A hearing officer on Tuesday barred a Monitor reporter from attending the first meeting between the Department of Agriculture and the owner of a prominent Chichester animal rescue organization since its pet vendor license was denied in June.

“I think it’s a big transparency issue,” said Teresa Paradis, the owner of Live and Let Live Farm.

The meeting – a pre-hearing conference between the department and Paradis – came days after she sued the department for denying its license without first holding a hearing. The two sides have been locked in a multi-year dispute that has focused most recently on certain veterinary records that are required to transport animals from other states into New Hampshire. Paradis has accused the department of using a bureaucratic dispute as a form of retaliation, which the department has denied.

The license denial has prevented the organization – which takes in animals ranging from horses to cats – from accepting in or adopting out any pets. Paradis said those animals are being cared for, but they are stuck in limbo without permanent homes until she can resume her operations.

Pre-hearing conferences are not by law open to the public, but Paradis and her attorney, Rick Lehmann, approved the Monitor’s attendance and the newspaper informed department commissioner Shawn Jasper the day before that it planned to attend.

Jasper, who was out of the office Tuesday, did not object to the reporter’s attendance, but said following the meeting that he was unfamiliar with the pre-hearing conference process and would look into it.

Hearing officer Patricia Benner said in an interview following the meeting that she denied the reporter’s request to attend the meeting due to “potential privacy issues” and the possibility of settlement discussions between the parties. Though Paradis had waived any right to privacy, Benner said the meeting could involve the discussion of others besides her.

“When issues are raised in a pre-hearing setting and they haven’t been resolved – like a discovery issue – those sometimes make reference to other people, not the parties themselves,” Benner said. “You never know in an informal discussion whether things will be raised that would curtail other people’s rights.”

Following the meeting, Paradis said that no one besides her had been discussed. The meeting largely focused on resolving issues related to the exchange of documents ahead of the adjudicatory hearing, which is scheduled for Sept. 6, according to Lehmann.

Benner said she made the decision to close the meeting “based on input from the parties,” but declined to identify any party that had objected to it being open.

In addition to Paradis, Lehmann and Benner, those in attendance included Assistant State Veterinarian Nathan Harvey and Assistant Attorney General Sheri Phillips, who is representing the Department of Agriculture.

Phillips did not respond to a request for comment.

Benner criticized the newspaper for not contacting her directly before the conference, but she acknowledged her decision might not have differed even if she had received a request in advance.

Benner’s name and contact information are not on the department website, and she declined to say whether she was an independent contractor or a state employee. State employment records posted online list her as an administrative law judge for the department.

The hearing officer’s compensation is paid for via the fines the department collects, Jasper said in a previous interview.

The hearing is the subject of a lawsuit Paradis filed last week alleging her due process rights were violated when the department denied her license renewal application without first considering her appeal.

State law indicates that the commissioner of agriculture may deny a pet vendor of its license “after notice to the licensee and opportunity for hearing.”

At issue in the lawsuit is what exactly an “opportunity for hearing” entails. Lehmann, Paradis’s attorney, contends the hearing needs to have actually happened before the license denial goes into effect, while Jasper counters that the pet vendor must simply have the ability to request one.

Jasper has said his department’s decision to deny Paradis’s license application was a last resort taken only after all other options were exhausted. Correspondence with Paradis shows that the department repeatedly warned her over the past year that she was at risk of losing her license.

The letter informing Paradis that her license had been denied indicated she had failed to comply with minimum standards for lighting, visible signs of insects, shelter from sunlight, sanitation, classification and separation, protection from disease, and origin and medical history.

Paradis has countered that the violations are “paperwork issues related to filling out forms” that have no material effect on animal health.

A hearing in the lawsuit is scheduled for Friday morning in Merrimack County Superior Court.