands keep controlling the money trail, the public process, and the consequences for anyone who asks questions, people stop seeing “local leadership” and start smelling something that has been sitting in the sun too long.

Apparently it has been bonus-o’clock in our corner of government.

First came the shiny talk about raises. County elected-official pay, based on the screenshots you shared from the new Conway Daily Sun piece, is suddenly climbing like it found a stairmaster and a grant writer. And on the town side, Ossipee’s 2026 warrant materials show the Selectmen’s Salary line at $32,200, up $11,360 from $20,840, a 54.51% jump.

Nothing says “times are tough” quite like government finding extra money the way normal people see as years minimum wage.

But the sharper story is not the front of the mullet,

It is the back

Because while the public is still trying to digest the raise talk, the April 6 Board of Selectmen agenda shows two vague end-of-meeting closed-session items: “Non-Public Session per RSA 91-A:3(c) for reputational risk” and “Non-Public Session per RSA 91-A:3, II(a) for personnel issues.” No Susan item is named on the agenda. No public explanation is listed there. Just two foggy little doorways at the end of the meeting, which is exactly the kind of thing that makes people start sniffing around for retaliation instead of routine business.

And that matters because Susan McGuire-Doyle is not random scenery in the background of this story.

The town’s own Budget Committee page still lists Susan McGuire-Doyle as the Representative, Center Ossipee Fire Department. The same page also lists Jonathan Smith as the Selectmen’s Representative. So if action was taken against Susan at or around that meeting, it would not be happening to some anonymous extra. It would be happening to a publicly listed budget-oversight member in a room where the same overlapping names already keep showing up.

Susan also is not so

politically neutral

The Conway Daily Sun reported in March 2024 that Jonathan Smith, Roy Barron, Susan McGuire-Doyle, and Jay Scott Murphy were all running for a selectman’s seat.

So when a recent political opponent is also sitting in a public budget role, and then appears to get pulled into a meeting framed only as “reputational risk” and “personnel issues,” the appearance problem is obvious.

It stops looking like neat administration and starts looking like score-settling with a posted agenda. Considering that in 2025 Susan ran for selectman seat again and had gained YouTube attention locally with her blunt call out on Mr smith. Who was directing others to ask questions for him at the towns meet the candidates. Something only the candidates could see!

And this is happening in a town already arguing over how many hats one person gets to wear before the coat rack files a workers’ comp claim.

Just weeks ago, the Daily Sun reported that a petitioned warrant article to bar selectmen from also working for the town failed 80–78, specifically in a context that included Smith serving as building inspector and code officer while also serving as selectman. That vote was close enough to hear the gears grinding. So any new move against a critic or opponent is landing in a town where the public is already split nearly down the middle over overlap, authority, and conflict.

Now add the law to the stew.

NHMA’s Right-to-Know guidance says a nonpublic session is the exception, not the rule. To enter one, the motion has to state the specific exemption being relied on, and the vote has to be by roll call. NHMA also says minutes for public meetings must be made available within five business days, and nonpublic minutes must be publicly disclosed within 72 hours unless the board properly votes to seal them. That does not mean every nonpublic session is improper. It does mean you do not get to toss a blanket over a political problem and call it transparency.

The “personnel issues” label is where the eyebrows really start climbing.

NHMA’s guidance on RSA 91-A:3, II(a) says that exemption covers dismissal, promotion, compensation, discipline, or investigation of charges concerning a public employee, and it must concern a particular municipal employee, not a whole department or generic controversy. Susan, at least on the town’s own Budget Committee page, is listed as a representative from Center Ossipee Fire, not as a town hall staff title in that roster. So if the town used “personnel issues” to handle a dispute over a public representative seat, that raises a real question about whether the label fits the seat at all.

There is also an authority question hiding in the weeds, waving both arms.

NHMA’s municipal-budget guidance says RSA 32:15 requires the membership of an elected municipal budget committee to include one member each from the select board, school board, and village district located in town, and those ex officio members are full voting members. Susan is listed by the town as the Center Ossipee Fire Department representative, which is exactly the kind of seat that sounds less like “owned by the selectmen” and more like “not theirs to casually rearrange because the vibes got tense.” That is an inference from the structure, but it is a very grounded one.

And the timing is just rotten.

You have raise talk up front. You have one overlapping power structure already drawing scrutiny. You have a close public vote over Smith’s multiple roles. Then you have a recent political opponent who sits in a budget-oversight seat apparently getting swept into a meeting hidden behind the words reputational risk and personnel issues. Even if someone eventually argues every checkbox was technically filled in, the optics still look less like governance and more like revenge dressed in meeting law.

That is really the red flag here

Not just that raises are being discussed while regular people are counting oil gallons like wartime rations. Not just that the same names keep showing up in overlapping roles. But that when money is being handed out in the front, dissent appears to be getting handled in the back. And the back room, conveniently enough, is labeled with just enough legal language to make ordinary residents sound paranoid for noticing it. That is a neat trick, right up until people start reading the agenda and the statute side by side.

So the sharp version is this:

If Susan McGuire-Doyle was removed, sidelined, pressured, or publicly diminished through that April 6 process, the town has a serious appearance-of-retaliation problem. She is a listed budget representative. She is a recent political opponent. The agenda did not name her. The closed-session labels were broad. The law says nonpublic session is supposed to be the exception. And the same town is already fighting over overlapping authority and public trust. That is not one bad look. That is a full outfit.

In other words, the mullet still fits.

Raises in the front.

Retaliation in the back.

And when the back half is tucked behind “reputational risk” and “personnel issues,” people are not wrong to ask whether the agenda was written to inform the public — or to outlast them.

Because in a healthy town, the law is there to protect openness.

In a sick one, it starts getting used like hairspray.

And this one is starting to smell strong.