Sunapee closes Highway and Buildings & Grounds offices for Juneteenth

Sunapee is shutting down two of its most service-facing departments for Juneteenth, closing the Highway Department and Buildings & Grounds Department on Monday, June 22. Normal operations will resume Tuesday, June 23, so residents with non-emergency questions about public works, facility maintenance or town properties will need to wait until then and can call Jenn McClaine, the highway business manager, at (603) 763-5060, option 1.

The closure affects the departments that keep town facilities and outdoor spaces running day to day. Sunapee says the mission of Buildings & Grounds is to preserve the beauty, safety and sustainability of community facilities and outdoor spaces, and both departments have been on a summer schedule since April 23. Under that schedule, staff work Monday through Thursday from 6:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and the offices are closed on Fridays, making the Juneteenth observance an additional interruption in an already shortened week.

The town calendar shows the holiday reaching beyond those offices. Town Hall was closed Friday, June 19, and the Transfer Station was also closed that day for Juneteenth. Together, the notices pushed municipal operations into a holiday pattern that began before the weekend and carried through the following Monday, limiting the windows residents had to reach in-person services.

Juneteenth now has a formal place in New Hampshire’s holiday schedule. The Legislature added it to the state’s list of observances in 2019 through RSA 4:13-aa, and Gov. Chris Sununu signed SB 174 in 2021 to proclaim an annual observance after issuing a Juneteenth recognition in 2018. The holiday marks June 19, 1865, when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned they were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Across New Hampshire, Juneteenth has also become a day for public education and community programming, including work by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire. In Sunapee, the observance is being handled in the most practical way possible, by pausing town operations that residents rely on for maintenance, grounds work and public property upkeep, then reopening those services on Tuesday.