Attorney general: Laconia union illegally participated in electioneering in 2022 school board election

LACONIA — A Laconia teachers union president illegally used district email to influence a school board election last fall, according to an investigation by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office. As a result, the Laconia Education Association is no longer using district networks and hardware to conduct union business.

Tara Columb, president of the LEA, used a school district email to share with union membership two letters to the editor that sharply criticized a specific school board candidate, Laura Dunn, ahead of elections last fall. The attorney general's investigation found that this action had violated RSA 659:44-a, which requires that “no public employee shall use government property or equipment” to electioneer, meaning “to act in any way specifically designed to influence the vote of a voter on any question or office.” 

The investigation was prompted by a complaint Dunn made to the state. The Laconia School District declined to look into the matter in a parallel complaint Dunn made to the superintendent.

A Sept. 15 cease-and-desist order required that all LEA members stop using government property for electioneering, and Superintendent Steve Tucker noted in a report prepared for the following school board meeting, “The LEA, with support from NEA-NH, is no longer using the District’s network and hardware for any association business.” 

NEA-NH is the Granite State affiliate of the National Education Association.

Neither Tucker nor Columb responded to a request for comment for this story. 

In a written comment, Dunn said she hoped the issue would not be repeated.

“I'm grateful the Attorney General's Office did a thorough investigation and found my complaint to be valid,” she said.

In fall elections a year ago, Dunn, an incumbent who also serves as the president of the PTO at Pleasant Street School, was challenged by Kelley Gaspa-Caravona, a crisis counselor at Gilford High School. In the final days before the November election, two prominent city residents — one a former mayor and the other the outgoing school board chair — wrote letters to The Daily Sun dispraising Dunn and endorsing her challenger. 

Columb had copies of those letters sent out to union members through district email domains with encouragement they be used to inform voters’ decisions, according to investigative documents.

Dunn narrowly kept her seat in the November election, topping Gaspa-Caravona by less than 1 percentage point.

In January, Dunn made complaints to the Department of Education and to Tucker that alleged Columb’s sharing of the letters, which she claimed were libelous, violated district policies.

“An educator, particularly one in a leadership role, should never get involved with staff or families' personal voting decisions on Election Day,” her complaint reads. 

The district declined to open an investigation, according to communication from Tucker to Dunn, because its attorneys had warned that it might be an actual or perceived infringement on Columb’s free speech rights. 

Tucker also noted that political endorsements “are typical of and expected from union officials in political campaigns which could result in an impact on their members.” 

DOE Commissioner Frank Edelblut referred Dunn’s complaint to the Attorney General's Office in February, asking it to investigate whether state election laws had been violated.

In a message to investigators, an attorney for the LEA noted that political advocacy is protected union activity. The message also highlighted that the district had permitted union members to use school emails for association business, even providing the LEA’s executive board with its own SAU email domain, and questioned whether use of an email address qualified under the electioneering law as a “use of government property or equipment.”

A cease-and-desist order dated Sept. 15 from the Attorney General's Office to Columb found that the emails did break the state’s electioneering statute.

Columb and other union members had used “district computers and/or email domain,” the order stated. “Although Article V of the [Collective Bargaining Agreement] authorizes LEA members to use Laconia School District equipment, with permission, LEA members cannot use such public property or equipment in a manner that violates State law.”

The Attorney General's Office required all LEA members stop using government property to electioneer, and the superintendent’s report noting that the union would no longer use school “network and hardware” for association business came two weeks later. 

A voicemail requesting comment with NEA-NH was not returned Wednesday. 

Though under different circumstances, the finding was the second electioneering violation in Belknap County in the past year. The Attorney General's Office found in August that two donations to re-election campaigns for Gov. Chris Sununu by Gunstock Mountain Resort’s general manager using mountain funds had broken the electioneering statute. Notably, that report found the law had been broken unintentionally, citing confusion about Gunstock’s qualification as a government resource. There, too, the consequence for the violation was a cease-and-desist order, and the Gunstock Area Commission enacted a formal policy banning political donations later that month. 

Dunn is now one year into her second term on the board. At the start of a new term Wednesday night, one new member and one returning incumbent — who each ran unopposed in Tuesday's city elections — will be sworn in.