Concord residents who experience or witness hate and bias incidents will soon have a new way to report them: a town-run tracking system with an online form, telephone hotline, email and walk-in office hours.

Select Board member Paul Boehm, who chairs the Bias and Hate Incident Reporting Work Group, presented the recommendations this summer after the panel spent months developing the concept. The Select Board backed the idea but flagged a major unresolved question: whether names of accused individuals can be kept out of public records.

"You can't correct something you can't measure, so let's start by measuring," Select Board Chair Wendy Rovelli said, according to The Concord Bridge.

The system would not investigate allegations or impose punishment. A trained town staffer would log reports, connect people who file them with resources and refer cases to police or other town bodies when appropriate. A public dashboard would display aggregate data, including the number of reported incidents and how quickly officials respond.

Town officials estimate setup will require up to 140 hours of staff time for training and configuration. Once running, the program would need about 10 hours of weekly staff time. Boehm said leaders want to begin testing by year-end.

The work group formed in fall 2025 after a June 2025 filing by the Anti-Defamation League brought to light allegations of antisemitic bullying at Concord-Carlisle High School and a federal probe by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. School officials signed a resolution agreement this spring to end that review.

Incidents over the past year have included racist graffiti in West Concord and swastikas drawn in school bathrooms. Of the 33 bias incidents filed with the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office in 2025, 14 originated in Concord and eight were school-based, according to Joint School Committee minutes from Feb. 4, 2026.

That concentration alarmed officials. Police, the school district and the DA's office already track bias incidents separately, but Boehm said underreporting remains a problem, particularly for non-criminal hate incidents that fall outside police jurisdiction.

The biggest open question is whether the town can redact names of accused individuals from responses to public records requests. Work group member Daniel Hart called that issue "the big one" among remaining loose ends.

Select Board member Mary Hartman raised the concern at the board's June 22 session, arguing that people named in reports have faced no formal adjudication. Hartman has since taken an unrelated leave of absence from the board.

Board Clerk Cameron McKennitt expressed similar reservations, saying he worries the system amounts to reporting on people's behavior. "This is America," he said. "It's a free country."

Resident Helen Brady recalled a prior town diversity survey that included incident-reporting questions, telling The Concord Bridge it gave her the sense of "a snitch line."

Boehm said accused individuals should not be named in public releases but added, "I think they should feel that we're tracking this and that there's some personal stigma for doing harm." He met with town counsel on Tuesday, Aug. 4 to review the legal questions. The outcome of that meeting has not been made public.

Officials are planning an early-September public forum on the program. A specific date and location have not been announced. Boehm told Select Board colleagues on July 27 that details would follow.