The Mayor announced at the May 16th Budget Review Committee Meeting that a Right to Know (RTK) paralegal position was added to the Administrative Services budget. In December 2020, the legal office hired an RTK Attorney to manage requests. Attorney Neumann spent eight months in Nashua; his work resulted in four costly lawsuits.
Aldermen John Sullivan asked Attorney Bolton about the paralegal position at Monday evening’s meeting. Attorney Bolton answered that “I know nothing about that”. Did the Mayor create a new legal position without consulting with Attorney Bolton and place the management of this position under Ms. Kleiner? Why place a legal position under Ms. Kleiner who has no legal training?
His Honor blamed citizens filing requests for causing employee departures. He specifically spoke about the recently departed Assessing Chief who only intended to stay for one year. Did citizen requests cause the exit or did the tracking and fulfillment process created by city leadership increase the workload resulting in employee departures? Here is what is known:
[1] Basic records that were readily available are no longer available to shunned citizens seeking information. A few select citizens are forced to submit formal requests that are then processed in writing and tracked on spreadsheets – a more complicated process
[2] Ms. Kleiner forced the Assessing Chief to process basic assessing information requests for a targeted citizen. All other citizen requests were handled by the office clerk.
[3] The Assessing Chief was forced to respond to requests for abatement settlement records because the Board of Assessors was illegally using nonpublic sessions to seal these records. In 2019, before I became active in meetings, these abatement settlements were disclosed publicly during meetings.
This cumbersome process is happening in Ms. Kleiner’s other departments.
Attorney Lehmann represented Nashua citizens regarding RTK violations. He wrote a letter on behalf of a citizen to Attorney Neumann,
It is distinctly unbecoming for a public body such as Nashua to simultaneously attack its citizens for burdening the City by exercising their rights to access public records, and at the same time increasing the burden on itself (and by extension, the taxpayers) by hewing to the strictest reading of the law for no apparent purpose.
Bolton’s RTK Attorney and Kleiner’s RTK paralegal are unnecessary positions that increase costs to taxpayers. Train the city departments using the paid memberships of state agencies and allow employees to do their jobs. Willingly serve citizens by explaining how records exist and expeditiously providing those records. Stop dodging your lawful record duties and singling out citizens for requesting records and silence His Honor’s overstating of the burden.
