Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Open Records topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lawmakers debate repeal of certain fees tied to right‑to‑know requests
Summary
Representative Louise Andrews urged repeal of fees tied to voluminous right‑to‑know requests, saying fees deter ordinary citizens from pursuing records; municipal representatives and NHMA warned the state and towns need a mechanism to recoup large production costs and called earlier reforms a negotiated compromise.
CONCORD — Representative Louise Andrews testified in favor of House Bill 114, a proposal to repeal fee provisions enacted in recent sessions that allow public bodies to charge for voluminous right‑to‑know requests. Andrews said fees can bar ordinary citizens from pursuing government records and recounted personal experience using long‑running records requests to bring legal claims; she called the fee regime an access barrier for low‑income residents.
Municipal representatives and the New Hampshire Municipal Association urged caution. NHMA’s Sarah Bert Cohen and municipal clerks said towns frequently face large, time‑consuming requests that can impose real costs and that recent changes (HB 1002) were negotiated to limit abuses. Cordell Johnston and other municipal witnesses described large out‑of‑state commercial requests that, they said, were not about local government oversight but about marketing or research. Right to Know New Hampshire said it opposed HB 114 because last year’s HB 1002 addressed the most burdensome requests and the current statutory tools should remain in place while municipalities implement policies to manage workload.
The committee did not vote on HB 114 and heard repeated requests from both sides for documented examples of misconduct or abuse to guide drafting and for careful calibration of any change to avoid shifting costs to local taxpayers.
