Justice by Exhaustion: How Nashua’s Courts Protect Power and Punish Dissent

Part III - When Justice Has a Price Tag

When the City of Nashua spent nearly a million dollars fighting a voluminous 2022 Right-to-Know case, it wasn’t protecting taxpayers and records; it was protecting itself.

The case involved the downtown road barriers, a project sold for “downtown vibrancy” but executed with little transparency. I asked for public meeting locations, basic records on cost and decision-making. Rather than comply, the City hired “Red-Carpet” Russ Hilliard of Upton & Hatfield, one of New Hampshire’s oldest and expensive attorneys, and paired him with Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton and Assistant Counsel Celia Leonard. Taxpayers were now funding both the secrecy and its defense.

Delays multiplied. Court orders were ignored. Deadlines passed without consequence. When I finally won almost full remedies, the victory was hollow: the City had spent hundreds of thousands of public dollars resisting transparency it was legally required to provide. Worst of all, the City attorneys held a public presentation in March 2024, plastering my name up on the big screen for wasting taxpayer money casting me as the problem for their decision to hire expensive attorneys.

The second part of this voluminous lawsuit over meeting notices, minutes postings and costs for the Nashua Performing Arts Center, was even worse. The City portrayed the project as a civic triumph, yet the financing blurred public and private lines. I sought records showing how taxpayer-backed bonds flowed through private entities by way of meetings that were closed to the public. The City responded by hiring former Attorney General Joe Foster of McLane Middleton, another well-known, high-priced name.

Judge Charles Temple presided. He allowed the City to file its answer eleven months late, consolidated multiple cases into one (knowing I was self-represented), and later canceled discovery entirely. When the City’s counsel requested delays for vacations and “semi-retirement holidays,” he granted them all.

In the trail court, I beat Hilliard in the downtown barrier lawsuit, but lost virtually all rulings regarding the Arts Center records, where I presented a strong case unnoticed meetings and money mismanagement. The New Hampshire Supreme Court eventually reversed and remanded part of Temple’s ruling - the trial court must perform a governmental function test to determine if NPAC Corp. was operating as a public company where records would be subject to disclosure. The principle was vindicated, but at an enormous cost and long delays for closure. The second part of the Arts Center appeal remains under Supreme Court review.

The irony came later. Judge Temple’s retirement celebration was held at the very Performing Arts Center whose meetings and records he had kept from public oversight. The symbolism spoke volumes about the relationship between Nashua’s judges and City Hall.

Justice isn’t blind; it’s billed by the hour. The City learned that spending taxpayer money on lawyers is cheaper than admitting mistakes and complying with transparency laws. The courts know that inaction has no cost. And the public learned that access to truth, in this city, is for those who can pay, or persevere past exhaustion.