Two reps who opposed hiring attorney booted from Investigation Committee

LACONIA — Two state representatives who blocked the hiring of an attorney for an investigative committee looking into alleged irregularities in county government have been removed from the panel, prompting the two lawmakers to cry foul.

In an email sent Monday, Delegation Chairman Mike Sylvia announced that he was removing state Reps. Mike Bordes, of Laconia, and Tim Lang, of Sanbornton, from the five-member committee established in December looking into budgetary and other possible-but-unspecified irregularities in county government.

The five-member committee, headed by state Rep. Norm Silber, of Gilford, sat fallow for six months before holding its first meeting last Wednesday.

As the first order of business, Silber asked the committee to authorize the hiring of an attorney who would advise the panel and do the necessary legal legwork connected to the investigation. But that move failed when three members of the committee, including Lang and Bordes, refused to consider the request by declining to second the motion to hire the lawyer.

In the email to other delegation members, Sylvia said he was cutting two members from the committee because the relevant state law limits the makeup of an investigative committee to a maximum of three members from any one major political party. He said those who would remain on the committee are Silber, and state Reps. Barbara Comtois, and Travis O’Hara.

All members of the 18-member County Delegation are Republicans.

Lang and Bordes said Sylvia is abusing his office because that law gives the delegation the authority to appoint members of the investigative committee, not the chairman.

At last Wednesday’s meeting, Lang was openly mistrustful of the committee's direction, fearing that it would stray into a host of areas instead of focusing on specified areas of concern.

“I won’t vote for hiring an attorney for an unscoped investigation. I assume he doesn’t like that,” Lang said in an interview Tuesday, referring to Sylvia.

A message left for Sylvia seeking comment was not returned Tuesday afternoon.

The delegation has contended that commissioners have been exceeding their authority by unilaterally transferring money in excess of $5,000 from one area of the county budget to another. The delegation maintains that reallocation in those amounts must first be approved by the delegation’s Executive Committee.

Currently the commissioners and the delegation are at odds over an overexpenditure of money spent for pharmaceuticals in the County Nursing Home last year and covering those expenses with surplus funds in another part of the 2020 nursing home budget.

Bordes said that, after last Wednesday’s meeting, he and Lang and committee member Travis O’Hara sent an email asking that the committee meet to discuss the next steps in the investigation and to ask that the county commissioners attend the meeting.

There was no reply to that email, Bordes said, “But on Monday we all got the chairman’s email cutting the committee to just three.”

“I’m very disappointed,” County Commission Chairman Peter Spanos said Tuesday.

He said the move shuts out the newer members of delegation from being able to offer any input to the committee.

“Decisions like this do the taxpayers of Belknap County a disservice,” Spanos said.

Lang said he will press to have decisions regarding the committee made in accordance with the law, but acknowledged that it would probably not make any difference in the final outcome.

“He has the votes to stack the committee however he wants,” Lang said in reference to Sylvia. “I don’t think people will oppose Mike Sylvia or Norm Silber. But it still has to be done right.”