City Refuses to Pay on Court Ordered Sanctions
The Union Leader recently ran a story about the scammers who fraudulently hacked into a City of Nashua Payment system in April and stole a $41,000 payment to a contractor hired to renovate the Public Health Department Building.
Turns out, the City negotiated with the vendor and taxpayers paid an additional $22,000 to the actual contractor to compensate for the hacking of our computer payment system. Attorney Bolton stated, “With a fund balance of $36 million, he said an extra payment of $22,500 can be absorbed.”
Most of you know that I have been involved in a hostile legal battle with the City over access to public information. A portion of this case went before the court, where my attorneys requested sanctions against the City for operating in bad faith. The Court ruled that the City operated in bad faith and must pay my legal expenses for this challenge.
When my Attorney presented the legal expenses to the City, the city objected to the amount and countered with a lower number, the City was willing to pay about $8,000. My attorneys in an attempt to minimize court time and client costs chose to attempt to negotiate with the City, calling Attorney Bolton to settle the matter. Attorney Bolton, in yet another hostile act, refused to negotiate, and changed the City’s position to only now pay $2000 for 10 months of legal work on a matter that involved numerous letters, phone calls, a zoom meeting, 2 court hearings and numerous court filings.
The money owed to me is not based on some fraudulent hacking scheme but rather legitimate legal bills ordered to be paid by the Court.
More filings had to be brought before the Court and the Court has set yet another hearing for October 18, 2021. Why is Attorney Bolton unable to settle a roughly $10,000 Court ordered sanction, when he was willing to absorb $22,000 using a $36 million dollar fund balance? Because it’s a personal vendetta leveled by the Mayor and Legal office against a citizen who called out unethical practices in city government.
Since the case began in September 2018, the City has spent over $1,000,000 of taxpayer money fighting a citizen. Our leadership has no skill at conducting business as business, it’s personal. The taxpayers have lined the pockets of these dark forces with our tax dollars, affording them the ability to destroy anyone who challenges City Government. Remember the over $100K the City spent fighting my abatement appeal refusing to negotiate in good faith and settle the matter. I won that as well in a Concord court.
We have some bad actors running our City and sitting in our Aldermanic Chamber. The November 2nd elections will afford the taxpayers the opportunity to bring fresh faces who understand the serve the people. Let’s make sure the next elected body will stand up and speak against the bully tactics and unethical practices the Mayor and legal office cast on those who question city government.