City Hall: Minutes of non-public meetings unsealed
May 24—EVER WONDER WHAT goes on behind closed doors when aldermen go into non-public sessions at City Hall?
It's getting a lot easier to find out, thanks to a law passed last year.
Public boards, committees, commissions and state agencies no longer can keep minutes from nonpublic sessions sealed indefinitely — unless they reconsider the decision at least once every 10 years — following the passage of House Bill 321.
The law took effect Oct. 3. It allows minutes to remain sealed only if a majority of a board, agency, or public body votes to keep them sealed.
If no vote is taken, the minutes are to be automatically made available to the public.
Public boards, committees and agencies can meet in nonpublic session and seal the minutes from those sessions for a limited number of reasons, including: personnel matters; situations that would harm the reputation of anyone other than a member of the public body; discussions about the purchase, sale, or lease of property or pending litigation.
City Clerk Matt Normand recently sent a memo to members of the aldermanic Committee on Administration and Information Systems notifying them of the new law. He wrote that "in the absence of an adopted procedure to review and determine whether the circumstances no longer apply for meeting minutes kept from the public, the public body or agency shall review and determine by majority vote whether the circumstances that justified keeping meeting minutes from the public under RSA 91-A:3, III no longer apply."
The review should be done no more than 10 years after the governmental body voted to prevent the minutes from being subject to public disclosure. If no action is taken, the minutes will be subject to immediate public disclosure.
According to Normand, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen does not currently review its non-public minutes "with any regularity to determine which sealed minutes may now be released to the public."
"It is probably in the City's best interest to make a determination on past minutes and create a policy establishing clear guidelines to review non-public minutes moving forward," Normand wrote.
Normand reports that over the last 10 years, the board and its subcommittees have met in non-public and voted to seal minutes 89 times.
"Both myself and the city solicitor's office have reviewed all meeting minutes during that period and determined that only seven of those non-public meeting minutes should remain sealed (five are related to public land sales that are still pending and two are related to personnel matters)," Normand advised board members.
Normand recommended the minutes of the following meetings remain sealed:
—Jan. 5, 2021 — Board of Mayor and Aldermen (hiring of any person as a public employee);
—June 21, 2022 — Board of Mayor and Aldermen (consideration of the acquisition, sale, or lease of real or personal property which, if discussed in public, would likely benefit a party or parties whose interests are adverse to those of the general community);
—July 29, 2022 — Board of Mayor and Aldermen (acquisition, sale, or lease of real or personal property);
—April 4, 2023 — Board of Mayor and Aldermen (dismissal, promotion, or compensation of any public employee or the disciplining of such employee, or the investigation of any charges against him or her, unless the employee affected (1) has a right to a meeting and (2) requests that the meeting be open, in which case the request shall be granted);
—April 18, 2023 — Board of Mayor and Aldermen (acquisition, sale, or lease of real or personal property);
—May 2, 2023 — Lands & Buildings (acquisition, sale or lease of real or personal property);
—June 6, 2023 — Board of Mayor and Aldermen (acquisition, sale, or lease of real or personal property).
All other previously sealed minutes are unsealed, effective immediately, Normand wrote.
Normand suggested that beginning in December 2024, and each December after that, the City Clerk's Office provide the Committee on Administration/Information Systems a confidential summary of any sealed minutes, along with recommendations whether to keep them sealed or unsealed after consulting with the City Solicitor for the committee to review.
Skip day for officials
Manchester city department heads no longer will be required to spend their Tuesday nights attending aldermen meetings at City Hall — unless they have an item on the agenda.
Attendance at Board of Mayor and Aldermen meetings has been mandatory for city department heads for years — whether or not an agenda item pertains to their department — in case a board member wants to ask them a question.
That changed this past week, when Alderman Chris Morgan made a motion under "New Business" exempting department heads without agenda business from attending the meetings — which have been known to last deep into the night.
"I think our staff could be doing things far more productive than hanging around the chambers for hours every other week," Morgan said. "It would be the expectation that should one of us have a non-agenda related question of department personnel, we would call the department head to either ask the question directly or request their attendance at the next meeting."
The motion passed on a voice vote, with only Alderman Dan O'Neil opposed.
The vote was met with a round of applause from department heads in attendance.
Inside the fish ladder
The Manchester Conservation Commission will host its fifth free outdoor event at the Amoskeag Fishways, 4 Fletcher St., on Saturday, from 10:30 a.m. to noon.
Naturalists from New Hampshire Fish and Game will introduce participants to the world of the Amoskeag Dam's fish ladder, which helps migrating alewife (river herring) populations to spawn in inland lakes.
Patriot Hydro Company operates the 100-year-old Amoskeag Dam power plant, which maintains the fish ladder complex as a public service. The Patriot Hydro plant generates 16 megawatts of clean energy annually.
Visitors also will see the first Manchester mill sites, built in the Merrimack's western watershed and a view of the river islands.
The event is free, but registration is required by going to manchesternh.recdesk.com and searching for "Conservation Programs."
Take Exit 6 off I-293 to 4 Fletcher St., located on the right just before Amoskeag Bridge. Park in the lot and walk down to the river. The event will take place rain or shine.
Paul Feely is the City Hall reporter for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. Reach him at pfeely@unionleader.com.
