Charles (Chuck) Hotchkiss - Town Council

CHARLES (CHUCK) HOTCHKISS - Town Council
2 York Drive

Education: 

B.A. Bates College; M.R.P. (Master of Regional Planning), Ph.D., City & Regional Planning, Cornell University

Occupation: 

Retired (in September 2020) after working as a professor, higher education administrator, community organizer, and policy analyst.

Years as Durham Resident:  20 years

Previous Service on Governmental/Community/Civic Boards: 

As a commuter to Manchester and then to Boston, I was not able to commit to the time needed to responsibly participate on town boards or committees. Now that I am retired and have the time and energy to do an excellent job, I am eager to offer my skills to the town.

Reason for Interest in Running for Elected Office:

Throughout our two decades in Durham, my wife and I have appreciated the excellent quality of life the town offers, including its scenic beauty, agricultural and conservation land, compact downtown, top-notch schools, and outstanding public services and facilities. Many of those attributes are due largely to the work of the Town Council and the town’s boards, committees, and commissions. Now that I’ve retired, I’d like to “pay it forward” by serving on the Council and continuing its culture of careful listening, openness to different perspectives, respectful dialogue and debate, and consideration of all relevant information before taking action.

Additional Background Information:

Throughout my adult life, three concerns have driven much of my activity. I expect that those same concerns would shape my role on the Town Council if I were elected.

— COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION. My concern with community evolved out of my experience and observation of Youngstown, Ohio, where I grew up. The closing of Youngstown’s steel mills and the resulting destruction of the economy and the community led me to pursue city planning as a career. Though I ended up primarily as a teacher rather than a practitioner, I endeavored throughout my career to integrate community-based projects into my work. As a professor, my courses frequently involved students in community-based projects. At California State Polytechnic University (1985–2000), for instance, in a project run jointly with the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, my students surveyed 1,200 alleys in south central Los Angeles, which were frequent sites of crime and illegal trash dumping, to determine which ones could be closed, adopted by local community groups, and redeveloped for “tot lots,” community gardens, recycling facilities, picnic and cookout areas, and horseshoe pits. 

At Southern New Hampshire University (2006–2010), I taught adult learners engaged in community development in 20+ states and multiple foreign countries. As an associate provost and, later, academic dean at Wentworth Institute of Technology (2011–2020), I championed community-based projects in nearby neighborhoods including Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. For instance, Wentworth architecture students developed conceptual design alternatives for an African-American congregation seeking to renovate and expand its historic building to create affordable housing and community spaces.

— ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY, ESPECIALLY CLIMATE CHANGE. Though it’s long been understood that community development needs to respect environmental constraints, that requirement has taken on much greater significance as we’ve understood the threat posed by climate change. I developed and began co-teaching a course about climate change in 2017, which I offered a half-dozen times before retiring. What’s clear is that the future will not simply be “business as usual” with electric cars instead of gas-powered ones.

Climate change will require rethinking many aspects of communities, including physical planning and infrastructure, agriculture and open space preservation, development patterns and building codes. Local governments have an important role to play in this transition, as Durham has already undertaken. I hope to have the chance to contribute to Durham’s leadership on this important issue.

— FINANCIALLY SOUND AND EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS. Communities do better at many things, including protecting the environment, when there is a network of healthy and active local and regional organizations.  As a community organizer (2000–2006), I helped community leaders in Manchester, Nashua and nearby towns create Granite State Organizing Project, which today is New Hampshire’s largest grassroots organization. Here in Durham, my principal community involvement has been through Community Church of Durham, which I’ve served twice as vice-chair and then chair of the Church Council (analogous to the Town Council). In both those roles, as well as my two appointments as an academic dean, I’ve had significant responsibilities for managing both financial and human resources. Consequently, I understand the connection between sound management and organizational effectiveness.