It has been a couple of months since I have written about Nashua and the Court system. I continue to file RTK lawsuits, and the City continues to lock records down and limit access to City Hall.
The Court doesn’t have the responsiveness to address the Petitions that have come before it. So, for now, the City wins.
It is an election year, so Mayor Donchess wants to control the narrative, and the Mayor’s narrative is that a few people are destroying the City. Our Mayor is the unethical virtuous blame game expert.
The Administrative Office of the Court continues to be difficult to work with. The Office is not responsive, and it is unclear who should fix administrative problems in the Court. The Judges also play a role here, but it is nearly impossible to figure out what that is. The scheduling of RTK cases needs to be appealed to the Supreme Court for help. It is all so cumbersome.
As I wrote in the past, the Court was mis-scheduling Right-to-Know cases and creating expensive litigation trials designed to keep the public from accessing records. Administration Order AO 2013-08, directed by Justice Tina Nadeau, was intended to eliminate six court rules from cases that should be expedited. I am not a fan of Justice Nadeau’s performance in that she appears to have failed miserably in her oversight of the Court in verifying that orders are being followed. The abuse of this order has gone on for over ten years, and it has cost taxpayers millions of dollars and prevented litigants from achieving justice and fairness.
According to Judge Delker (Manchester), New Hampshire is the only state with language built into our Constitution (Part 1, Article 8) to protect our right to an open, accessible government. This, coupled with RSA 91-A, the Right-to-Know Law, was supposed to make our State something to marvel at. In 2015, New Hampshire ranked 49th, only beating out Wyoming by 1 point for the worst score on public access to information in the recent State Integrity Investigation published by the Center for Public Integrity. And this low score for New Hampshire is in “the worst performing category in the State Integrity Investigation,” according to an article on the report, where 44 states earned an F.
While 2015 may seem like a long time ago, it is not when it comes to improving records access in New Hampshire. The neutralizing of our unique complimentary Constitutional/Statutory rights has occurred at the hands of the Courts. They have created such high costs for access to information by ignoring the rules that only a select few can obtain governmental records. The opening of the Office of the Ombudsman will hopefully improve our access. In Nashua, the Court has worked handily with the City to stifle citizens. The City carries a reputation of long-standing corruption (a reputation I believe is well deserved), and ethical Attorneys don’t want to litigate here.
In May, Nashua citizens were able to get a series of RTK Petitions before the Court on May 8, 9, 10, & 11 (a hearing had been scheduled for the 12th as well.) as I pushed for corrections with the scheduling and was able to get the hearing schedules in line with AO 2013-08 and expedited.
It was a rather amazing week in Court in that there was Attorney Misconduct, Judicial misconduct, and a whole bunch of ridiculousness that has left me nauseated when recognizing that the legal/Judicial profession is largely unethical and dishonorable. That resulted in numerous complaints filed with the Attorney Discipline Office for misconduct against Attorney Bolton and Attorney Leonard. The ADO is not an office quick to fix problems. Cronies stick together, and they love applying confidentiality rules to threaten complainants into silence.
So, for everyone’s information, Nashua, according to our city website, is the “Welcoming City” and the “Transparency City.” Our Budget book puts Citizens at the top of the flow chart in the budget process – and -we are rated by WalletHub as the best of the best. It is the perfect place for like-minded people who like high property taxes.
In reality, citizens are threatened with arrest for standing in the public City Hall Hallways of Our Welcoming City, the doors to public offices are locked, records are hidden and destroyed, and citizens who don’t support the Mayor’s popular partisan position are treated like the gum on the bottom of a shoe. If you’re an independent thinker on the move, think twice about moving to Nashua.