The Political Mullet - Narrative in The Front, RSA violations in The Back

Around here, money is starting to act like fertilizer.

Spread it where it is supposed to go, and maybe something useful grows. Hoard it in the same little corner, and before long the whole place starts to stink.

That is what this story is about

Not just raises. Not just titles. Not just one ugly meeting.

It is about what happens when the same overlapping power structure keeps turning up at the budget table, in the enforcement office, around county pay decisions, and then next to a closed-door process involving a recent political opponent. At some point, that stops looking like public service and starts looking like one very determined man trying to run the whole hardware store from behind the paint counter — while insisting the smell in the back room is probably just “normal operations.”

Jonathan Smith is not just another name in the minutes. He is the recurring name. The town has publicly listed him as chairman of the Board of Selectmen, Building Inspector, Zoning Enforcement Officer, and the Selectmen’s Representative in budget matters. That alone is enough to make people squint. Because when one person sits in governance, enforcement, and budget influence all at once, “checks and balances” starts sounding more like a joke told by somebody locking the door behind them. And the public clearly noticed. The petitioned article to stop selectmen from also working for the town came within two votes of passing. That is not fringe griping. That is half the room saying the hat rack is overloaded — and maybe the smell is not coming from the compost pile after all.

Then comes the money

Town records show the Selectmen’s Salary line jumping from $20,840 to $32,200 for 2026, a 54.51% increase, with Smith seconding the motion recommending it. Meanwhile, the newer county raise story describes future elected-official pay as his initiative, including a proposed Register of Deeds salary of $131,000 for 2027 and 2028. That is the front of the mullet: more money, more overlap, more familiar hands near the pay window. Maybe every single raise can be explained on paper. Fine. But regular people are still allowed to notice that somehow the people closest to government always seem to find the fertilizer spreader first — and somehow the odor keeps drifting in the same direction.

And then comes the back of the mullet

Because while the public is still choking on the raise dust, the April 6 selectmen agenda ends with two vague nonpublic labels: “reputational risk” and “personnel issues.” No Susan item named. No public explanation on the face of the agenda. Just two foggy little trapdoors at the end of the meeting. That matters because Susan McGuire-Doyle is not random scenery. She is publicly listed as the Center Ossipee Fire Department representative on the Budget Committee, and she is also a recent political opponent of Smith. So when a recent opponent in a public budget seat appears to get swept into a meeting hidden behind generic labels, the appearance problem is obvious. It does not look neat. It looks like score-settling with paperwork — and the closer you get to it, the stronger it smells.

Then the RSA problem starts

New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law is not supposed to be a magic cape for politically awkward business. Nonpublic session is supposed to be the exception, not the rule. The exemption has to fit. The motion has to say why. The vote has to be by roll call. Minutes are supposed to be available within the legal time limits unless properly sealed. And the “personnel” exemption is for matters involving a particular public employee, not just any inconvenient body in a chair. Susan is listed as a budget representative, not as a town-hall employee on that committee page. So if “personnel issues” was used to handle a dispute over that seat, then the town is not just dealing with bad optics. It is stepping into potential RSA 91-A trouble. That is not paranoia. That is what happens when people read the statute and the agenda side by side — and start realizing the “color of law” is beginning to smell less like order and more like cover scent.

There is an authority problem too

If Susan’s seat is a precinct or district representative seat, then it is not something the selectmen should be casually rearranging because the room got politically uncomfortable. That is where the budget law matters. If the seat belongs to a respective board under the structure of RSA 32:15, then selectmen trying to muscle that seat around on their own starts looking less like governance and more like unauthorized tampering with a public process they do not fully control. In plain English: you do not get to throw somebody out of a chair that is not yours just because they stopped clapping. And when that kind of move happens right after a fresh round of raises, the whole thing starts to smell less like leadership and more like something getting covered up with legal air freshener.

And this does not land as a single event

The pattern already includes the Steven Brown complaint being withdrawn after the town admitted a material fact was wrong, the McDormand dispute involving demolition, trespass allegations, and ongoing court conflict, and the Main Street demolition saga where even fellow selectmen said they were blindsided. That is why this latest Susan episode looks worse, not better. It is not one isolated misunderstanding. It is one more event in a town where the same overlapping structure keeps colliding with critics, property disputes, legal process, and public trust. After a while, coincidence starts getting awfully repetitive. After a while, the smell stops being subtle. After a while, you stop asking whether something stinks and start asking who keeps leaving the lid off.

So let’s call the pattern what it is.

This is not just a story about a man with too many hats. It is a story about misuse of overlapping power. One official appears at the budget table, in the enforcement office, inside the salary-setting conversation, near county conflict questions, and now next to a process that looks an awful lot like retaliation dressed in legal hairspray. That does not mean every accusation has been proven in court. But it does mean the public is not crazy for asking whether the law is being followed faithfully or simply quoted when convenient.

Because that is the real red flag here.

Not just that the same people get the raises.

Not just that the same names keep showing up.

But that when the money is handed out in the front, the dissent appears to get handled in the back.

And when the back room is labeled “reputational risk” and “personnel issues,” people are not wrong to wonder whether the law is being used to protect the public — or to outlast it. The deeper people look, the worse it smells. And somehow, every time there is a fresh whiff, town hall acts like the public is being rude for noticing.

In a healthy town, power is divided.

In an unhealthy one, it gets layered until nobody can tell where one office ends and the next excuse begins.

And in Ossipee, the Political Mullet keeps looking the same:

Raises in the front.

RSA trouble in the back.

Because once the same man is near the pay line, the enforcement file, the closed-door labels, and the public fallout all at once, the question is no longer whether something feels off.

The question is how many times the town expects people to smell fertilizer and call it roses.

For the FEMA/equipment angle, I’d add it only in a cautious line like this:

And when residents start asking whether emergency funds, FEMA-related money, or public purchases were handled the way taxpayers were told, the odor only gets stronger — because once the money trail starts smelling off, people naturally start smelling the town hall like the local farm fertilizer went bad.