Belknap Mill seeks $20,000 from city rebate; council hears hours of testimony

The Laconia City Council opened a public hearing on Resolution 2026-03 to accept an $86,316 health-insurance rebate and to authorize using $20,000 of that sum to help the Belknap Mill pay for structural repairs.

Laura Lemire, chair of the Belknap Mill Society, told the council the 200-year-old mill is an “anchor in the community” for arts, education and civic engagement and that the society holds a $38,000 L‑CHIP grant toward a $76,000 scope of work. She said engineers have identified corroding steel support pillars in the sluiceway and cracked structural beams in the basement and warned that, “If [the pillars] fail, that’s pretty catastrophic for the building.” Kevin Switala, the board secretary, described seepage and long-term corrosion that the group cannot cover without additional local funds.

Supporters at the hearing emphasized the Mill’s cultural and economic role downtown. Former board chair Jennifer Anderson said the Mill is “the oldest unaltered textile mill in the entire country” and called the allocation an investment in community infrastructure. Lois Gassen and other residents recounted historical efforts to save the building and urged preservation.

Other speakers objected to diverting the rebate to a nonprofit. Several residents, including Doug Robinson and John McArdle, said the money came from city coffers and should instead bolster municipal needs that were deferred—pothole repair and other capital work were cited as competing priorities. Public employees and union members raised fairness questions about using a funds-related health-insurance rebate for a non‑employee purpose. “That money came back to the city; we should be cautious about where it goes,” one commenter said.

Council discussion focused on two practical questions: the urgency tied to the L‑CHIP grant timelines and whether this kind of request should be handled through the annual budget process. Lemire and Switala said the state grant has an expenditure window and that starting design work sooner reduces long-term costs and schedule risk; they could not provide an exact deadline for the L‑CHIP match in the hearing.

Councilors divided on timing. Some members said the Mill sits on city property and provides services the city benefits from, arguing the match was justified; others said they favored routing such requests through the budget cycle so the city can weigh multiple nonprofit requests equitably. The council received the public input and debated the motion to approve the resolution; discussion is recorded in the meeting transcript. The final roll-call for the approval motion is not recorded in the provided transcript excerpt.

The council moved next business forward after the hearing; next procedural steps for the Belknap Mill request will depend on whether the council votes to adopt Resolution 2026-03 in a later recorded roll-call or refers the matter to the budget process.