Karen Hambleton is typically the first person at Hopkinton’s town hall to see a right-to-know request when it arrives.
In her first year as town administrator, Hambleton said the requests she has received have shown her that residents just want to understand how their government functions.
Sometimes it’s details about a specific project, emails between select board members, or records that help residents understand the town’s finances.
Hambleton said a right-to-know request is something residents are “absolutely entitled to.”
“We are a customer service organization. We’re here for our residents, and there shouldn’t be that friction that sometimes you feel with right-to-know requests,” she said. “I feel that you’re entitled to that information without having to ask for it in the first place.”
That philosophy may help explain why Hopkinton ranked among the most transparent communities, with a score of 8 out of 10, in a project by the Monitor, MuckRock and the Granite State News Collaborative that examined how welcoming New Hampshire’s cities, towns and school districts are when residents request government records.
Hopkinton’s school district scored a perfect 10 out of 10.
One of the requests Hopkinton received was for email communications between select board chair Sabrina Dunlap and her constituents and other board members between January 1 and January 31, 2026.
A similar request was also submitted for Hopkinton’s school board chair’s emails.
Both the town and the school district fulfilled the request without question and without charging a fee.
But that response was not the same across the 46 agencies in 23 communities that were surveyed as part of the Transparent New Hampshire project.
The Manchester School District faced the same request: copies of all email communications sent and received by the school board chair between January 1 and January 31, 2026. The district didn’t refuse.
Instead, it sent back a price tag: $855.
The school district, in an email, said the responsive records included 1,105 emails and it would require staff time to be reviewed and redacted to remove private information.
“There is simply no way to avoid having someone review each email and potentially redact the communication as required by law,” wrote Matthew Upton, the school district’s attorney. “This is an incredibly time-intensive process and will likely require highly skilled staff to carry out that review.”
Under New Hampshire law, public officials can charge $1 per communication when a request exceeds 250 electronic documents. They can also charge for the records themselves, whether they are provided on paper or electronically.
But the law does not allow local governments to charge residents for the staff time spent gathering, reviewing, or redacting records.
“There is certainly no desire to impede public access but moreover to ensure that the information provided complies with state law,” the school district wrote. “If the time taken to review the emails and redact costs less than the estimate, we will certainly refund any unexpended portion.”
Since The Monitor, in collaboration with MuckRock and the Granite State News Collaborative, filed right-to-know requests, Hopkinton established a right-to-know request policy.
Hopkinton now says it will charge fees for electronic records requests, including $1.00 per communication when requests exceed 250 items.
But Hambleton is clear on one point: “You can’t charge for gathering data.”
While the Manchester school district said it isn’t trying to impede access to government records, the high fees can be an obstacle for residents seeking a more transparent government.
The district scored among the lowest for transparency with a 4 out of 10.
In Nashua, the state’s second largest city, a request for the emails of Board of Aldermen President Lori Wilshire was denied.
“An individual is not an agency and therefore no documents are required to be provided,” the city wrote in its response.
Wilshire could not be reached for comment. Nashua scored in the middle of the pack with a 6.3.
The city of Berlin also denied providing its mayor’s email communications.
“The Mayor has a private email account that is not considered a governmental record pursuant to RSA 91-A:a III. The Mayor’s private email is not in control of the City,” the city stated in an email.
In Concord, Mayor Byron Champlin also uses a private email account, at chamby@comcast.net. However, the city reviewed his emails and provided them with some redactions without charging a fee.
Gray area
When MuckRock, a national watchdog organization, requested government records as part of the project from New Hampshire communities, some denied access because it was an out-of-state organization. In those cases, Monitor Editor Jonathan Van Fleet submitted identical requests.
These communities cited a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision permitting states to limit their freedom-of-information laws to in-state citizens without violating constitutional rights.
But New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law does not define “citizen,” and the state Supreme Court has not yet addressed the issue.
Jennifer Smith, assistant city attorney in Portsmouth, said most out-of-state requests come from commercial sources seeking information like school department purchasing histories to inform their marketing strategies.
To manage the volume of out-of-state requests, Portsmouth requires out-of-state requesters to retrieve their records in person.
“That helps us manage some of the out-of-state requests. Mostly they will not come,” said Smith. “The city has this policy because it happened so many times that we would gather this huge ream of information, and then no one would come get it.”
Most denials of out-of-state right-to-know requests came from New Hampshire’s larger cities and towns.
“We just respond to all requests because the guidance we’ve had is that it’s unclear, and the volume, we don’t get that many,” Hambleton said.
Many towns in New Hampshire receive far fewer right-to-know requests than cities and most town employees and officials support transparency laws rather than resist them.
Kip McDaniel, Bow’s select board chair, who has served in public office for the past two years, said he supports right-to-know laws. He said that Bow residents should feel free to reach out directly to any select board member or town employee to request information, rather than relying solely on filing a formal right-to-know request.
McDaniel’s email communications were also requested as part of the project, and the Town of Bow provided them.
“I’ve seen how government works, and I’ll say this: the cynical view of government, at least at the town level, is in my view not warranted,” said McDaniel. “I haven’t come across anyone in town government who’s elected or a town employee who is trying to keep stuff from the public for a nefarious reason.”
