Mayor Donchess misrepresents the burden of Right-To-Know requests

Guest post by Laura Colquhoun

The Mayor vented at a recent Board of Aldermen meeting to justify the new legal manager positions for Right-To-Know requests. He came down hard on myself and another citizen who are simply requesting public documents to understand what is happening in our city government. Our Mayor sounded scared and threatened. He made many statements that were not fact based. As a lawyer, he came across uninformed. 

Here are a few facts. The Nashua legal office is unwilling to work with citizens to clarify requests in an effort to help reduce the burden on the City. Citizens simply do not understand how our documents are maintained, city data is stored and we often do not know the names of public reports. I have never been called by the legal office to ask for clarification on any of my requests, but rest assured I have been denied a great deal of information because the legal office applies "unreasonably described" to deny the documents.

The legal office is documenting all general communication from myself and Ms. Ortolano and creating a table for general questions. These are not Right-To-know requests and most were not sent to the legal office. They are general inquiries that any citizen might ask in city hall. Why do our lawyers have to spend their time on this?

The Mayor brought this position to the Board 3 weeks ago. He claims the City has received a "deluge" of requests for two years. Attorney Bolton told the Personnel Committee that this has been a growing problem for the last four or five years. Why wasn't this position placed in the 2021 budget and fully vetted during budget season? This did not just creep up on the City.

Maybe there is some validity to Ms. Ortolano's Right-To-Know lawsuit and the City feels like it's time to look proactive. Good. Will placing a Right-To-Know manager in a legal office that has stonewalled and backstopped the release of public documents open the door to responsive access? hmmm.

Before the mayor appointed Kim Kleiner as Administrative Services Director, residents could easily access documents. The building, tax and assessing departments made documents easily available. However, as soon as Ms. Kleiner came on the scene, public records were locked down and there has been nothing but problems. This is what happens when the Mayor and Board of Aldermen appoint unqualified people to high level city positions.

The mayor is just wasting more money for Nashua taxpayers.  If he got rid of Ms. Kleiner and had the city go back to the way they were handling the Right To Know Requests and restored honest dialogue, the residents would not have a problem. That would be a true cost savings for Nashua.