State reps call out City Council, city manager on protracted war against 'The Voice'

State Rep Cliff Newton points a finger at City Manager Katie Ambrose saying she should be able to tell the residents of Rochester how much the city is spending on Right To Know legal battles (City of Rochester screenshots)

ROCHESTER - The City Council and the city manager were both under fire during Tuesday's City Council meeting over the city's ongoing war against The Rochester Voice, and the legal department's shortcomings in the wake of a Strafford Superior Court judge's ruling that rapped City Attorney Terence O'Rouke's flawed arguments seeking to bar The Voice from receiving Right to Know protections that are enshrined in the state's constitution.
As has been widely reported, The Rochester Voice has been denied Right to Know protections - the ability to receive government documents - for 16 months, because it is domiciled in the state of Maine. O'Rourke has argued that only citizens and residents of New Hampshire can receive Right to Know protections, even to include illegal aliens, he has stated.
During public comment Strafford 5 State Rep Tom Kaczynski called on the City Council to stop standing on the sidelines and get in the game as the might of a million-dollar city of Rochester legal department wages all-out war on The Rochester Voice.
"How bout you councilors?, how do you feel about this?" Kaczynski asked looking directly at them. "You can sit back and do nothing and be a rubber stamp. If you don't oppose it, you endorse it."
Kaczynski added that Mayor Paul Callaghan, City Manager Katie Ambrose and former city manager Blaine Cox have all supported censorship, and O'Rourke has been a key cog in that effort.
"Why are we paying for this behavior?" he asked as Callaghan interrupted him as his five allotted minutes to comment expired. Kaczynski then stepped away from the podium, but not before adding, "Is this the purpose of Rochester government?"
State Rep Cliff Newton representing Strafford District 6 called the city's war against The Rochester Voice "a vendetta" over the digital daily's reporting on a flawed land deal from 2022.
"This is a vendetta with that land deal," he said. "Ever since then, they've refused him comment on stories they're covering."
The land deal Newton was referencing was regarding the 2022 purchase of land on Highland Street for a potential third city fire station.
A series of stories on the city's reckless process in acquiring the land was produced by The Rochester Voice and won it the 2023 Community Service Award from the New Hampshire Press Association.
The entry, titled "Flawed city land purchase turned into a 5-alarm fire," comprised a series of five stories including a Rochester Voice editorial titled, "Keystone Cops? Devious skulduggery? Or a typical city at work on a Tuesday night?" and another article produced the day after the land purchase was OK'd under mysterious circumstances titled, "If at first you don't succeed ... have a secret meeting till you do succeed."
Newton also referenced the recent decision by Strafford Superior Court Judge Daniel E. Will, who denied the city's appeal of the Right to Know Ombudsman's decision.
"The judge is admonishing the city legal department for what they did in this case," Newton said. "The position they took is they added words to the statute that weren't there. You don't add words to a state statute that aren't there."
He then complained that the city manager has not been able to say how much money the city has spent on Right to Know cases.
The legal department just says, "We're on salary, and we don't keep track on our hours."
"Well there's somebody that should, and that person is sitting right up there," he added pointing at Ambrose,
He then turned to the City Council and said, "Now what I ask you guys to do is ask for a performance audit of the legal department, because they're not winning many cases, and it's costing a lot of people a lot of money, and now you got a Superior Court judge saying there's two violations of the (state) constitution."