I requested emails from the Nashua Clerical Assessing Supervisor for the months of November and December 2021. The Supervisor left employment on December 25, 2021. The City denied the record request stating that the emails were no longer reasonably accessible.
The City was not willing to disclose why the emails were not accessible until a lawsuit was filed. It turned out the City believed that if emails are moved to a backup tape, Nashua does not have cloud-based storage, they were under no obligation to retrieve the records because it was cumbersome.
In the trial, it appeared that the files were not moved to a backup tape, but were accessible to a City Director. Additionally, the city is disputing email retention.
They are deleting emails within 45 days outside the state retention period for correspondence in furtherance of an employee’s official duties. If we didn’t have digital records, the city would store the paper in boxes in various facilities in Nashua. So, if older paper records were requested, the City would go pick up the box, bring it to City hall, contact the requester and make the record publicly available.
Digital records can be deleted in 45 days. Something is wrong with our public records storage and access.
So, I filed suit:
Laurie Ortolano victorious over City of Nashua Original Court Order 2-7-2022 15.06.3 6468137 54D487D4-EEDC-4E2E-B56A-C86968552B6AThe plaintiff, Laurie Ortolano, has brought a petition under New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know Law, RSA 91-A, seeking access to records from the City of Nashua’s (the “City”) Assessing Department (the “Department”).
And the result:
..Considering the factual circumstances of this case, the parties’ arguments, and equitable principles, the court orders the City to participate in remedial training but declines to enjoin future violations. Here, the court finds that future violations can best be avoided through requiring participation in remedial training regarding the City’s compliance with Right-to-Know Law records requests…
The entire order is above:
Commentary by Skip (with permission):
I find this entire exercise that Laurie had to undergo really distasteful and it is a blatant example of how our government, at all levels, is slowly turning to be rather dismissive of those it is supposed to serve. Yes, serve.
In the US, the idea of Government is that we are served by them – we elect our Representatives and they, in turn, hire “our employees” to carry out what we normally we would do ourselves but we have outsourced a lot of those responsibilities to them. Yes, a division of labor – we also pay them and often, pay them very well.
And those same Elected Representatives get too big for our britches and morph from “Governors” (who merely should govern within the consent of the governed) into Rulers. And our employees (again, that is what they are) more and more believe they are independent of their employers (who are not just those that hire them into Government service) and take on attitudes that because they are unaccountable, we are to have no say at all.
Ignore the Law? Makeup excuses? Shoddy service? Yelling at their employers?
And folks like Laurie have to sue them to DO THEIR JOBS and Follow The Law.
And our “Ruling Elite” wonder why the general populace no longer trusts them? That we are critical of the product they produce?
They treat us like we are the enemy – and are surprised when we pick up on that and then act upon that?
I’m glad Laurie won – I wish, however, that an injunction had been ordered because, with these Nashua snots, they’ll keep refusing to do their jobs correctly, treat her with the respect that is due to Citizens, and Follow the Law.
Who wants to take that bet?