Greetings, Good Senators. April 18 was a sad day for transparency in NH and I am asking you to reject the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation and even consider saying “thank you, Mr President, I rise to oppose the recommendation and urge this body to vote ITL.”
This is a link to an ongoing local story that I am asking ALL of you to familiarize yourselves with.
Investigative journalists, in the authentic sense, are a dying breed in NH, and we must rely on private citizen truth seekers like Laurie Ortolano, who took to the mic at the April 9 committee hearing. Would you believe that not one committee member had even one question for her? Yup, see for yourselves in the video, and one member even packed up and left the room, KNOWING that she was the star witness. As an attorney, he obviously knew that it was his opportunity to cross-examine her! But back to Laurie Ortolano. You all ought to know that she has invested countless hours and countless dollars only to have city hall repeatedly heap abuse on her. She has had to resort to litigation multiple times, both as Attorney Lehmann’s client and as a pro se plaintiff. Don’t give the stewards of government records any more weapons to use against the public, please!
Voting in HB 1002 is VOTING FOR A NEW TAX, plain and simple, and I’m guessing that most of you took the Grover Norquist Pledge against that. Don’t be fooled into thinking that RTK seekers are, by default, the inconvenient nuisance problem. If you do, you’re no better than the opposition implying to Tim Lang that parents are, by default, enemies of their kids. (in opposition to his bill). And BTW, Tim Lang is an enemy of transparency. You can see for yourselves on the committee hearing sign-in sheet, which I can show you a picture of if desired.
The Judiciary Committee joined the WRONG side of history on April 18, and the membership has an opportunity to change their minds. I hope some of you can convince them(and Tim Lang) to “come about” and perhaps recruit three votes from across the aisle. Watters is potentially one of those three, as I’m told that he can be negotiated with. Maybe that’s true with two more. Please explore that possibility.
Please do NOT contribute to creating another RTK obstacle for Granite Staters, especially with the second-largest city in disarray.
Sincerely,
Julie Smith
