Eight months, zero ordinances, and a legal alibi instead of a legal opinion
Nashua’s Legal Department has known since February that disabled residents have a right to ask for remote access to public meetings. We know this because Legal said so, in writing, with a signature and a date.
On February 3, 2026, Attorney Dorothy Clarke signed the analysis for Alderman Paula Johnson’s ordinance O-26-002. It said the ADA “would allow a person to request the ability to remotely participate in a public meeting” as a reasonable accommodation.
That was eight months ago. The ordinance still hasn’t passed. Let’s see how the City spent that time.
March to August: The ordinance sits on the table.
In March, the Personnel and Administrative Affairs Committee took up the ordinance so it could make a recommendation to the full Board. Members didn’t like the language, so they tabled it. That’s a normal step. Committees table things, sponsors fix them, and the work continues.
Alderman Johnson did her part. She went back to Legal, got the language amended, and brought it back to committee.
The Chairwoman wouldn’t let it off the table. Her reason: legislation that has been tabled can’t come back unless she is personally notified first.
That rule doesn’t exist. It’s dead wrong.
But it worked. A fix that should have taken one meeting took five months of delay, tension, and heated arguing at the committee level. All of it came from a notification requirement the Chairwoman invented herself.
Alderman Johnson kept at it, and in August the ordinance finally came off the table and was discussed.
Then it went right back on.
August: Two citizens ask. Legal goes quiet.
On August 8, a senior citizen asked to give public comment by Zoom. She doesn’t drive after dark, has limited mobility, and can’t sit for hours on the chamber’s hard benches. Three days later, another senior citizen sent the same request.
This shouldn’t have been hard. Aldermen Zoom in. City staff Zoom in. The Planning Board lets the public Zoom in.
Emails I obtained through a Right-to-Know request show what the City’s ADA officers did with the requests: they passed them along. On August 12, Donna Graham sent them to Legal: President Wilshire “has asked for a legal opinion on the matter. Please review and advise.”
Then nothing happened. The first citizen wrote again on August 27. On August 29, she filed a formal ADA complaint. Still nothing.
September 9: Legal finds its voice.
At the Personnel and Administrative Affairs Committee meeting, Corporation Counsel Bolton suddenly had plenty to say. The walking-disability ordinance “deals with a very small portion of a much bigger issue.” The ADA “still applies” either way. Each request “has to be made and evaluated.” And Risk Management staff, he added, weren’t the ones who could assess these requests.
That’s good advice. Two real requests had been in City Hall with legal involvement for four weeks, waiting for exactly that evaluation.
When I criticized Legal during public comment, Bolton answered: “Mrs. Johnson wanted walking disability… We recommended against it.” So Legal drafted language it thought was flawed, said nothing about its objection for seven months, and announced it only once someone in the audience complained.
September 12: The City admits it never needed the ordinance.
Three days after the meeting, Risk Management finally wrote to the first citizen. The letter acknowledged her “August 27” request. Her August 8 request apparently disappeared somewhere between the Risk office and Legal. The letter also said the ordinance is “separate from the City’s obligation to evaluate” her request. So the City could have acted in August all along.
September 25: The verdict. Enjoy your cushion.
Right on schedule, the answer arrived from the same Risk office Bolton had said couldn’t assess these requests: no Zoom. After weighing “technology infrastructure” and “administrative requirements,” the City decided it “will not be establishing Zoom-based public comment as an accommodation at this time.”
The reason is the best part. A “selective Zoom-access system,” the letter warns, would mean setting eligibility criteria and handling documentation, which “introduces additional administrative and legal considerations.”
A selective Zoom-access system? Nashua already has one, and Nashua taxpayers pay for it, and the aldermen are in it. The same Zoom connection that brings in absent aldermen and City staff apparently can’t hold one more senior citizen for three minutes of public comment.
What she got instead:
- An Uber, which may be shared with other meeting participants, booked 72 hours in advance. That handles the night driving. It does nothing about sitting for hours on a hard bench waiting for the second public comment period.
- Written comment by email or U.S. Mail. She already had that option before she asked.
- “Alternate seating or cushioning.” The City may consider it.
October 2: The alibi.
One week after Risk declared that disability documentation raises “legal considerations,” Legal approved “as to form” an amended ordinance that requires disability “documentation,” without saying what counts or who decides. The amendment also shuts committees out, so remote comment would be allowed only at full Board meetings.
Bolton’s memo mentions Alderman Johnson three times in two sentences: drafted “at Alderman Johnson’s request,” “based on Alderman Johnson’s specific requests,” “which Ald. Johnson then approved.”
In February, Legal attached a full analysis page explaining the law, signed and dated. The amendment makes bigger legal changes, and it arrived as one unsigned page with no analysis at all. The harder the legal questions got, the less Legal put in writing.
That isn’t a legal opinion. It’s an alibi.
October 5: Legal skips the meeting.
The committee met to take up the amendment. Bolton was asked to attend. He didn’t show up. Committee members had legal questions, and no one from Legal was there to answer them. One member refused to support the ordinance until Legal answered her questions, so the matter rolls to the full Board on October 13.
The scorecard
Eight months. Two citizens asked. One formal complaint. One denial. One shared Uber. One possible cushion. One memo written to point at the sponsor. One empty chair where the City’s lawyer should have been. Zero ordinances passed.
Legal represents the City, and the City has federal obligations to its disabled residents. Bolton should put his analysis in writing, sign it, and show up. A city that can Zoom in its own aldermen can surely Zoom in a senior citizen.
