SAU 6 Board — February 16, 2023

MEDIUM The recording was never stopped for the nonpublic session — about 86 seconds of a session the board voted to close is on the public recording, while its minutes were sealed for up to 99 years

The board voted into nonpublic session at 1:32:25 and the chair's last public words are at 1:33:18: "Okay. We're going to turn to the." The dialogue transcript does not pause. It continues through Sprague at 1:33:31 ("So we should sign the these. But you didn't get"), 1:33:36 ("This is the article. Just two… Copies… Of the back sheet"), Heather Whitney at 1:33:46 ("If the default budget is"), the chair at 1:33:47 ("Correct, is the default calculated correctly? Yes. Because it doesn't look like it's"), and 1:34:01 and 1:34:12 ("Oh well that's good to know. $600,000… $600,000 more than the previous"), until the chair calls the roll to come back out at 1:34:44. A gap analysis of the whole dialogue file finds no gap of even twenty seconds anywhere in it, and Cablecast's own metadata reports a total run time of 5,946 seconds against a transcript that ends at 1:38:17 — the recording ran straight through.

Nothing in RSA 91-A forbids a body from recording its own nonpublic session, so this is a control weakness rather than a probable violation, and it is graded accordingly. What makes it worth a reviewer's time is the pairing: the same board, ninety seconds later, sealed the minutes of that session for "not longer than 99 years" (flag 3) while the session itself sat on a publicly reachable Cablecast stream. Two honest qualifications. The audible content is short, fragmentary and concerns document-signing and a default-budget figure rather than the employee-compensation subject the motion named — which may mean the members were still settling before the substantive discussion began, and a session can contain a great deal the microphone did not pick up. And the transcript is machine-produced: these fragments are exactly the kind of low-volume crosstalk it renders least reliably. The point is not what was said but that the feed was still live.

Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I–III (nonpublic sessions; minutes and sealing); RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (a school administrative unit is a public body); the recording itself; the dialogue transcript, rows 460–477.

MEDIUM Nonpublic minutes sealed for "not longer than 99 years, but to the date of my death" — with none of the three statutory grounds stated

RSA 91-A:3, III requires that minutes and decisions reached in nonpublic session "shall be publicly disclosed within 72 hours of the meeting, unless, by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session, it is determined that divulgence of the information likely would affect adversely the reputation of any person other than a member of the public body itself, or render the proposed action ineffective, or pertain to terrorism." The two-thirds recorded vote plainly happened: the chair polled every member by name at 1:35:48 and announced the outcome at 1:35:56, and the draft minutes record "all in favor via roll call yes vote." The determination did not. No ground is stated on the recording, in the motion, or in the draft minutes, which record only "a motion to seal the non-public meeting minutes for not longer than 99 years or his death."

The framing was the mover's own joke — "not longer than 99 years, but to the date of my death" (1:35:15), the superintendent's "That's bad juju" (1:35:32), the chair's "Dead for sure comes first" (1:36:16) and "So morbid. It's good thing that's the minutes" (1:36:22). Nothing turns on the humour; what a reviewer needs is the finding, and there is none. This is the documentation gap the statute's own structure creates, not a claim that the material was improperly withheld: a session properly entered under II(a) will often satisfy one of the three grounds easily, and the point is that the record does not say which.

What later law does to this seal. RSA 91-A:3, IV did not exist on February 16, 2023 — it was added by 2023, 189:1, effective October 3, 2023 — so it imposed no duty on this board that night. It matters prospectively. It requires a public body to review sealed nonpublic minutes and vote on whether the RSA 91-A:3, III circumstances still apply, "no more than 10 years from the last time the public body voted to prevent the minutes from being subject to public disclosure," and it provides that minutes sealed before its effective date and not reviewed within ten years of that date "shall be subject to public disclosure without further action of the public body." On that provision, these minutes become disclosable by October 3, 2033 unless the board reviews and re-seals them — whatever the 99-year vote said. No minutes of the nonpublic session appear in any district public share.

Sources: RSA 91-A:3, III (72 hours; recorded 2/3 vote and a determination of reputation, ineffectiveness or terrorism) and RSA 91-A:3, IV (added 2023, 189:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023 — 10-year review; pre-existing seals disclosable without further action); draft SAU6 2.16.23 meeting minutes.docx.pdf.

MEDIUM The draft minutes — the only narrative record — omit a member who was present and voted all night, and record seven of the ten votes audible on the exit roll call

Attendance. The draft minutes' roll line reads "Present: Marjorie Erickson, Frank Sprague, Heather Whitney, Shannon Popescu, Rocco Ruggeri, Atonya Hart, Michael Petrin, Steven Horsky, Bonnie Miles / Absent: Garry Bator." That is nine present and one absent against an eleven-seat masthead printed on the same page. The missing name is Whitney Skillen — who answers the attendance roll on the recording (the transcript's "Whitney still here," 0:01:02), speaks fourteen times, and whom the same minutes then record seconding six motions and voting yes in all three roll calls. The board's own document therefore contradicts itself within four pages.

The exit roll call. Coming out of nonpublic session the chair reads: "Tanya. Yes. Whitney. Yes. Bonnie. Yes. Rocco. Yes. Heather. Yes. Frank. Yes. Shannon. Yes. Me. Yes" (1:34:54), with Petrin and Horsky having answered first at 1:34:49 and 1:34:53 — ten voices. The minutes record seven: "Michael Petrin: yes, Steven Horsky: yes, Atonya Hart: yes, Whitney Skillen: yes, Bonnie Miles: yes, Rocco Ruggeri: yes, Marjorie Erickson: yes." Heather Whitney, Frank Sprague and Shannon Popescu are audible voting and are not recorded. By contrast the entry roll call in the minutes lists all ten, in exactly the order the chair reads them — so the omission is confined to the second vote.

RSA 91-A:2, II requires that minutes "shall be promptly recorded and open to public inspection," and RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) puts a school administrative unit's board inside the law. The statute does not prescribe a form for an attendance line, and a draft is a draft — these were never approved in any located version, so nothing here shows the board endorsing the errors. The clause of RSA 91-A:2, II requiring that "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes" was added by 2018, 244:1, effective January 1, 2019 — four years before this meeting, so it did apply here and is relied on. These minutes name a mover and a seconder for all nine motions, which is what the statute demands on the face of the document; whether those names are the right ones is a separate question, and on at least one motion the recording contradicts them — see flag 14. The start-time, end-time and minutes-producer clauses added by 2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025 do post-date this meeting and are not applied. The practical consequence is what earns the flag: where the recording and the minutes disagree this page follows the minutes on names and the recording on who spoke, and says so each time, because neither source can be trusted alone.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes promptly recorded and open to inspection; the mover/seconder clause entered the section at 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019, and the source note runs on 1967, 251:1 … 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023; 2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025); RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); draft SAU6 2.16.23 meeting minutes.docx.pdf; SAU6 2.16.23 Agenda .docx.pdf (the eleven-seat masthead).

MEDIUM "Who's playing secretary today?" — RSA 194-C:5, I directs this board to organize by choosing a chairperson, a secretary and a treasurer

The agenda's item II is "Secretary Roll Call of Attendance of Board Member." What the recording has is the chair asking the room "Who's playing secretary today?" (0:00:48), then "I just I just need a roll call" (0:00:53), and the superintendent reading it (0:01:02). The agenda masthead names the board's officers as "Marjorie Erickson, Chair, Frank Sprague, Vice Chair" and then lists the other nine members without title. No secretary and no treasurer is identified anywhere in the packet, the agenda, the notice or the minutes.

RSA 194-C:5, I provides that "the school board of each school administrative unit shall meet between April 1 and June 1 in each year… and shall organize by choosing a chairperson, a secretary, and a treasurer." A February meeting is mid-cycle, so the relevant organization would have been the April–June 2022 one, which is outside this record; the flag is that the offices the statute names are invisible in every document this meeting produced, while an office it does not name — vice chair — is printed on the masthead. Two mitigations. The statute does not say the secretary must be a board member, and this board plainly had a staff recording secretary: Chelsea Weatherford signs these minutes and the two preceding sets. And the absence of a name from a masthead is not proof that no one was chosen. What the recording adds is that on the night, nobody in the room could answer the question.

Sources: RSA 194-C:5, I (annual organization between April 1 and June 1; chairperson, secretary and treasurer; the board fixes SAU salaries and apportions the expense); SAU6 2.16.23 Agenda .docx.pdf.

MEDIUM Two meetings' minutes were still unapproved eleven and four weeks on, and the only located copies of both sit in a packet from six weeks after this meeting

The chair, at 0:02:22: "We still need to approve minutes for the December 1st meeting and the hearing for January 17th. I'm aware of that. We'll do that at the next meeting. So the only minutes we have are to the 26th." The next SAU 6 meeting was March 30, 2023, so the December 1, 2022 minutes went to approval roughly four months after the meeting they record, and the January 17 minutes about ten weeks after. Both drafts exist — and both are filed not in their own meetings' folders but in 5. SAU SB 3.30.23, alongside a second copy of these February 16 minutes. Five weeks before this meeting a citizen had raised exactly this: per the January 17 draft minutes, "Gary Merchant comments to the administration about having the website updated more regularly and adding the meeting minutes within five business days to be part of the regulation."

This is graded on the mitigated limb. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be "promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting," and a draft satisfies that duty — the statute speaks to availability, not to board approval, and nothing in the Right-to-Know Law sets a deadline for approving minutes at all. Drafts of both meetings exist, the board acknowledged the backlog on the record and named the meeting at which it would clear it, and posting to a Google Drive share is not what the statute requires in the first place — inspection at the SAU office would satisfy it, and nothing in this record shows a requester refused. What cannot be shown from these documents is when either draft first became available, which is the fact the statute actually turns on.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting; drafts suffice); draft 1.17.23 SAU6 meeting minutes; draft SAU6 12.1.22 meeting minutes; 5. SAU SB 3.30.23, the folder that holds all three.

MEDIUM The draft minutes name a mover and a seconder for all nine motions, as the law requires — but on one of them the seconder credited never speaks at this meeting, and the recording has the chair second it herself

RSA 91-A:2, II has required since 2018, 244:1, eff. January 1, 2019 that "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes." On its face this document complies: each of the nine motions carries both names, and that is compliance with a binding requirement, not a courtesy. But the requirement is not satisfied by naming someone, and on the last substantive motion of the night the document and the broadcast do not agree.

The nomination of the HR director. The minutes read: "Michael Petrin makes a motion to accept Superintendent Tempestas nomination; seconded by Shannon Popescu, all in favor via voice vote with Steven Horsky voting no." On the recording at 1:37:25 the second is given by the chair, in a clean single-speaker segment — Marjorie Erickson: "I'll second." Shannon Popescu is not heard at any point in this meeting: she has no segment anywhere in the 513-row dialogue file, and no other speaker addresses her. The chair then takes the vote herself at 1:37:32: "All those in favor of accepting Angela Vivian to the position of HR director, say I. And he opposed?"

A wider pattern, reported with the caution the source deserves. The minutes credit Heather Whitney with moving the agenda, the retreat minutes and the adjournment. On the recording the words of all three fall inside the chair's own diarized segments — at 0:01:57 ("I'd like to. I'd like to make a motion to accept the agenda as presented. Second."), at 0:02:48 ("So I'd like to make a motion to accept the saw. Six school board retreat minutes from January 26th, 2023. Second.") and at 1:38:02 ("I need another motion. Motion to make a motion to go home."). The chair had raised the difficulty aloud herself before the evaluation motion at 1:05:44: "I'm not sure how to do this because I have the motion, but can I make a motion I can't make?" This page does not assert that each of those attributions is wrong. The diarizer merges short interjections into a neighbouring speaker's segment, so a "Second." falling inside the chair's segment may well belong to another member — which is precisely why the statute puts the duty on the minutes rather than on the tape. The HR-director second is different in kind: the seconding words are the chair's own sentence, and the member credited is silent all evening.

Graded on the mitigated limb of the severity rule rather than the unmitigated one. These minutes are a draft, never approved in any located version (see flag 8), so nothing here shows the board adopting the error; the broadcast is public, so any reader can test each attribution; and the divergence is not general — on three motions (the superintendent-evaluation process, policy GCQ and the motion to seal) the recording corroborates both names exactly, and on two more it corroborates one of the two. Only the HR-director second is squarely contradicted. What earns the flag is that a mandatory element of the minutes is demonstrably wrong at least once, in the document that is the only narrative record this meeting has.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II ("The names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes"); 2017 codification (sentence absent) and 2019 codification (sentence present; source note ending 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019) — the clause was in force on February 16, 2023; draft SAU6 2.16.23 meeting minutes.docx.pdf; the dialogue CSV (513 rows; no segment is attributed to Shannon Popescu).