Former mayor complains to AG about council, city manager

LACONIA — Former Laconia Mayor Tom Tardif has sent a complaint to Attorney General Gordon MacDonald alleging city officials abused the public trust and engaged in official misconduct by agreeing in private to spend $342,000 on real estate.

In his Friday complaint, Tardif cites Laconia City Charter, Section 5:06, which says, “No appropriation shall be made for any purpose not included in the annual budget as adopted unless voted by a two-thirds majority of the Council after a public hearing held to discuss said appropriation.”

No public hearing was held. Instead, the City Council, meeting in nonpublic session, authorized City Manager Scott Myers to negotiate the acquisitions. The City Council also did not officially announce the deals after they were consummated.

Advocates for government transparency say the public should be in the loop when public money is spent. Such notification is routine elsewhere, including in the cities of Concord and Franklin.

Myers: 'No appropriation'

Myers said Monday the charter provision does not apply to the purchases because they didn’t involve an appropriation.

“In one case, funds sitting in an account from land use change taxes were used by the Conservation Commission for their intended purpose,” he said in an email. “In the other, funds already appropriated but not needed for the City’s Worker’s Compensation/Unemployment Insurance coverage because of a premium holiday were repurposed.”

He said he can work to better notify the public of such acquisitions in the future.

Mayor Ed Engler called the lack of public disclosure for the two purchases “an oversight.” 

Two complaints

In his complaint to the attorney general, Tardif said the City Council or city manager “failed to uphold the State Constitution, Laws and the City Charter, all of which resulted in the elected officials violating their oath of office, resulting with funds being illegally withdrawn from the city treasury, specifically after the annual budget was adopted, for new purposes invoking supplemental appropriations mandating ‘public hearing.’”

Gail Ober, a member of the Zoning Board and a former reporter, testified before the City Council on Dec. 23 to complain about how the sales were handled. She said the public should have been notified after a purchase and sales agreement was made.

The purchases were first reported by The Laconia Daily Sun on Dec. 19 based on unsealed minutes from Aug. 13, 2018 and Feb. 25, 2019.

Right to Know 

Myers said the City Council was within its rights to discuss and authorize him to negotiate the purchases while meeting in nonpublic session, and didn’t have to take a vote on the matter in public.

The state’s Right to Know law allows nonpublic City Council sessions for several reasons, including “consideration of the acquisition, sale or lease of real or personal property which, if discussed in public, would likely benefit a party or parties whose interests are adverse to those of the general community.”

Public knowledge of city interest in a particular parcel, for example, could drive up the cost of the land.

While not commenting on this particular case, Cordell Johnston, the government affairs counsel for the New Hampshire Municipal Association, said there is a provision in the Right to Know Law saying a city’s charter takes precedence over the law.

The city’s charter requires a public hearing for “appropriations.”

That word is defined quite broadly in state law but can be open to interpretation, Johnston said.

Land purchases

The purchases take in 15 acres on Pickerel Pond Road and a half-acre at 18 Wilson Court.

The pond land, purchased for $239,000, is to provide access to the water for people using canoes and kayaks and to help protect the watershed. The Wilson Court land is near the Public Works Department and could be helpful for departmental needs.

Tardif said he doesn’t buy the explanation that the failure to notify the public was a simple oversight.

“They did it twice. You can’t just spend $300,000 and some odd dollars without the public knowing," he said. 

“I really didn’t mean to speed down the road, officer. Now that I’m caught, I apologize."

He called the pond area “swamp land,” and said he wished he had the opportunity to weigh in on the value of buying the property before the city made the acquisition. He said that years ago he would pull vehicles out of the mud in that area with his Jeep.

He said the other property near the Public Works Department could have been put to a better use.

“We have a housing problem and the city buys a house it doesn’t really need,” he said. “Maybe the land trust could have bought it.

“That’s an opinion that I could have expounded on in a public hearing, but I didn’t have an opportunity to say anything, and I’m not alone.”

Kate Spiner, a spokesman for the attorney general, did not immediately have an answer on whether the attorney general would look into Tardif’s complaint.