Nashua’s assessing office underwent significant changes between 2019 and 2021. These changes occurred when the Mayor, aware of the problems, failed to keep the lid on a dysfunctional office operating in disarray. The lack of management oversight created an unregulated environment, which eventually revealed itself and continues to reveal itself.
The chief was at the heart of the problem; he could not perform his duties due to health issues and his skill set. Management permitted him to work from home, leaving the office without management oversight. Additionally, the city failed to enforce a nepotism policy prohibiting relatives from working in the same office. Family members were reviewing each other’s work in determining property assessments. By March of 2019, the Chief was removed from his job. The Mayor ineptly decided that no certified Assessing Chief was necessary for Nashua’s office.
I became very concerned at the quality of work with one assessor who was not properly documenting the property record cards, improperly assessing properties, and signing out on a whiteboard to visit properties without producing documented work. I tried to speak with City leaders about the concerns, but they refused to permit citizens to address an employee matter.
I hired a private investigator to follow this assessor, believing he lied about his whereabouts and work. My suspicions proved correct. Instead, he was sleeping in parking lots for three and four hours at a time, carrying his personal computer in and out of the office to these parking lots. He was inaccurately recording his mileage, producing inflated mileage numbers.
An assessing clerical worker had discussed her concerns with Management over the years, and it was brushed aside. Once management figured out she was speaking with me, that sealed her fate for termination.
More concerning was a look into the Nashua police records, which indicated that roughly 10 years earlier, he had been caught twice surfing pornography on the city’s computer. The second incident involved an alleged report of what was believed to be child pornography. The police determined it was not. The police report on this was explicit and uncomfortable. The assessor had over 8,000 images on his city computer. He stated in his police report:
He stated that he mostly viewed “straight sex” material but also viewed “gay” material. He advised that he would often begin in the “Project Voyeur” chat room and would click on the links from there. He stated that “Project Voyeur” is an open sex chat room with a disclaimer that chatters have to be at least 18 years of age. Nevertheless, he acknowledged using different identities in the room (he explained that he would often get more activity if he posed as a bi-sexual female and that it was possible the underage people could enter the chat room.
He stated that he has been doing so on a daily basis for a couple years for varying periods of time. He further advised that he was confronted once before by an administrator and ordered to stop. [He] stated that he stopped for a couple weeks but again started using the City’s internet service to view adult pornography and to chat online. He stated that he sometimes uses the system to view pornographic material for several hours at a time.
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The City did not act on the porn issue from ten years prior, and they did not act on lying about his work whereabouts and the non-existent documentation that was newly identified. The City had no written policies (a common theme in Nashua) for mileage recording and reimbursement. The Mayor was sympathetic to this assessor, and despite violating his work duties according to state laws, he cast aside employee accountability and professionalism. He kept this assessor working as Nashua’s new Assessing Chief. A year later, the Department of Revenue Administration, responsible for Assessor oversight, sanctioned this assessor along with several others and suspended his supervisor certification.
The Mayor then enlisted his henchmen, circling the wagons to gaslight and marginalizing me and the office worker for addressing the problem. Not familiar with these PsyWars, I was slow to catch on.
Before Investigating the Assessor’s History:
Our property assessment went off track in 2014 when the first assessor (brother to the porn addict) sales-chased our property when we moved to Nashua. My attempts to fix it between 2014 and 2018 failed. In 2018, upon receiving the new number, I was determined to correct the problem. So, the second assessing brother, with a porn addiction (unknown at the time), showed up for the inspection. He confirmed his brother’s work was accurate, so the assessment remained unfair.
My limited interaction with the Chief in the office over the 8 months was met with cantankerous overtures. In the 2019 police interview, he stated that he did not like me, was not professional, and once he learned I was an engineer, he determined that “engineers brains don’t work correctly …..” I knew from the office staff that he was going through a nasty divorce and was applying stereotypes. No doubt if he thought his wife was a pain in the ass, I was a bigger one.
I was only permitted to interface with the porn guy (unknown at that time). He was dismissive, so I requested to speak with the assessor/appraiser, who I thought to be personable and intelligent, but the City attorney denied the request. I often watched women enter the assessing office and be treated in stereotypical car salesman fashion.
Looking back, I was never going to succeed in that office. Would it shock the Mayor to believe that a man who spends hours a day in an unregulated open-sex chatroom could affect his treatment of women? Would it shock the Mayor to think that viewing women in degrading and submissive roles would cause the objectification of women and the failure to recognize their intelligence? Would it shock the Mayor to believe that spending hours a day on porn might have his reality altered on what is expected, so a “normal” conversation was not possible?
In late 2018, before the “discovery,” this assessor went to the home of a retired couple to perform a property inspection. After the visit, my neighbor described him as the “biggest pig” she had ever had in her home. The husband said he did not think a woman would feel comfortable around the assessor. He spoke very casually and shared degrading statements about his wife.
I was so concerned about how they described his interactions with them that I asked if I could share the story with the Corporation Counsel, and I did. Corporation Counsel did not speak with the couple. What happened to that report is unknown. I later learned from a clerical staff member that the Assessor spoke that way about his wife in the office, but they were shocked that he would talk that way while in someone’s home.
Why would the Mayor keep a man with this habit and qualities in an assessing office? Why was he so sympatric to this man’s porn addiction in bi-sexual and gay sex chat needs? What are the Mayor’s standards for the Professional Conduct of a municipal employee? What about risk management to protect the City from liability? He is an Attorney.
This Mayor shows a repeated pattern of discrimination and irresponsible decision-making, fostering a culture marked by inadequately addressing misconduct. He left a man in charge of an assessing office who couldn’t treat women respectfully and fired a competent clerical woman for identifying and communicating the problem. Both the Assessor and the Clerical woman were part of an administrative union. The same union mediator represented both employees. How could the union representative impartially negotiate and advise the clerk who reported the Assessor’s misconduct? It appeared the City had the Union rep’s ear and favored keeping the sleepy porn guy. The clerk was quickly terminated and negotiated a settlement. The incompetent assessor was the last man standing as all employees departed the office. He retired in 2023 with his pension.
The mayor’s ineptitude or intentional neglect resulted in retaliating against the citizen advocate and employee seeking accountability, which is offensive by any reasonable social standard. Time and time again, the Mayor ignored the root issue and defended the source of the problem, promoting a chaotic workplace with no accountability.
The Mayor fosters a “winner-take-all,” us-against them” mentality using his position of authority and power. This divisive approach promotes a hostile environment and undermines trust in the administration’s dedication to ethical governance and equitable practices. It indicates corrupt management and the misuse of taxpayer money. This Mayor is a licensed attorney.
We should not accept departments with mass exodus of employees because the Mayor protects the least ethical worker, promoting this behavior over those who want accountability and transparency. The Mayor won’t do this voluntarily. The public would wisely insist on the change by expressing their rights as citizens.
