City council to take public records law training after planning board appointments kerfuffle

LACONIA — Citizens demanded Councilors Jon Hildreth (Ward 1) and Bob Soucy (Ward 2) resign their positions on the council’s subcommittee tasked with recommending board appointments, saying an email sent by Soucy violated the state’s open records law. 

Mayor Mike Bordes told the public councilors would be required to take right-to-know training, and they’d soon use city email addresses rather than personal ones as a result of the revelations.  

Soucy, Hildreth and Ward 6 Councilor Mike Conant sit on the appointments subcommittee, charged with interviewing applicants seeking positions on city boards and commissions. Following a subcommittee meeting at the end of March, where members voted to recommend former Councilor Bruce Cheney for an alternate seat on the planning board, and Doreen Richards for full membership on the same, Soucy sent an email to Hildreth and Conant asking to discuss changing the decision ahead of the April 13 meeting of council. 

In an email dated March 31, Soucy told Hildreth and Conant that Cheney, who ran for mayor against Bordes and lost in November, was displeased with being recommended as an alternate.

“Can we have a phone discussion on the appointments to the planning board. I did talk to Bruce this weekend, and he is firmly embarrassed and upset over the alternate position to the planning board and I understand. He has been on the board from the City Council for over 8 years and being asked to be an alternate is not the step he wants to make. I want to talk to you both about this, and maybe we should bring this to the Council for a vote. We have 2 other good candidates, and we can have Doreen take an alternate position to help learn and in many cases, I can see her being the vote, as other people do not show. Let me know what time today or tomorrow works and I can set up a call, or we can get together somewhere,” the email reads.  

When the subcommittee interviews applicants and makes recommendations, those recommendations are subject to council approval.

Hildreth and Conant told fellow councilors they never responded to the email. Alternates to the planning board do not generally vote, unless a regular member is absent. Full members are frequently absent. Neither Hildreth nor Soucy said Monday night they intended to step down from the subcommittee, but each apologized to the public, and to the council. 

“I apologize to the audience and the people and to everybody who spoke up. It was not my intent — and I’ve made that very clear, because I’ve had conversations with [Bordes] about this — it was not my intent to violate 91-A,” Soucy said.

In an April 3 letter to The Laconia Daily Sun, Richards wrote she was informed by city staff on March 23, that the subcommittee intended to recommend her for full membership on the planning board, at the April 13 council meeting. She received a call from Hildreth on March 31, she wrote, and he informed her she’d be recommended for an alternate position instead, and Cheney would be recommended as a full member.

“I’d also like to apologize to the council and to the committee. My intent was certainly never to circumvent, my thoughts were to look at this and possible changes in this council meeting. I had the best intention when I reached out,” Hildreth said. “If I was trying to do something underhanded, I certainly wouldn’t have made a phone call, I would’ve been quiet. I was offering that courtesy.”

At their meeting Monday night, councilors voted to appoint Richards to the planning board as a full voting member, and did not appoint Cheney to any position at all. But they did appoint Cheney’s wife, Debra, to full voting membership on the city Zoning Board of Adjustment.  

“The Laconia City Council acknowledges that at least two members of the council, who also serve on the appointments subcommittee, engaged in discussions regarding appointments subcommittee business outside of a publicly-noticed meeting,” Bordes read from a prepared statement at the meeting. “Upon review, the council recognizes that these discussions unintentionally violated New Hampshire’s Right To Know law — RSA 91-A — which requires that deliberations of public bodies occur in properly-noticed public meetings.

“To ensure full transparency and compliance with 91-A, the city council affirms that no decisions, recommendations or consensus arriving from any conversations outside of the duly-noticed appointments subcommittee meeting held on March 20, 2026, are included in tonight’s agenda, and the slate of recommendations is presented as determined at the March 20 meeting,” the statement continued. “All final decisions and recommendations resulting from the March 20, 2026, meeting will be formally presented to the full city council, exactly as deliberated during the public meeting without modification, adjustment or changes regardless of any discussions that occurred outside of the public process.” 

Bordes said the council is committed to follow the law.

During a period open to public comment, constituent after constituent demanded Soucy and Hildreth step down from the subcommittee, and one elected leader voiced her disappointment in the council.

“I came because I just wanted to express my extreme upsetness about the backyard, back door conversations that went on. It’s one of the main reasons I ran for city council, and I fully feel like it’s kind of a slap in the face that immediately it started happening,” state Rep. Sheri Minor (R-Laconia), a resident of Ward 4, said. “Hopefully, those don’t happen again.” 

“Based on the information I’ve heard this evening, I’m asking the mayor to have the immediate dismissal of the appointments subcommittee, Councilman Soucy and Councilman Hildreth,” Rhonda Hokanson, of Ward 1, said. 

“The two of you should resign. You’ve brought dishonor to the city and yourselves. You should be ashamed of yourself. I am disgusted,” Gerald Loiselle, of Ward 6, said. 

Conant scolded Hildreth and Soucy. 

“Wrong is wrong. We all took the same oath of office in January,” he said. “What you guys are doing is wrong, and the fact that you don’t recognize that it’s wrong is alarming, and should be very concerning for the citizens of Laconia.”