Right to Know WIN!

[CNHT]

"The judge has ruled on the Right-to-Know (RTK) lawsuit filed against the Belkap County Convention in NH Superior Court."

http://gilfordgrok.com/blog2/2007/07/breaking_news_score_one_for_th.html

[d_goddard]

Awesome!!
A great example of how to effectively use the courts ... as a check against other arms of the government

[CNHT]

Awesome!!
A great example of how to effectively use the courts ... as a check against other arms of the government

Well if they had complied with the right to know law to begin with...........there would have been no need.

[dawn]

Well if they had complied with the right to know law to begin with...........there would have been no need.

Right! It is unfortunate that boards can ignore the RTK laws (and others for that matter!) and the only recourse the individual has is to take the town to court! To be forced to expend such amounts of time, energy and money is certainly works against the people keeping the gov't in check. Not to mention that the process is intimidating!

In many cases, the penalties are not much more than a slap on the hand.

[CNHT]

Well if they had complied with the right to know law to begin with...........there would have been no need.

Right! It is unfortunate that boards can ignore the RTK laws (and others for that matter!) and the only recourse the individual has is to take the town to court! To be forced to expend such amounts of time, energy and money is certainly works against the people keeping the gov't in check. Not to mention that the process is intimidating!

In many cases, the penalties are not much more than a slap on the hand.

Some anti-CNHT people will often criticize and say we spend taxpayer money by tying things up in court, however, a few of these cases though won, did NOT award the fees, the last two or so have, along with the right to have the documentation, and/or film the meeting or whatever was being contested. This is not the same as 'lawsuits' in general, it's just asking the court to decide if the town has complied with the law, which if they were more willing to do right at the outset, there would be no need.

In any case, even if it goes as high as $2,000 for court costs, (we've had some as low as $145) it's still not as wasteful spending as in $78M for a school that is not needed. I'm glad we are lucky to have citizens willing to spend their own money to set a precedent for the next person.