City manager warned council not to discuss 'XYZ' bond for church property

LACONIA — City Manager Scott Myers sent an email to Mayor Andrew Hosmer and the City Council on Friday, June 26, cautioned them not to ask questions during a public meeting about a $700,000 bond he placed in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget.

The city had finalized letter of intent language with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester to purchase the Catholic school and the rectory on the St. Joseph Church campus, but Myers was concerned that questions during the meeting could let the cat of the bag. He and others involved in the transaction did not feel it appropriate for taxpayers to have a say in how their money would be spent. 

“At this point, the matter is still confidential as Father Marc (Drouin) and I are working toward a simultaneous news release so his parishioners hear the news at the same time it is released by the City,” Myers said in the email with the subject line “Church Property — CONFIDENTIAL.”

It would be two months before that news release went out.

Myers signed an agreement on August 19 for the city to buy the property for $1.14 million in a deal intended to gain 84 downtown parking spots. The purchase and sale agreement stipulates the diocese's application for demolition of St. Joseph church itself remains valid and that any future buyer of the rectory and Catholic school would have to abide by a series of covenants on what can be done there.

The City Council decided the whole thing in secret. 

The Daily Sun obtained the email and other documents associated with the property purchase agreement under a public records request.

“With our budget discussion on Monday night, there is a bond listed on page 63,” Myers stated in the email. “It is the last item in the top section and referred to as ‘XYZ.’ This is the placeholder for the bond to purchase this property and for obvious reasons we couldn’t refer to it as the ‘Church Bond.’

“This covers the partial year of first year interest only. For obvious reasons, we will not be going into detail on this bond Monday night and would appreciate that if you have any questions, you ask them off-line and not during the meeting.”

Two other emails from Myers to Hosmer and the City Council also mentioned the purchase was not something to be discussed publicly until the church and the city could issue a joint news release. 

A July 30 email from Drouin to Myers also speaks of the need for confidentiality.

“FYI the St. Joes preservation society is meeting this evening. A couple people are aware of a potential sale as I had to get them on board to see their commitment when I announce to the parish. I hope that they will respect our confidentiality.”

Former Mayor Tom Tardif said the public should have been involved in the decision on appropriating money. Deciding it in non-public session doesn't meet the requirements of the city charter, he said.

A charter provision says appropriations not in the annual budget require a two-thirds majority vote of the Council after a public hearing.

The bonds to pay for a portion of the church property purchase were included in the budget, but Tardif said that listing them as “XYZ” doesn't live up to the spirit or letter of that charter provision.   

“XYZ is nothing,” Tardif said. “They just can’t appropriate money for nothing, and XYZ is nothing.”

The state’s public meetings law allows a City Council to discuss land purchases in non-public session in order to prevent a bidding war and to ensure that the public gets the best price for a property.  

But discussing it in private and actually authorizing the purchase of property in private are two different things, Tardif said.

He called the City Council’s purchase decision without public input “the most egregious purchasing of property behind closed doors, undermining all transparency.

"Clearly, the hand is quicker than the eye. The City Council during a non-public meeting has bound the City to borrow $1.14 million for the church property. The XYZ $700,000 is fraud and a violation of all the laws that make up the City Charter, which is a crime."

While City Manager Scott Myers and Mayor Andrew Hosmer say it is legal to approve land purchases in nonpublic sessions, government transparency advocates say it’s advisable to let the public know before local officials decide to spend large sums of public money.

Other cities, such as Franklin and Concord, decide on land purchases in public. Officials in Plymouth and Tilton say they do such purchases in public through the Town Meeting process.

City Councilor Bruce Cheney said in an interview that if the city’s interest in the property became known too early, other parties could have come in and placed a higher bid.

“It was in the budget, ‘XYZ,’” he said. “You may not like it, but it was in the budget.”

He said the city did tell the public after the fact, unlike some other city property purchases that became public only after reports last year in The Daily Sun.

“I don’t think any of us weren’t disappointed that we didn't do a better job on those other things we purchased,” Cheney said. “That was inadvertent.”

The city spent $342,000 on those real estate purchases without any public discussion or votes in public session during City Council meetings, or notification to the public after the land had been purchased. Tardif and Gail Ober, who is now running for state representative, were critical of the private way those purchases were handled.

Property on Pickerel Pond Road is to be used to allow the public to launch canoes and kayaks and to help protect the watershed. Another piece of land was purchased for possible use by the Public Works Department.