At 11:30ish I stopped by the State Archives to review a town’s voter checklist. Note on the door: Make an appointment. No cars to speak of in the parking lot. So, I call the tiny phone number on the paper on the door. Nathan, I think, answers.
“Can I make an appointment now?” I asked.
“How about 1:30?” “You can go to Tuckers and have breakfast,” he says. “What do you want to look at?” Like it is his business.
I told him, what town’s November 3, 2020 checklist I wanted to see.
“Why don’t you tell me the name and I’ll look it up,” he says.
“I have more than one name,” I told him.
“How many?” he asked.
“Two pages, 30 on each page,” I responded.
Now, Nathan’s looking up names for me over the phone is not acceptable. I had a mask. Archives obviously had time. His say-so regarding any name he finds for me is worth spit.
There was some babbling on the phone as I hung up. No copies of checklists to look up but another chance to show NH citizens how the Right to Know law works at State Archives.
Obviously, the Chinese Bioweapon has locked Archives up like a pickle jar lid. Forget our rights to documents in a reasonable fashion.
Is what Nathan was supposedly doing more important than his obligation to let a taxpayer have access to documents that are required by law to be at State Archives? Why do we have that place?
Come to think of it. Archives really never gave me an answer as to why in early 2017 they could not show me 2016 checklists. The answer/excuse was “The AG’s Office has all of them for investigations.” (Laugh track here.)
I asked if they had a photocopier so they would not have to ship all the originals off to our trustworthy AG’s Whitewash Office. The employees looked helpless, so I left.
Now I have to drive 88 miles up and 88 miles back to get documents that were a few feet away during business hours at State Archives. I could have driven 25 miles home and 25 miles back to Archives or have an $18-$20.00 breakfast at Tucker’s for two hours.
So much for NH’s Right to Know Law.
Maybe we need security cameras stationed all throughout the inside of State Archives to see what employees do all day? Or perhaps some of us could stake out the parking lot to see when employees come and go.
I could start swinging by on Fridays and take some notes. Fridays are when many state employees go to “conferences.”
When I was a selectman I would be inside some conferences and was always amazed at how many ID badges on the entrance table were not picked up by state and municipal employees.
Maybe they were enjoying what I would call – a paid three-day weekend.