Open Letter to Governor Ayotte to Appoint the Position for the Ombudsman
August 25, 2026
Re: Immediate Appointment of a Right-to-Know Ombudsman Under RSA 91-A:7-
Dear Governor Ayotte:
I write to ask that you take immediate action to restore a functioning New Hampshire Right-to-Know Ombudsman's Office by nominating a qualified individual to fill the position established by RSA 91-A:7-a. This is no longer a question of whether New Hampshire should provide an alternative to expensive Superior Court litigation, the Legislature already made that policy decision, and the office exists in New Hampshire law. It simply has no Ombudsman.
RSA 91-A:7-a establishes the office of the right-to-know ombudsman and provides that the Ombudsman “shall be appointed by the governor and council.” Yet the position has now remained vacant for more than a year. The State's own website acknowledges the consequence: no action can presently be taken on complaints filed with the Ombudsman's Office, and citizens are instead directed back to Superior Court, defeating the very reason the Ombudsman process was created.
The Ombudsman Addressed a Real Access-to-Justice Problem
The Legislature created the Ombudsman process to give citizens and government agencies a comparatively inexpensive and accessible forum for resolving disputes under RSA 91-A. That need has not disappeared. A citizen denied access to governmental records theoretically has the right to go to Superior Court, but a right that can only realistically be enforced through tens of thousands of dollars in litigation is not an equal right. Even a relatively straightforward Right-to-Know case can become extraordinarily expensive once pleadings, motions, discovery, hearings, appeals, and attorney time accumulate.
I know this firsthand. My first substantial Right-to-Know litigation arose from my efforts to obtain and examine governmental records relating to Nashua's assessing operations. I retained counsel and ultimately spent approximately $250,000 pursuing that litigation, prevailing through multiple levels of the New Hampshire courts. Today I litigate RSA 91-A cases pro se because I cannot reasonably spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every time a governmental agency refuses to produce records and most citizens cannot do either: they cannot spend $100,000 on an attorney, and they cannot devote years to learning civil procedure and representing themselves in Superior Court. Pro se litigants are out-gamed on procedural technicalities and are rarely able to address the substance of their case.
Access to public records cannot depend upon a citizen's ability to finance prolonged litigation against his or her own government. The Ombudsman was intended to fill precisely that gap.
The Legislature Preserved the Office
The history of this office matters. The Ombudsman began as an experiment subject to a statutory sunset, but whatever disagreement existed about its performance, the Legislature ultimately chose not to let the office disappear. In 2025, the Legislature addressed using the Office of State and Public Sector Labor Relations to place the Right-to-Know Ombudsman within it, directing the Public Employee Labor Relations Board to provide administrative support, workspace, and access to its hearing room. The Legislature therefore supplied an institutional home for the Ombudsman, and the law continues to give citizens the option of filing an RSA 91-A complaint with the Ombudsman rather than proceeding directly to Superior Court. But that statutory remedy presently exists only on paper: the State currently tells citizens that the position is vacant and that no action can be taken on their complaints. That is not meaningful access to a statutory remedy.
The Financial Barrier Is Particularly Serious in Right-to-Know Cases
RSA 91-A is unusual because the Legislature expressly commanded that Right-to-Know proceedings receive “high priority on the court calendar”, reflecting the obvious reality that public records frequently lose their value with time. A record needed to understand a current governmental decision is substantially less useful two years later: witnesses leave government employment, memories fade, officials retire, administrations change, documents become harder to locate, and public controversies disappear. Delay can therefore accomplish indirectly what government could not lawfully accomplish directly, making access to records practically meaningless.
The Ombudsman provides a forum in which these disputes can be resolved without requiring every disagreement over a public record to become a full civil action, which benefits municipalities and the State as well as citizens. When the Ombudsman process was operating, representatives of the Judicial Branch reportedly advised the Legislature that the number of Right-to-Know cases entering Superior Court had declined. I respectfully ask your office to obtain and review the Judicial Branch statistics on RSA 91-A filings before, during, and after operation of the Ombudsman's Office; if the Ombudsman reduced Superior Court filings, that is evidence not only that the program worked, but that it eased the burden on an already strained court system.
Nashua Demonstrates Why an Accessible Forum Matters
You know Nashua. Some municipalities generate considerably more controversy over public-record access than others, and Nashua has experienced years of contentious Right-to-Know litigation involving records, meetings, municipal boards, and public officials. I have personally litigated many RSA 91-A matters in Hillsborough County Superior Court South, and that experience has convinced me that requiring citizens to rely exclusively on Superior Court is not an adequate statewide policy for enforcing RSA 91-A. I do not ask you to agree with me about any particular Nashua case, or to decide whether I, the City, or any judge was correct in an individual dispute. I ask something more fundamental:
Should a New Hampshire citizen need substantial personal wealth or years of pro se litigation experience, simply to obtain an independent determination of whether a governmental record must be disclosed?
The Legislature answered that question when it created the Ombudsman process.
This Should Not Be a Partisan Issue
Government transparency should belong to neither Republicans nor Democrats. Republican and Democratic administrations alike will be subject to Right-to-Know requests, as will municipalities, school districts, police departments, state agencies, and public boards of every political stripe and the political identity of the requester is likewise irrelevant. The only question is whether New Hampshire citizens have a practical means of enforcing the right the Legislature gave them. At present, they do not.
My Request
I respectfully request that you:
1. Immediately begin or complete the process of identifying and nominating a qualified Right-to-Know Ombudsman pursuant to RSA 91-A:7-a;
2. Work with the Executive Council to fill the position without further unnecessary delay;
3. Determine whether the present compensation and funding structure is sufficient to attract a qualified attorney and operate the office effectively and, if it is not, seek the funding necessary to make the office functional;
4. Direct the appropriate executive agencies to ensure that the Office of State and Public Sector Labor Relations and PELRB are prepared to provide the administrative support contemplated by RSA 273-E; and
5. Request data from the Judicial Branch comparing the number of RSA 91-A Superior Court cases filed before the Ombudsman became operational, during its operation, and since the position became vacant.
The Legislature preserved this office. The statute provides for an Ombudsman, and the administrative structure exists. What New Hampshire does not presently have is the person necessary to make any of it work and leaving that position vacant indefinitely effectively eliminates a remedy without repealing the law that created it. For citizens without the resources to finance Superior Court litigation, that distinction determines whether they have meaningful access to government records at all.
I respectfully ask you to fill the position and restore the Right-to-Know Ombudsman process immediately.
Respectfully,
Laurie Ortolano
Nashua, NH