"The NHMA has their own agenda; they use taxpayer money to go after taxpayers'

From left,HB 1069 sponsor Rep. Keith Ammon, RTKNH President Katherine Kokko and NHMA Executive Director Margaret M.L. Byrnes (Courtesy photos)

A bill that would force municipalities to comply with digital Right to Know requests is drawing sharp criticism from the New Hampshire Municipal Association, but the executive director of Right to Know New Hampshire calls their cries "pure hyperbole."
HB 1069, which passed the House earlier this month on a voice vote, would allow "any person" to electronically request Right to Know documents from any public body without having to travel to city offices during regular business hours, as the City of Rochester and many other cities and towns now require.
The bill along with its amendment - 0406 - also eliminates any reference to "citizen," a term Rochester officials have used to prevent The Rochester Voice from inspecting government documents to inform its readers on various issues.
"This assessment of HB 1069 by NHMA is pure hyperbole," said Right to Know New Hampshire President Katherine Kokko. "This bill does not change the status quo, except that it provides for the more efficient dissemination of records electronically, in keeping with practices used in the 21st century."
HB 1069 also enshrines the right of "any person" to request and receive government documents digitally, without having to show up in person at government agencies during regular business hours as has been previously required by the City of Rochester.
Kokko believes some municipalities are intentionally adding hurdles to digital delivery to discourage the public from even trying to get government documents.
"Some public bodies use the flexibility they have to refuse (digital) delivery simply to make routine RTK requests as inconvenient as possible for the requester and force them to come in," added Kokko, who also takes exception to the NHMA's insistence they identify the requester and to limit access to "citizens."
"RTKNH does not understand why NHMA has been pushing the idea that it is necessary for public bodies to confirm the identity of requester and to limit access to citizens," she said. "The occasional use of the term 'citizen' within the context of NH's Right-to-Know law, which uses other terms interchangeably as well, does not clearly limit the right of transparency and access to citizens and has yet to be found by the courts to be intended in that way."
Keith Ammon, a sponsor of HB 1069, said the NHMA is seeking to "put up barriers so municipalities will have less transparency."
"The NHMA has their own agenda," Ammon told The Rochester Voice. "They're using taxpayer money to go after the taxpayers. They protect bad towns like a teachers' union protects bad teachers."
The NHMA is funded by the 221 towns and 13 cities across New Hampshire.
Locally, Rochester and Dover each will pay about $30,000 for their 2024 dues, according to documents obtained by The Voice, followed by Somersworth $10,000, Barrington $8,000, Farmington $5,700, and Milton $1,100.
Immediately following the House passage of HB 1069, the NHMA released a statement saying that "changes proposed by this bill could cripple local government.
"If this bill passes, anyone anywhere may request records of New Hampshire municipalities - records created and kept for the benefit of New Hampshire's residents - and receive those records after only paying for the cost of mailing (if applicable) and copying (if applicable). If the requester wants the records sent electronically, the bill would not allow any cost recovery for New Hampshire taxpayers, regardless of how much staff time is spent on responding."
NHMA Executive Director Margaret M.L. Byrnes said having to take requests from anonymous entities from anywhere in the world puts an undue burden on cities and towns.
"It's an abuse of purpose of the Right to Know law," she said. "I am referring to having to be responsible for thousands of pages the way 1069 is amended. We could be inundated with bots requesting untold amounts of information."
A recent Right to Know request to the City of Rochester, however, shows that Right to Know requests might not be as pervasive as Byrnes suggests.
According to documents obtained through a RTK request Rochester had just 61 RTK requests this past year.
They included 13 requests from the media, 35 from people requesting answers to questions, nine corporate/business requests mostly dealing with zoning and four from attorneys requesting info for possible litigation cases.
Amman believes the bill will come before the New Hampshire Senate sometime in April.