Hampton Officials Acknowledge Wrongdoing; Nashua Officials Play The Blame Game
A news story ran recently about the Hampton Town Clerk being forced to resign after the AG's office determined she mishandled election ballots, breaking the law. Town Officials were quoted acknowledging positively the woman who identified the mishandling and the wrongdoing and vowed to take action to restore their citizens’ trust in fair and free elections. In other words, they owned it.
The AG's office and the Court have identified Nashua for various law violations, but our Mayor and officials blame the State, the Court, and the citizens for failing to comply with the law. Our Mayor is notorious for denying, deflecting, and playing the virtuous victim.
The AG's office discovered the Mayor engaged in electioneering when he used the public government television station to pitch his political position, which was in opposition to the position of the Board of Alderman, to change the City charter to give the Mayor the power to select the Police Commissioners. How did our Mayor react to this? He claimed the Cease and Desist order from the AG’s office ignored his "First Amendment" rights and “I do not see a distinction between (a debate) and the two presentations on the police commission,” In other words, the Mayor denied any wrongdoing.
In 2019, the City was in trouble when it failed to staff its Assessing Office with a qualified Chief, monitor a 2018 City-wide update, and perform a full Measure and List in over 30 years, all resulting in unfair assessments. Under State monitoring, the City agreed to update all City assessments in 2022. When 2022 arrived and the new assessments were released, resulting in a 40-60% increase in property assessments, the Mayor blamed the State for requiring integrity in the assessment process. The Mayor claimed the City did not pick the 2022 date when, in fact, the City did. The Mayor blames the state agency.
From 2020 to 2023, citizens petitioned the Court under the Right-to-Know law for open government records, which resulted in several sanctions against the City, all of which the City has challenged or denied. Even under the strong suggestion of the Court to establish uniform policies to handle citizen requests, the Mayor and legal office believe that "written policy is not the most important thing" and employees "don't need policies." In 2022, the City hired a Right-to-Know Coordinator who sits behind a locked door, with no office hours or phone number to reach him. The Mayor claimed the Judge handling these cases doesn’t really understand the Right-to-Know law. The Mayor and City Attorneys blame their failure to comply with the law on a few citizens who they protest are bullying the City for challenging their closed meetings and records.
The City was so desperate to crush a citizen challenging record compliance that they paid over $550,000 in outside legal fees to defeat one pro se person alleging improper posting and noticing of meetings and minutes within the City's Economic Development Office. A Mayor appointed Director handling over $100,000,000 of projects behind closed doors. The most recent court order found that the Director operated in bad faith, ordered costs to the pro se litigant, and enjoined the city from further committing these violations. This two-year battle was an unnecessary and tragic case that could have been avoided had City officials been committed to complying with the law and responding reasonably to questions to avoid litigation.
Our Elected Officials in Nashua have distorted the concept of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” and replaced it with “government of the people, by the city (Democrats), and for the city (Democrats)”. The dominance of the Democratic Party in Nashua City Government has led them to the erroneous conclusion that they are no longer required to respect minority opinions or even the city’s legal obligations contained in state law and our State Constitution.
How much more taxpayer money will the Mayor spend defending the City’s illegal practices?