So Belknap County Attorney Andrew Livernois Lied (By Omission) To Give Cover for Last Week’s Illegal County Delegation Meeting.

My impression of Andrew Livernois’s answer: EVERYTHING in the Law is a “grey area” (so go do what you want).  And now the Delegation is getting sued over it.

Like I said here, NH State Rep Harry Bean broke the Law after being manipulated into whipping himself into a frenzy to be seen as getting “Get Something Done” (get Gunstock “opened” even though efforts had been underway since 2020 to deep-six the hated “Soulfest” Christian gathering by Tom Day since 2021 – see here).  What Harry told me was that he had talked to the County Attorney (Andrew Livernois) about calling an emergency meeting and was told “SURE, you can call the meeting to remove Dr. David Strang from the Gunstock Area Commission ‘for cause'” and tried to do so. And so Harry did – wrongly.

And in doing so, now the Delegation is getting sued. Again.  Way to go!

He decided to go with Livernois’s “advice” because, as sometimes happens, of “confirmation bias” – the state in which one WANTS to believe something because of an end goal – and not wanting to believe anything/anyone else that says otherwise.  Shoulda listened to me, Harry, because I TOLD you Livernois was lying to you in not telling you EVERYTHING he should have.  Shame on him for lying to you (by omission) and shame on you for not listening to you even as you agreed that *I*have never lied to you in the years we’ve known each other, bro (remember, you called me that just a bit ago).

So, with that as the backstory, I tried to call Livernois’ office – was told was in a meeting. Long story short, he put out a Letter/Presser telling people his advice.  Remember, from my previous posts, there are TWO competing State Statutes: RSA 24:9-D and RSA 91:A-2; the latter is for calling a meeting by any political body but RSA 24 SPECIFICALLY controls how a Delegation can call a meeting.

And in my humble opinion, worth every cent y’all didn’t pay for, Livernois made everyone look bad, especially Harry and Livernois himself. Here’s Livernois’s gawd-awful CYA Letter that he sent me in response to my question:

“Isn’t RSA 24 “superior” to RSA 91A is this is Delegation business? Therefore, the Delegation has to give SEVEN days’ notice to the Public.

Here’s his response:

—— Original Message ——
From: “Andrew Livernois” <alivernois@belknapcounty.org>
To: “skip@granitegrok.com” <skip@granitegrok.com>
Sent: 8/1/2022 4:08:31 PM
Subject: Gunstock meeting tonight

Dear Skip,

I received your message with the question about the meeting tonight.  I think the easiest way to answer your question is to provide you with a copy of the letter that I wrote this afternoon and sent to the members of the Delegation and the Commission with my thoughts on the legality of the meeting tonight.

Hopefully this will give you what you are looking for.

Yours,

Andrew Livernois

/s/ Andrew B. Livernois
Andrew B. Livernois, Esq.
Belknap County Attorney
64 Court Street
Laconia, NH 03246
603-527-5440
alivernois@belknapcounty.org

And the attachment Letter:

I’ve already gone the deep dive route in the link above – this post isn’t going to rehash that directly but in finding out that Andrew Livernois deliberately refused to acknowledge that he withheld the COMPLETE part of RSA 91A:2 that would have told Harry “er, no, YOU can’t call the meeting – but Mike Sylvia could have”. My emphasis mine now:

—— Original Message ——
From: “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
To: “Andrew Livernois” <alivernois@belknapcounty.org>
Sent: 8/1/2022 4:33:16 PM
Subject: Re: Gunstock meeting tonight

So how come you didn’t quote the relevant part of 91-A:2 II:

An emergency shall mean a situation where immediate undelayed action is deemed to be imperative by the chairman or presiding officer of the public body,

The Chair, whom I just talked with a couple of minutes ago, has not called this meeting.  That alone should invalidate it. Nor has the Vice-Chair.  There is nothing in 91-A:5 for such an exemption for someone else to call such a meeting.

That is not included in your letter. Does my pointing this out change your advice?

I will be posting this on GraniteGrok. I have already updated my 8am post on this:  https://granitegrok.com/mg_lakesregion/2022/08/gunstock-somebody-gave-nh-state-rep-harry-bean-real-bad-advice-about-a-delegation-emergency-meeting

Please, if you would, let me know where I might be wrong in my conclusions (bottom half) and those of Dan Itse, former State Rep.

Thank you.

-Skip

Look, I make no claim to be a lawyer.  However, I’ve worked with RSA 91A for years and it doesn’t take a genius to read its plain language – it’s there in black and white.  No real amount of legalese, not obscure terminology – it actually IS an easy read. During this interval, I found out that a request for a Temporary Restraining Order to stop the meeting was forwarded to me so at Livernois’ request, I sent it.

And re-asked my question again:

—— Original Message ——
From: “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
To: “Andrew Livernois” <alivernois@belknapcounty.org>
Sent: 8/1/2022 5:29:26 PM
Subject: Re[2]: TRO

You’re welcome!

And my question about ONLY the Chair or presiding officer being the only ones permitted to file such an emergency meeting?

-Skip

And now Livernois decided to throw up an impregnable mist up in trying to obfuscate what he road.  Othewise known as CYA (Cover Your A$$).  I asked an embarrassing question as I’m betting he didn’t think that an “ordinary” citizen would either go through the effort to, you know, READ THE LAW, and understand it well enough to call him out over it.

GREY AREA??

—— Original Message ——
From: “Andrew Livernois” <alivernois@belknapcounty.org>
To: “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
Sent: 8/1/2022 5:43:00 PM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: TRO

Dear Skip,

I think this is another grey area in the law where different people could reach different conclusions.

On the one hand RSA 24:9 contemplates that there will be situations where a majority of the delegation can call for a meeting even without the support of the chair. So presumably that means that some other delegation member would need to be selected to be the presiding officer for that meeting.

So I think that there is an open question in that situation as to whether the member of the delegation who called for the meeting (with the support of the majority) can be deemed to be the “presiding officer” for declaring the need for an emergency.

As with many legal questions, there is no clear answer to this question. Reasonable minds could differ.

But again, the courts have tended to give quite a bit of deference to County Conventions, even when they technically violate the notice requirements. And the court has made clear that the delegation could correct any notice issues by holding another meeting down the road to ratify their decisions later.

I certainly don’t think that the delegation — if they do meet tonight — should seek to remove Dr. Strang on such short notice without giving him due process.

In my mind, the only thing they should be contemplating in tonight’s meeting would be the appointment of someone to fill either Keidash or Ness’s vacant positions, and I plan to make that clear at the meeting tonight if I’m asked.

Yours.

Andrew

Oy vay!

RSA 91A:2    An emergency shall mean a situation where immediate undelayed action is deemed to be imperative by the chairman or presiding officer of the public body, who shall post a notice of the time and place of such meeting as soon as practicable, and shall employ whatever further means are reasonably available to inform the public that a meeting is to be held.

24:9-d Notice. – The clerk of the convention, or his or her designee, shall mail to each member of the convention a notice stating the time, place and purpose of further meetings at least 7 days before the day of the meeting and shall cause to be published a like notice at least 7 days before the day of the meeting in a newspaper of general circulation in the county. Mailing such notice is not required during any session of the general court, if the notice is printed for 2 legislative days in the journal of the house of representatives.

Yep, trying to have it both ways at the same time. Which he did he did with the above:

On the one hand RSA 24:9 contemplates that there will be situations where a majority of the delegation can call for a meeting even without the support of the chair. So presumably that means that some other delegation member would need to be selected to be the presiding officer for that meeting.

He KNOWS that RSA 24 calls for a 7 day notice time period – and not the 24 hour one as in RSA 91A.  And in order to use 91:A, the Delegation would have had to have a properly noticed meeting in order to select that presiding officer that could then use 91A emergency meeting.

See the nonsensical circular reasoning here?  My thought: flat tire and totally rediculous hash of the reading.

So I told him that:

—– Original Message ——
From: “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
To: “Andrew Livernois” <alivernois@belknapcounty.org>
Sent: 8/1/2022 6:14:43 PM
Subject: Re[5]: TRO

>> On the one hand RSA 24:9 contemplates that there will be situations where a majority of the delegation can call for a meeting even without the support of the chair

Now you are trying to use both at the same time. IF 24:9 is the superior, then the meeting hasn’t had the requisite 7 day notice given.  Thus, illegal.

If 91A is in force to call the meeting, then the Chair must call the meeting (which he hasn’t).  Thus, illegal.

Either the Law is, or it isn’t.  It can’t be melded with both – which is what you are trying to do.

Without the Law, are we now in the Rule of the Strong Man? Words should matter – and mean specific things.  If they do not, we’re all screwed.

Or this whole situation has gone to the Political Strong Man – and we’re still screwed for it means there are multiple levels of Justice because anyone can do this “change the meaning game”. And me, being an engineer, this is unacceptable.

-Skip

So my concern now is WHY is he an attorney in the first place, much less the Belknap County’s lawyer.

When this happens, you know what happens?  Andrew Livernois just contributed to the growing distrust in government.  If you can’t get a straight and COMPLETE reading of the Law from the Chief Attorney in the County, WHY vote him back in?  Why bother listening to him when he can’t bother to cut and paste the Law into his Letter????

But the members of the Delegation who were running scared of the 3% of Belknap County residents that ski, that wanted SoulFest to go on (even as I’ve pointed out that Tom Day, GM at Gunstock had been working for MONTHS to break that contract), and the resulting “failure” that the Democrat and monied interests have been creating so as to 1) Gain control of the Mountain back again, and 2) destroy the Conservative Republicans here in the County, wouldn’t listen.

Pure Fear.

They need one of these:

However, Livernois needs some of these pointed at him:

In that good old political tradition.

Who got to him?