Is It Possible To Ratify A Non-action

Belknap county delegation

Let’s start this exploration with a very short clip from the August 27, 2020 meeting of the Belknap county commissioners.

Meeting chairman DeVoy stated, “we need to ratify the vote to implement a stipend for mandatory overtime.” He then asked for a roll call vote. The total time spent on this subject in public meeting was 22 seconds.

Go ahead and have another look. Was there a motion to approve a policy? Was there any discussion? What is this vote that they claim to be ratifying?

The relevant section of the meeting agenda tells us:

and the minutes of that meeting;

The commissioners “voted” for this policy on August 17, but that vote seems to have taken over four hours. Anyone with the slightest comprehension of RSA 91-A will understand that the commissioners did not vote on August 17, they did not have a meeting. Lacking a meeting, there was no vote. If there was no vote, then there was nothing to ratify. At best this is a clear admission of a violation of our right-to-know law.

91-A:2 Meetings Open to Public. –
I. For the purpose of this chapter, a “meeting” means the convening of a quorum of the membership of a public body… whether in person, by means of telephone or electronic communication, or in any other manner such that all participating members are able to communicate with each other contemporaneously… for the purpose of discussing or acting upon a matter or matters over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.

I advised the commissioners of their error, in the hope that they would give more consideration to the command of our constitution in Part I, Article 8.

Government, therefore, should be open, accessible, accountable and responsive.

Not only did they ignore it, they paid their attorney to try to explain the problem away.

Attorney Fitzgerald’s first attempt to make the problem go away, his response to the county administrator:

Notice that he states, “a particular action is of no legal effect and did not constitute a binding vote.” And he goes on, “if the tentative approval became a reality through a formal vote at a properly noticed meeting.” I agree, it will become a reality if they ever do have such a vote.

It is clear that attorney Fitzgerald has not seen that 22 seconds of video above. His “understanding is that the matter was raised at the actual meeting, an explanation of the proposed action was provided by Chairman DeVoy and then a vote was taken,” is not based in reality. A good attorney practicing due diligence would not allow such a deviation from the facts.

By stating, “Given the fact,” when operating from a false premise, the result will fall short of good legal advice. We can not know from this if he has failed to acquire the proper facts from which to make his conclusion or if he is trying to be elusive of his own accord. Either case opens attorney Fitzgerald to a question of integrity.

Being less than satisfied with the attempt to brush off my concerns, I formally addressed the commissioners in a letter written on November 2, 2020.

On November 5, 2020 the county administrator wrote to the commissioners outlining her version of the timeline of events. Notably she states, “At the commission meeting 8/27/20, the Board reviewed the policy and ratified its vote of approval in public.” As we saw earlier, attorney Fitzgerald properly had stated that there was no vote on 8/17. And “the Board reviewed the policy” is a stretch referring to the Board’s action (go take another look at the video if you don’t recall all 22 seconds).

The administrator’s letter has another concerning detail, the first shift worked under the new policy happened on August 23, 2020, five days prior to the scheduled vote.

On November 10, 2020 attorney Fitzgerald wrote to the administrator explaining away concerns. He makes the claim that the policy was to be instituted retroactively to 8/14/2020. Once again, do you recall from the video, the discussion of this being implemented retroactively as attorney Fitzgerald suggests.

Next in his letter attorney Fitzgerald re-affirms that there was no illegal communication outside of a meeting; a fine bit of distraction as that was not at issue. The issue is that there was no vote on 8/17/2020 that would need to be ratified on 8/27/2020. Oddly, he mentions ‘the meeting later that evening’ referring to 8/17/2020, there was NO meeting held on that date.

Being less than satisfied with the responses to this issue I sent another letter to the commissioners on November 16, 2020.

Where will this end?

91-A:7 Violation. – Any person aggrieved by a violation of this chapter may petition the superior court for injunctive relief.

The county commissioners have a rather poor track record when it comes to abiding by injunctions.

91-A:8 Remedies. –
III. The court may invalidate an action of a public body or public agency taken at a meeting held in violation of the provisions of this chapter, if the circumstances justify such invalidation.

What judge would say that all those stipends paid in the past year are invalid payments? Can I dream of the commissioners being personally hit with the bill?

Puzzle Pieces

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ofernandezberrios

When you buy a puzzle the box gives you lots of useful information. Of course, the first is the pretty picture that you will be assembling. The box will give you ideas on how many pieces there will be and maybe an experience level for those putting it together. Puzzles are interesting and entertaining, good stuff for your brain.

Politics is a bit of a different puzzle. You likely have no idea the sort of fun you will have when you open that box. In a lot of ways you get to build your own puzzle in the political world; choose your challenge. Even as you are building your own, you may not know what it will look like when you’re done.

Today I’ll look at a couple of pieces that fit together that I had not recognized as they slipped together without me noticing.

Budget battles are particularly invigorating, if you want to spend the county taxpayer’s money you’re going to get resistance from me. Such was the case in 2017 when we had a fairly conservative delegation in Belknap county. We trimmed back the commissioners’ bloated spending plan to something not too egregious.

County commissioners like many managers want a bit extra in their budgets so they don’t have to work so hard at actually managing the budget. It’s much easier to have an extra million in the budget than it is to control expenses to finish the year without running out of money. In 2017 they hooted and hollered so much at the ‘tight’ appropriation that the Town of Belmont’s selectboard felt the need to chime in with a letter to the commissioners, and the Laconia Daily Sun. I can only guess what inspired them as there are no clues to be found in the minutes of the Board of Selectmen. There may be a missing puzzle piece here that I need to find. That or the board was acting outside of public view.

The budget crisis in Belknap county was so bad that the commissioners were forced to request a supplemental appropriation. That’s their story. Because such requests must be sent out to the towns and city of Laconia, I did my selectboard the service of laying out the reality of the budget in a letter. On July 31, 2017 the minutes of the selectmen note that they received my correspondence. After the meeting they went in to non-public session under RSA 91-A:3 II c (Matters which, if discussed in public, would likely affect adversely the reputation of any person, other than a member of the public body itself, unless such person requests an open meeting. This exemption shall extend to any application for assistance or tax abatement or waiver of a fee, fine, or other levy, if based on inability to pay or poverty of the applicant.) at which time they discussed the need to check my property for possible code violations. This seems curious, especially because I was never invited – unless such person requests an open meeting. – so sue me.

The taxpayers lost this little skirmish, and the commissioners would be able to sit out the rest of the year fat and happy.

As our section of the puzzle comes to a close at the end of 2017, you can see that the delegation had appropriated $933,604 (2017 audit) more than was needed for operations. Even before $256,852 was raised from a supplemental appropriation, the commissioners had $676,752 more than was needed to ‘fully fund’ the jail.

So why do I find the need to write about this stuff two years after the fact? One piece of the puzzle was the county budget; another was the Town of Belmont’s special interest in county affairs. Those two came together on July 31, 2017. They were hidden from view until I received discovery after the town chose to sue me. They have caused me to do a lot of review of the past. They have opened up a view to this puzzle and the connections to other pieces that are attached.

Puzzle image credit