A judge gave a lawyer for the state a hard time Thursday as she tried to argue that the disciplinary records of a state trooper fired for misconduct should remain confidential.
If you “look at the trend in the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s cases, your reading seems to be a departure from that more expansive view of public access to public records,” Merrimack County Superior Judge John C. Kissinger Jr. told Assistant Attorney General Jessica King partway through the hearing.
Four days after Sandwich Police Department Chief Shawn Varney received a New Hampshire Right to Know request for twenty years of police records on April 15, the town emailed back a 63-page attachment containing information on budgets, hiring and officer demographics dating back to 2000.
Ossipee, a town 19 miles to the southeast, was sent an identical request at the exact same time and nearly a year later, Police Chief Tony Castaldo continues to ignore the law and hasn’t responded.
