Caledonian Record
Late in November, the Grafton County Commissioners managed to get a $38 million bond vote passed after officials pushed and shoved in public and private meetings.
Two citizens, Robert P. Hull and John J. Babiarz, brought suit, charging that the commissioners violated the right-to-know law during the planning and approval of a new county correctional facility, specifically citing two meetings as illegal because there was no five-day early warning to the public and no minutes were kept.
Superior Court Associate Justice Harold Perkins ruled that one of the meetings, because it was only a series of separated conversations among commissioners, was not a public meeting under the right-to-know law, but that the second meeting was a public meeting. It should have been warned five days earlier, and minutes should have been kept and published at the demand of Hull and Bariarz, or any other citizen.
The issue at the center of the challenge is Hull’s and Bariarz’s contention that pressure put on the dissenting commissioners at the illegal meeting caused one of them to change his vote on a second motion to issue the bond, hence, passing the bond issue with the two-thirds majority that New Hampshire law requires, but that they did not get on the first vote.
Though the judge ruled against Hull and Bariarz on the legality of the actual bond vote, he confirmed their suspicion that the commissioners met illegally and in secret. Perkins wrote, “The commissioners and director should have known this was the type of meeting that requires notice to the public.”
Perkins said a second violation occurred after Hull and Babiarz made a request Feb. 20 for the minutes of the Feb. 11 meeting. Perkins stated the minutes had not been prepared within five business days as required by law.
“The provision itself is unambiguous and the violation evident,” he wrote.
We strongly commend Hull and Bariarz for successfully challenging the Grafton County Commissioners for abuse of power in conducting public business in contravention of the law. The inherent temptation of public bodies to handle prickly issues in secret must not be allowed to happen even once. The public’s business must be done in public, and every time there is such an obvious abuse of the law, the guilty public body must be challenged. Thanks to Mr. Hull and Mr. Babiarz, the Grafton County Commissioners will be more apt to meet in public in the future.