House Bills would torpedo City of Rochester's efforts to deny The Voice RTK docs

House Judiciary Chair and HB 66 sponsor Bob Lynn introduces HB66 during a meeting Wednesday in Concord. (Streaming video screen capture)

Editor's note: This is one in an occasional series focusing on The Rochester Voice v. City of Rochester complaint over the city's refusal to honor digital Right to Know requests made by The Rochester Voice. The city of Rochester contends it doesn't have to comply with such requests, because Rochester Voice editor Harrison Thorp is not a New Hampshire citizen.

DOVER - Rochester's city manager and city attorney continue to stonewall The Rochester Voice on Right to Know requests, but if either House Bill 66 or House Bill 74 is ratified and signed by the governor this spring they'll have nowhere to hide.

The two bills were introduced before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

House Bill 66, sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman and former New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Bob Lynn, would change the term "citizen" to "any person," which would immediately short-circuit any attempt by the city of Rochester from denying Rochester Voice requests for government documents.

A similar bill passed the House and Senate last year but was killed during a Committee of Conference vote in May. That bill was also sponsored by Lynn, who said he was astonished that Rochester would deny RTK documents on such grounds.

"It's important to understand that until an issue that arose a couple of years ago regarding Rochester, where the municipality took the position that someone was not entitled to receive certain records because they were not a citizen of New Hampshire, well, that had never been an issue before," Lynn said.

Gilles Bissonette, legal director for the ACLU of New Hampshire, called HB 66 "very positive, and very reasonable."
"By changing citizen to person, this is clarifying and (requesters) have always been recognized as "any person," Bissonette testified. "Rochester is an outlier, the courts have resolved that."

Bissonette was referring to an August decision by a Straffird County Superior Court judge who handed the City of Rochester a scathing rebuke on its appeal of the state's Right to Know Ombudsman's decision handed down in November 2023, which deferred all remedies to the legislature or judiciary.
In an 11-page order former Strafford Superior Court Judge Daniel E. Will chastised the city for its crabbed argument that because the owner of The Rochester Voice lives in Maine, they are not allowed the Right to Know protections of 91-A, the statute that regulates Right to Know provisions.
"(The court) is skeptical that (Rochester's intended) result was intended by the General Court when it considered the language of RSA 91-A," Will noted in his decision. "The City's construction would create logical inconsistencies within the Right to Know law that further augur against the City's narrow construction of 'citizen.'"
The other bill heard on Wednesday, HB 74, also sponsored by Lynn along with Rockingham County Rep. Edwards, also would allow The Rochester Voice to receive Right to Know protections in that they are a organization that reports on Rochester news.

Since April of 2023 Rochester's city managers and City Attorney Terence O'Rourke have denied The Rochester Voice access to digital requests for government documents. In some cases they have simply ignored Rochester Voice Right to Know requests.
Judge Will further stated that the value of The Rochester Voice to Rochester is viable and sound.
"Although Mr. Thorp is neither a citizen nor a resident of the State of New Hampshire, the respondent in this case, The Rochester Voice (as the Ombudsman found and the City does not challenge), is a news organization with a mailing address in New Hampshire and a tradename registered in New Hampshire," Will wrote in his decision. "And the Rochester Voice has covered issues of public interest concerning the City of Rochester since as early as 2017, and serves, as a practical matter, to advance the constitutional ends of open and responsive government and the parallel purpose of the Right to Know law."

In recognition of The Rochester Voice's ongoing battle with the city of Rochester, the digital daily was honored with the New Hampshire Press Association and Nackey Loeb School of Communication First Amendment Awards in 2024.