Board of Aldermen 09-22-2020 Page 27
And then finally | also, | was on the Board when that particular staff was being targeted repeatedly as well
as other members of the Department, his brother and we had to have some conversations about what
public comment is supposed to be used for and whether you are allowed to berate City Employees, the
Mayor, whoever you feel like apparently during public comment when it is really supposed to be your
opinion on activities that are to be acted upon like Legislation or issues thatthe Board of Aldermen can do
something about. We are not really supposed to get into things like Human Resources, HR issues and
that. But it seems to be the tendency of some members of the public to come and use the microphone as a
chance to publicly express themselves in a way that their target could interpret as bullying. That can create
a very hostile workplace. We don’t want to see our City Staff subjected to any undue discomfort. It’s very
easy for them to be exposed to that if for example something is not redacted or if somebody who is looking
for one thing suddenly finds a million of other things that there may be no substance to them but nowthey
have information that they can tug on and trace it through its logical conclusion.
So | think it’s important for us to have this position. | think it will improve both our ability to provide Right to
Know information and our ability to improve our internal mechanisms for doing it. And then finally | think it
will help us assure internally our staff and then volunteers that the City of Nashua understands Right to
Know Laws and has enough staff to adequately address those needs.
President Wilshire
Alderman O’Brien?
Alderman O’Brien
Thank you, Madam President. |am going to support this Resolution. | see this as a very sad state of
affairs. Here we have a situation where one our citizens has deemed themselves or any citizen could deem
themselves as sort of like a watchdog of what we do here in the public format. And that’s why we do have
the Right to Know Law. But what has happened here is | think it has gotten a little bit too much out of hand
so therefore | would support this to have this new position.
We cannot, | mean part of our goal of being an Alderman is to try to give the best City Services we can to
the public at the best price that we can. And if we have employees that are at the whim or having their time
taken up by only a couple of citizens, then that’s not really efficient Government. So | do support this and |
think would help alleviate this problem. But with that being said, it’s almost $100,000.00 and my question
is to the Mayor and to Corporate Counsel, are there any city agencies that do charge for documents that
anybody so requires under the Right to Know Law. Do they charge for if somebody gets in a car accident
to get the Police Reports or anything else like that? And if we do and if we are entitled to receive a nominal
fee for the request of these documents, can that money be applied to the salary of this new position.
Attorney Bolton
| can respond if that’s ok.
President Wilshire
Please do.
Attorney Bolton
Alderman O’Brien there’s certain documents and an accident report might be one of them where the
Legislature has seen fit to set a price for obtaining one. And | think in the case of accident reports it might
be $10.00. Generally speaking, however, under the Right to Know Law, we are prohibited from charging
any fee other than the actual cost of making copies if we make a copy. Mostly, given the modern age, we
are sending documents electronically and we are not actually making a physical paper andink copy in
which case the Legislature has provided that we cannot charge anything, zero. So if we only knew
