Newmarket School District Violates Right-to-Know, Again!

On January 23, 2023, I filed a new lawsuit against the Newmarket School District, Superintendent Todd Allen, and School Board Chairman Gary Swanson, alleging numerous violations of NH Right-to-Know. This lawsuit is necessary to compel the school district to provide public documents for inspection which they have refused to do.

Since 2016, the School District has been engaged, at taxpayer expense, in the most reprehensible acts of unethical, immoral, and criminal behavior to cover up violations of Right-toKnow.

There have been numerous court actions, criminal allegations, and criminal investigations since the school district first began its campaign in 2016 to cover up its previous bad acts. Today, in addition to the new lawsuit, there is an open investigation by the Rockingham County Prosecutor's Office and new criminal allegations filed against the district and its officials.

School District attorney Barbara Loughman has been Newmarket’s purveyor of lies to the courts since 2016. Examples: Loughman’s original lies were that the 2015 superintendent search committee, comprised of Al Zink, Kim Shelton, Clay Mitchell, Craig Dionne, and Arlon Chaffee never held any meetings and the screening committee, comprised of Al Zink, Nancy Pagnotta, Greg Thayer, Julia Leary, Steve Fournier, and Sean Pine sealed their nonpublic meeting minutes.

In January 2019, Zink informed investigators the 2015 search committee never held any meetings. This was a lie, and both Zink and Loughman knew it. The Newmarket school board meeting of 12/17/2015 records Al Zink informing everyone that his search committee did meet on November 5th through the 8th, 2015, and he even explained what the committee did. Question: Why didn't Loughman or the school district ever ask Mitchell, Chaffee, Dionne, or Shelton if the committee held meetings?

The lies stating the screening committee sealed their nonpublic meeting minutes are even more outrageous. Out of the 13 members who served on this committee, just 3 have ever spoken out. Steve Fournier, Sean Pine, and Al Zink all stated the committee never sealed the nonpublic meeting minutes; This is most interesting because attorney Loughman informed investigators that it was Al Zink who informed her the minutes were sealed. Question: why didn't Loughman or the school district ever ask other members of the committee if the minutes were sealed?

The answer to both questions presented above is that Loughman and the school district had knowingly and purposefully lied to the courts to cover up the fact the district had violated NH Right-to-Know Law concerning the two committee meetings.

Lying to the courts to cover up the district's violations of Right-to-Know was not enough for Loughman or the district, they wanted to inflict retribution upon me.
To this end, the district sought attorney fees regarding a Motion to remove Loughman from the case because she lied to the courts regarding the committees. The Court granted the motion because Loughman and the district lied again, falsely claiming the search committee never met and the screening committee sealed their minutes.

Moving forward, I will again move to remove attorney Loughman from the present case because she has lied to the courts in the above matters. This time will be different: I will be subpoenaing members of both committees to tell the truth.