Nashua’s Unconstitutional Public Comment Ordinance

At the October 13, 2020 Board of Aldermen Meeting, the Board approved, by a split 9-6 vote, a new, restrictive public comment ordinance. This is the second amendment to this ordinance since 2017, where the Board approved restricting public comment during the first reading of legislation.  This ordinance was drafted by Aldermen Rick Dowd and Deputy Counsel Celia Leonard and should have been sent back to committee.

 In February, this legislation was presented as a first reading to the full Board and subsequently went through a sub-committee vetting process for six months before the final vote. The Legal Department drafted an unconstitutional ordinance with no warning to the Board until October 13, 2020. The concerning language of this ordinance includes:

·      Written comments may be accepted as correspondence but shall not be read into the record.

·      Excessive repetition and irrelevant remarks are discouraged

·      Remarks shall be civil, rude or profane remarks are prohibited; 

This Board does not have to accept our letters and the public is not allowed to read their writings into the record. Who decides what is excessive repetition and irrelevant? Undoubtedly, citizens that are critical of this government are considered repetitive and irrelevant by this Board. And the language civil, rude, profane, and prohibited – clearly unconstitutional.

 Aldermen Attorney Jette raised some thoughtful concerns about this ordinance. He was concerned that Attorney Bolton had not reviewed the language since the Board last made changes. Amazingly, Attorney Bolton even voiced that he believes this language, created by his office, to be unconstitutional. Jette believed that it did not have a full hearing and wanted to refer it back to committee. Aldermen Dowd, however, was recalcitrant, disapproving, and insistent that the ordinance be voted on by the full Board.

Who is responsible for creating this language? Evidently, in the legal office the right hand (Attorney Bolton) does not know what the left hand (Attorney Leonard) is doing and more importantly, they do not seem to share a unified view of what is and what is not constitutional. The legal office advised the Board of Assessor to approve this unconstitutional language in their public comment rules on July 30, 2020.

 Amazingly, once the Aldermen heard from Attorney Bolton that the ordinance was unconstitutional, three of the five member subcommittee responsible for vetting this ordinance (after approving it on October 5, 2020) voted to bring this it back to committee for further review. But the Full Board failed the motion to bring this ordinances back for review, 9-6. The Board then struck the language “ Remarks shall be civil, rude or profane remarks are prohibited” and voted to approve the ordinance by a 9-6 vote. With the majority of the vetting committee now unsure of the language of this ordinance, this was not the correct vote. 

This ordinance is nothing more than a veiled attempt to restrict citizen rights who do not fall in line with the views, initiatives, and politics of the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen. This Board of Aldermen has become an elitist group not interested in the diverse public comments of our citizens. They need to decide if they want real input from Nashua residents of all education levels and degrees of sophistication. 

The actions of the legal office are not surprising given the pompous, elitist, “white wigged” nature of Attorney Bolton. Attorney Bolton believes that if the public uses rude, uncivil, or profane language, they should expect the Board and City Hall employees to ignore their concerns and requests. This is, in fact, what has happened to some citizens.