HB66

As a Town clerk and tax collector, I do not want to take time away from my town residents to supply information that has no regards to the people requesting this.

Given the unlimited nature of this bill, the impact of the would be extensive and severely impact municipal operations.

This will only increase the workload of clerks and allow a new venue for fraud.

I handle the RTK in Mont Vernon and if we received emails from around the country that we had to respond to it could shut us down.

This bill could potentially shut down communities that are already running on a very tight budget. Imagine an AI Bot submitting a request to every city and town to give them the last 20 years of Planning Board minutes and someone would have to find these print copy and mail them to anywhere in the world at the town's expense other than being able to charge for the cost of the copies.

The Town of Woodstock is dedicated to maintaining transparency and views the Right-to-Know (RTK) law as a key aspect of that commitment. The ability for residents to request government records fosters open and honest communication, helping to build trust and mutual respect between the government and the community it serves. However, the passage of HB 66 could result in a surge of RTK requests from external parties with no direct ties to New Hampshire. Additionally, mandating that these responses be provided electronically, even if the original records are not in digital format, could place a significant burden on municipalities. Woodstock, with its small staff, would face considerable administrative challenges in handling large-scale requests from outside individuals and organizations. Addressing such requests would not only increase staff workload and impose additional financial strain on the town, but it could also disrupt regular municipal operations as staff time is diverted to RTK responses. Moreover, requests for documents that are only available in paper form would require digitization, which could incur unanticipated costs that the town has not budgeted for. For these reasons, we respectfully urge the House Judiciary Committee to reconsider advancing HB 66.

Right to know requests should be limited to those residing in those towns and supporting the fiscal and social oversight of the schools.

As a small town, we are already being sent requests to "send us everything you have digitally" from persons and groups outside of NH simply because we decided to change our website from a .com to a .gov. We are trying to be more digitized, but it just isn't practical for some things and that is what those groups/people want. Passing this bill would be slapping even more of a burden financially and in terms of hours the clerk has to spend trying to scan documents instead of taking care of the town business. Please DO NOT pass this bill.

Online Testimony for WEVD: HB 66 Waterville Estates Village District (WEVD) is committed to transparency and believes that Right-to-Know (RTK) is an integral part of that transparency. Allowing residents to ask for governmental records encourages open and honest communication between government and the people they serve, allowing for mutual trust and respect to grow. Passage of HB 66 would open all municipalities in New Hampshire up to an influx of RTK requests from outside entities with no connection to New Hampshire. In addition, requiring those responses to be provided electronically, even if the original documents are not electronic, if so requested by the individual making the request would present a potential burden to municipalities. WEVD has a small staff and to have to answer requests for mass data from outside interests would pose a great administrative burden to our municipality. Not only would staff time be increased in order to answer these requests, posing a financial burden to the community, but regular municipal activities would be impacted by the occupation of staff time responding to RTK requests. Furthermore, requests for documents that exist only in a physical form would require digitization which could provide a financial cost to the District that cannot be planned for. For those reasons, we ask that the House Judiciary Committee not move forward HB 66.

On February 22, 2024 I received the following Right-to-Know request: "Pursuant to the Right to Know Law (RSA. 91-A), I am requesting public access, within 5 business days, to the governmental records reasonably described as follows: Any emails for the last 10 years to or from any town employee or any town council member with any of the following words contained in the email: LGBTQ, Transgender, Gender confused, CRT, Divisive, Diverse, inclusion, Drugs, Guns, Free lunch, Vaccine, Liberal, Transitioning, Safe, Triggered, Global warming, Vaping, Election, Vote, Zero tolerance, Equality Per RSA 91-A:4 IV(c) If you deny any portion of this request, please cite the specific exemption used to justify the denial to make each record, or part thereof, available for inspection along with a brief explanation of how the exemption applies to the information withheld. Please email the records available in electronic format to me at jennydeck@yahoo.com. If any aren’t available in electronic format, please let me know when these records are available for inspection. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Jennifer" I determined that this person was a NH resident. Thanks to RSA 91-A, IV(e), I was able to ask her if there were something specific she needed. She agreed to modify her request to emails between 10/2/23-2/21/24. Even still, there were over 10,000 emails that I had to review for personal information. I then had to send personal emails to our Town Attorney to redact, as I do not have that ability. In all it took me until June 26, 2024, four months, to complete this Right-to-Know request while still completing my regular workload. If the law is changed to allow anyone, NH resident or not, to file a Right-to-Know request, this would increase the number of Right-to-Know requests and increase the time local officials and employees would not be able to do the work they needed to do. And removing the ability to ask for a reasonable modification would mean large requests would take months, maybe even years to complete. Another concern is that expanding the definition to “person” could aid in fraudulent activities and identity theft – including, but not limited to, AI “bots” posing as individuals to harvest personal information from municipal records. In addition, creating liability for wrongful disclosure adds another layer of risk (and cost) for municipalities. I respectfully asked that you not allow this bill to move forward to the House for vote.

No one from outside a town should be requesting information if they do not live there.

Please vote to ITL this Bill. In this age of very tight municipal budgets and cyber crimes, opening up 91-A Requests to anyone on the Planet makes no sense. Why should the taxpayers in our NH communities pay to have some Russian trolls or California curiosities have their requests fulfilled. Frankly, the definitions should be tightened so that only taxpayers/residents of a municipality, together the bona fide members of the press, be allowed to file a 91-A Request to that municipality; and similarly only taxpayers/residents of the State, together with bona fide members of the press, be allowed to file a 91-A Request to a State agency. Let's use our tax resources wisely. Thank you for your consideration and your service to our State.

I admire NH's Right to Know law. I do not want it opened up to abuse.. Opening it up to the mad public from afar with blanket access imposes irresponsible and unjustified workloads on those who must respond.. Either restrict access to those specifically addressed by the subject information plus legitimately interested news organizations, or charge real money (substantial deposit in advance and fully correlated to time spent) to those with no clearly defined personal interest.