Dan Hansberry should not sit in a County Commissioner Seat

Daniel Hansberry is running for a County Commissioner seat. While Mr. Hansberry has a long history of public service, his current position as Chairman of the Nashua Board of Assessor and the lack of leadership he exhibits in this position calls to questions his future performance as a county commissioner. 

I addressed in a prior post my concerns with Chairman Hansberry’s disregard for public input, lack of policy oversight, and failure to follow the law requiring the Board to review all abatement applications. Recently, it has been discovered that the Board is not disclosing all finalized settlement agreements on property appeals on the public record and keeping minutes sealed when motions are made in non-public session. Once settled, all decisions by the Board should be made public. The Board is unsealing some of the minutes, but not all.

Additionally, abatement applications appear to be misplaced in the office and undocumented in the yearly abatement list. The accounting and accountability for these applications would improve if the Board were doing its job and reviewing the applications. 

Finally, The Board of Assessor voted on July 30, 2020 to adopt a new public comment policy created by Deputy Attorney Celia Leonard and the Board that includes a “niceness clause.”  “Remarks shall be civil; rude or profane remarks are prohibited”. This language is a clear violation of our constitutional right to free speech. 

Members of the public who come forward to express their displeasure with the performance of the Board or the operations of the Assessing Office are considered rude and uncivil. Public comment will be reserved for those complimentary folks who stroke the egos of the Board members appointed by the Mayor. 

The Board of Assessors brought forth this policy change during the pandemic when no public comment was allowed and the Board would not accept written communication from the public. Make no mistake, Mr. Hansberry has no regard for public input.

In the October 13, 2020 Board of Aldermen Meeting, the Board took up a similar public comment policy revision with the exact same language as the Board of Assessors Policy “Remarks shall be civil, rude or profane remarks are prohibited”. Attorney Bolton was questioned regarding the legal correctness of this language. Attorney Bolton spoke about the constitutional violation to free speech in this language and cautioned the Board that the City could be sued and taken into court where legal fees would be awarded to the plaintiff. Should this language stay in the ordinance, Attorney Bolton anticipated being in court frequently.

The Aldermen then struck the language from the policy. This policy had been under discussion by the legal office and Board for six months. Why did the legal office wait so long to advise the Aldermanic Board of this liability and ignore advising the Board of Assessors allowing the language to exist in their policy? With all of Mr. Hansberry’s public service on Board, shouldn’t he know better than to construct an unconstitutional policy?

The Nashua Assessing Office and the Board of Assessor have been one hot mess and this unconstitutional language adopted by the Board under the advisement of Attorney Leonard leaves grave doubt that the Board, led by Chairman Hansberry, is making productive strides to clean up the mess and create public trust and transparency.

Think carefully about your vote for County Commissioner.