A Telegraph article ran July 28, 2021, regarding the Court order for the City to pay my legal expenses for disregarding a discovery request to obtain emails from Director Kleiner.

The July 2020 request was for email of a specific time and content from a single person. Kim Kleiner’s emails, relative to assessing, sent from August 9 through September 30, 2019. This was not an extensive search.

Attorney Bolton offered explanations to the Telegraph that were not part of the City’s objection to my Attorney’s motion for sanctions. Apparently, given enough time, he’s able to fabricate more absurd excuses to explain the City’s bad faith.

According to Attorney Bolton, the reasons for disregarding the discovery:

• COVID

• City Hall Renovations

• Employees working remotely

• No employees available to conduct searches

COVID is a pandemic political excuse with little relevance to searching for emails. Ms. Kleiner assured the public that employees were working at 100%. The search required Ms. Kleiner’s time and an IT Department employee.

Kleiner’s office and the IT Department were not under renovations. Ms. Kleiner’s office was open to the public throughout the pandemic.

This request was a computer driven search, so Ms. Kleiner should have been able to remotely compile her emails and the IT department had a worker in City Hall.

We paid the IT employees full time salaries; someone was available to conduct the search.

He concluded by telling the Telegraph

• Ultimately it was discovered that the backup storage system failed and the emails were lost.

• We had over 100 requests we had to deal with.

According to Attorney Bolton’s May 13, 2021 Objection filed with the Court against our request for sanctions,

“Following the plaintiff’s RFPD, the City engaged in a timely search for the requested emails. Early on in this process it was discovered that emails from the month of September 2019 were unobtainable due to file corruption.” (emphasis added – RFPD, Request for Production of Documents)

So, searches were conducted and the City knew early on. From July through December, Attorney Leonard chose to string us along telling us the emails were being compiled and reviewed.

Attorney Bolton’s statement that they had over 100 requests to deal with is simply unverifiable because the legal office claims submitted Right-to-Know requests are attorney-client privilege material, which means that they can make up any number they wish.

Attorney Bolton has been very harsh to describe me and some in the Aldermanic Chamber as “liars”. It would appear Attorney Bolton is fabricating facts and misrepresenting the issues. It is disturbing that a municipal attorney representing right-to-know challenges in a civil matter can operate in such an uncivil and hostile manner. Bully tactics. This is an embarrassment to City Hall and Nashua residents.

Attorney Bolton serves at the pleasure of the Mayor and is paid the highest salary funded by taxpayers. It’s time for a new Corporation Council.