Also on today’s menu:
New Gunstock Commissioners
Gannett To Shut Down Seacoast Media Press
Lewis And Clark’s Third-In-Command Was From Hebron
Brendan McQuaid, president and publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, also acting as a representative of the New Hampshire Press Association, was among those testifying before the House Judiciary Committee this week in support of proposed changes to the state’s right-to-know law that include a measure to make it easier to recover legal fees from entities that unlawfully withhold public records.
Other proposed legislation would allow for remote voting by board members at municipal meetings (but not annual meetings), require updates on the status of right-to-know requests, and require a review of sealed minutes of non-public sessions after 10 years to determine if they should remain sealed.
Representative Dan McGuire (R-Epsom), sponsor of House Bill 307, said his bill would change the current law related to the awarding of attorneys fees in right-to-know cases to include individuals who prevail against a municipality that withheld information that should have been public.
McQuaid said it would create an incentive for public bodies to be more responsive. Not only is the current law daunting to a private citizen going up against a publicly funded attorney, he said, but also for news outlets, some of them one-person operations.
As newspapers have cut back on their coverage of local news in the face of declining revenues, private citizens have been filing their own right-to-requests, but they often give up rather than facing the cost of filing court cases when government entities fail release information that, according to state statute, should be available to the public.
Public bodies such as school boards have complained that an increase in right-to-know requests have been overwhelming the staff tasked with responding to what in some cases are frivolous requests. By law, they have five days to provide the documents, explain why they are not available, or notify those requesting the information that they need more time to produce the documents.
HB 149 would require that entities asking for more time to produce the documents must provide an update after 30 days, and every 30 days until the information is made available. Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of ACLU-NH, said long delays are not uncommon. “As a litigant, I do tend to get updates,” he said, “but this makes sure that everyone gets that benefit with timely information.”
Natch Greyes of the New Hampshire Municipal Association, which opposed HB 307, said the organization supports HB 254, concerning remote meetings and voting remotely. There are still requirements for a physical location for the meeting, and it requires a legitimate reason for the voting party to not attend. Karen Hill, a Lebanon city councilor, said remote observation and participation had been invaluable during the pandemic when some are in quarantine, and also is helpful during bad weather. “It is enabling,” Hill said. “It merely provides the option … and it does have safeguards in place.”
New Gunstock Commissioners
The Belknap County Delegation has selected Heidi Preuss, a former Olympian and investment fund manager, and Terry Stewart, a marketing and customer service specialist with experience on local boards, to fill two vacancies on the Gunstock Area Commission. They were selected from a pool of six candidates. Cindy Creteau-Miller, a former owner-operator of Magic Mountain in Vermont and a Republican nominee for state legislature from Meredith, was a close third choice. Preuss will serve a full term, through 2027, and Stewart will serve the remainder of a term ending in 2024.
Representatives expressed special interest in how the candidates understood the relationship between senior management and commissioners, their vision for the mountain’s growth, and what distinguished them from the other candidates.
During a public comment period, Gilford resident Ann Nichols observed, “There’s a big difference between governance and management. I heard a lot of great experience from individuals who are managing certain pieces of businesses, but I would ask you to consider who you think would be the best at governance.”
Gannett To Shut Down Seacoast Media Press
Virginia-based Gannett Newspapers has announced plans to close one of the last of the big newspaper printing presses in New Hampshire, the Seacoast Media Group press, in March. The last edition will come off the line on March 19 and, starting March 21, papers for the Seacoast Media Group will be printed at Gannett-owned presses in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
In a press statement, Gannett said, “As our business becomes increasingly digital and subscription-focused, newspaper printing partnerships have become standard. We are making strategic decisions to ensure the future of local journalism and continue our outstanding service to the community.”
The company said Seacoast Media Group will keep its advertising and news staff, based in Portsmouth, but some see it as a “writing-on-the-wall” moment for the Portsmouth Herald and Foster’s Daily Democrat.
Seacoast Media Group was one of the state’s few holdouts as other publications shut down their own presses. The New Hampshire Union Leader closed its printing operation in 2013, outsourcing the production of the paper to Seacoast Media Group, then to Newspapers of New Hampshire, Inc., which owns the Concord Monitor, the Union Leader’s traditional rival. The Nashua Telegraph, owned by West Virginia-based Ogden Newspapers, stopped printing daily papers in 2020 and now puts out a weekly newspaper. The Telegraph, once the state’s second-largest newspaper, closed its Hudson printing press years ago.
Lewis And Clark’s Third-In-Command Was From Hebron
Historian Ronald W. Collins will give a presentation at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 8, at the Plymouth Congregational Church about the life of John Ordway, who grew up in Hebron and was third in command of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Ordway was a sergeant when Lewis and Clark recruited him, based on his character, skills, and education, according to Collins, who is the author of Sergeant John Ord- way, A History with this Genealogy. Ordway wrote a detailed daily journal about the expedition, including descriptions of the indigenous groups they met. The diary also recounted the hardships and challenges they overcame.
After the expedition, Ordway returned to Hebron before eventually moving to Missouri, where he became a major landowner. He died at age 42 of mysterious causes, and Collins will discuss why Ordway may have died at such a young age, whether he left descendants, and his various roles during the expedition.
For more information about the talk, contact Marcia Schmidt Blaine at mblaine@plymouth.edu.
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