City Attorney's bogus 'citizen' requirement at odds with AG's Right to Know memo

ROCHESTER - Did City Attorney Terence O'Rourke intentionally misread former Attorney General Joseph Foster's 2015 memorandum regarding New Hampshire's Right to Know Law?
That's what people familiar with the law and readers of The Rochester Voice are wondering today.
A footnote on page 39 of Foster's 132-page updated memorandum regarding the law clearly states that citizen status has no bearing on the government's requirement to provide documents to "the public" to allow for transparency and accountability.
The footnote states the following: "RSA 91-A:4, I, refers to "citizens," but the Right-to-Know law does not define this term, and uses it nowhere else. Instead, the statute emphasizes accountability to "the people, accessibility to the public, and the goals of a democratic society. An agency should not, therefore, require persons requesting access to public documents to demonstrate that they are citizens of either New Hampshire or the United States."
The city of Rochester had been supplying The Rochester Voice with documents for several years, but abruptly stopped after the award-winning digital daily requested a Police Report that led to the banning of a former city councilor from City Hall, the City Hall annex and the Rochester Opera House as well as the tax and vehicle registrations offices at the James W. Foley Memorial Community Center on Wakefield Street.
Former city councilor Chris Rice, who was removed from office last May following a City Council trial on harassment and retaliation charges, received his trespass order while voting at the polls in the Nov. 8 general election. Since then he has been prohibited from entering City Hall or the Opera House and has had to get special permission from the police department if he needs to attend to personal business at the Community Center.

About five minutes after The Rochester Voice sent a Right to Know request on Wednesday asking the city to make available a police report that supports the trespass order against Rice, O'Rourke replied that the city would no longer supply the digital daily with documents because The Rochester Voice was not a citizen of New Hampshire.
The Rochester Voice home office is located in West Lebanon, Maine.
"As you know, RSA 91-A:4, which pertains to a public bodies obligation to send records to a requester, only applies to citizens of New Hampshire," O'Rourke wrote. "Based on research, it is clear that you are not a citizen of New Hampshire and the "Rochester Voice" is not a citizen of New Hampshire either. Unless you can provide proof of citizenship, I will no longer be providing you with governmental records."
This chilling rebuke of The Rochester Voice First Amendment Rights came as the digital daily was trying to report on a lawsuit brought by Rice for his banishment from City Hall.
Rice is also fighting with the city over its denying him the ability to register his vehicle as a business asset of his newly formed In Beer We Trust LLC, which will be part of a food truck enterprise.
Rice filed an ex parte request in Strafford Superior Court asking the court to overrule the city and allow him to register his truck, without going through the planning department.
During a codes and ordinance meeting on April 6 City Councilor Steven Beaudoin asked O'Rourke why the city was making it so difficult to register a truck under a business name.
"They told him (Rice) he had to file a project narrative regarding the business," Beaudoin said. "Why? He's just trying to register a car under the business name to protect him from liability."
Beaudoin said when he queried Cox about the holdup, he cited two state statutes and an administrative rule that Beaudoin felt don't apply in this case.
O'Rourke said if a resident is registering a vehicle under a business name, they have to be able to prove there's a business on the property, prompting Beaudoin to reply that Rice is just now starting the business after filing the LLC with the Secretary of State's Office.
"There is no business at the address he gave," O'Rourke claimed.
Rice's name never came up during the back and forth, but most knew they were referring to Rice.
Meanwhile, The Rochester Voice will continue through whatever means are available to find out what was represented in the trespass order that would allow the city to prohibit one of its citizens from conducting routine business at City Hall and city offices at the community center.
Ironically, The Rochester Voice is registered with the New Hampshire Secretary of State's Office as a New Hampshire business entity, but that appears to hold little sway with O'Rourke and the city of Rochester.
The first hearing on Rice's lawsuit against the city is set for May 4. Defendants in the case include Cox, Mayor Paul Callaghan, planning director Shanna Saunders and tax collector Doreen Jones.