In the previous post of this series, SAU 3 Berlin – Trying To Mollify Me That A Card Catalog Isn’t What I Know It To Be (Parsing, Much Parsing), I ended my email to SAU 3’s hired lawyer, Barbara Loughman this way:
Right now, you are needlessly spending valuable taxpayer money in stalling for time in refusing to cough up a simple list of books that would take no longer than 3 minutes if you had complied from the get go. Add 5-10 minutes to create an email, attach that file, and email to me.
Should I start submitting a series of RTKs for the legal expenditures at the GL account level for paying your invoices to the District? And the complete audit trail for invoices, payments (of course, redacting any “privileged communications” from them – only financial totals of each instrument) and then start publicizing it locally as to why the District is spending THEIR hard earned money because you won’t fork over a list of books?
Happy to do so. I would rather, however, just get all the responsive records and get out of your hair. Your decision.
I was on my town’s Budget Committee for almost 10 years and actively monitored such GL transaction activity and when I saw wasteful spending, you can bet I let others know about it.
After all, it’s not the District’s money – it’s the taxpayers’. At the rates you charge, it is now being wastefully spent.
Or, what are you hiding? I can write about that as well. Your decision.
Well, that pretty much ended it – game over.
—— Original Message ——
From: “Atty. Barbara Loughman” <loughman@soulefirm.com>
To: “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
Cc: “Julie King” <jking@sau3.org>; “Karen Lancaster” <karen@soulefirm.com>
Sent: 10/17/2022 11:46:26 AM
Subject: RE: Re[2]: Berlin PS/RTK/Gr.Gr.10.2.22req.Dear Mr. Murphy,
This is a further response to your RTK request printed below.
Attached is the Berlin Public Schools Library Book inventory on an Excel Spreadsheet. This could not be done via PDF. The listing is in alphabetical order by author, and includes: Title, Author, ISBN
Berlin does not have and cannot generate a list containing book summaries. However, since all the books can be previewed on Destiny, on the library website, it would just be a matter of searching. Destiny would also give other information such as similar titles, etc.
Thank you for your consideration.
Barbara F. Loughman
Soule Leslie Kidder
PO Box 908
Wolfeboro, NH 03894
603-569-8044
I don’t think that my response was one that was expected. And, if the slow walking/stalling had continued, I would have done all three actions:
- RTK’d the School District’s payroll
- RTK’d the municipality’s payroll
- RTK’d all the transactions (expenditures, receipts, and transfers) of the District’s GL Accounts dealing with Legal issues and publicized them.
I AM glad that it was not necessary. It shouldn’t have been – not over a list of books. The Morale of the Story? There are actually two:
- RSA 91-A is a very power tool in any citizen’s work in keeping Government accountable to those that own it – us!
- The fact that we need such a Right To Know is a poor reflection on our Government and those within in that have decided that WE, who pay for Government, are to be their subjects and are not entitled to know what they are doing. These are the kinds of people we need to either run out of their elected/appointed political offices or have them dismissed as our public employees.
The process SHOULD be that if someone asks for something, it should be given to them ASAP with a smile. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.
In this, the blame is totally on the Berlin SAU 3 Superintendent Julie King for not complying with my simple request from the get go. Instead, she decided to spend monies defending her decision that a citizen would not be given a list of books and decided to lawyer up.
Perhaps I should attend one of their School Board meetings to ensure that those who are supposed to be in charge really KNOW they are in charge – and accountable for this wasteful spending.
