D uring its March 3 meeting, the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted to move forward in the process of filing an injunctive relief lawsuit against a member of the public related to the volume of records requests made to the city.

An executive session was held prior to the meeting to discuss the matter in greater detail.

Speaking at times vaguely during the BOMA meeting, the board moved to investigate using a so-called state nuisance law to block an unidentified local resident’s public records requests.

City Attorney Craig Johnson said that state open records statutes provide the public with access to government documents. That statute, however, sets a limit where if multiple records requests become disruptive to the government then the city can seek an injunction.

Alderman Julie Anderson added that the city had to prove the requester had to have the intent to be disruptive.

Mayor Joey Hobbs said that the threshold number of records requests had been met, and multiple letters warning the requester about their number of requests had been sent, as required by state law.

Anderson made a motion to postpone the matter until the city attorney could confer with the state comptroller’s office regarding state open records law, but it failed with Mayor Joey Hobbs casting the tie breaking vote to move the matter forward.

“I am very uncomfortable with the prospect of wading into something like this to restrict citizen’s access to open records without getting the best and most current advice we can. I am concerned this is a bad look for the city,” Anderson said, acknowledging that some records requests have become “burdensome” to the city.

French added a friendly amendment to ask if the statute would be defined as excessive if multidepartmental requests were submitted on one request form for multiple documentations up to and over 50 documents came on one request and spanned multiple issues.

Alderman James Threet, who was absent from the executive session and was not informed of its content, compared the situation to out-of-state school system requests that resulted in significant charges to the public.

“I generally think the public is entitled to look at public records,” Threet said. “I’m not saying this request is warranted because I don’t know what it is. But the rub is what is out of bounds and what is not.”

Vice Mayor Mark Messick said he wanted the public to know that the city is not trying to hide anything. He also voiced confidence in the legal advice from Johnson.

Addressing Threet, Messick said that if he had been at the executive session his contribution to the discussion would have been better informed.

The motion passed 4-2 with Aldermen Anderson and Threet voting no.