N.H. governor’s policy to destroy records within 30 days raises transparency concerns
By Amanda Gokee, The Boston Globe, March 27, 2023
Though e-mails, text, drafts, and documents must be retained if they could be responsive to a pending Right to Know request, transparency advocates note that records can be destroyed before anyone even realizes they exist, let alone requests them.
According to documents obtained by the Globe, Governor Chris Sununu’s e-mail and document retention and disposal policy directs staffers to delete e-mails, texts, documents, drafts, and memos within 30 days unless they “may potentially be responsive to a pending Right to Know request.”
The problem, as Spencer and advocates of government transparency see it, is that by the time someone requests certain e-mails or documents, they may have already been deleted or discarded. They believe the Governor’s policy of deleting correspondence and records within 30 days is illegal — and plan to challenge it in court.
Two parts of New Hampshire law require the government to be open, responsive, and accountable to the public: RSA 91-A, or the Right to Know law, and Part 1 Article 8 of the state’s constitution. Under the Right to Know law, the public is supposed to have access to government meetings and records, with some exceptions for the privacy of students and personnel, for example. Part 1 Article 8 says that “the public’s right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted.”
