By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

A former selectman is suing Weare over a right-to-know dispute, but the outgoing chairman of the board of selectmen says she believes the town gave the disgruntled resident everything he’s requested.

Brian McDonald, who served as a Weare selectman from 2000 to 2004 and is now president of the Weare Athletic Club, has said the board of selectmen have repeatedly stonewalled him on requests for information about town legal expenses and settlements with former employees, and on certain committees’ affiliation with the town, or lack thereof.

“When I was a member of the board of selectmen, we gave the public the information they requested,” McDonald said. “This board has not been forthcoming with me.”

The case was supposed to go to the Northern District of Hillsborough County Superior Court on Feb. 16 but was postponed. A second court date, set for March 30, was also postponed because McDonald will be out of the area on business.

Despite the delays in a court date, McDonald said he is determined to get answers.

McDonald said he filed his first right-to-know request by emailing town officials in October 2004, wanting to know how the last three town committees had been created, because he questioned if the process being used to form a new village water district.

McDonald said he never received satisfactory information on that request, but did not pursue it.

McDonald said he also met resistance from town officials regarding his efforts to determine the settlements awarded to former employees of the town and associated legal expenses.

Specifically, McDonald said he wanted to know details of any settlements given to former police chief Miles Rigney, former building inspector Everett Stone, and former finance administrator Elayne Pierson, as well as an unnamed former employee of the town police department.

“All I want to know is: What did it cost to get the people off the payroll in Weare?” McDonald said.

McDonald requested this information last August, and while he said he did receive information on that matter through the mail, all information about legal expenses was blacked out on the papers he received.

McDonald said he reached his breaking point when town officials refused to disclose financial records of the Weare Patriotic Committee, the committee that organizes the annual town’s patriotic celebration in July.

McDonald said he wanted to know why the group receives $6,000 from a warrant article every year, and also how electricity and rubbish removal is financed for the celebration, and if the police department absorbs the cost of manpower for officers stationed at the event.

McDonald also said he objects to the patriotic committee being able to use town offices when it is supposedly a private organization. Laura Buono, outgoing chairman of the board of selectman, served on the patriotic committee, along with Selectman Donna Osborne and Town Clerk Evelyn Connor.

McDonald said he recalls a parks and recreation meeting being bumped from the selectmen’s office because the patriotic committee was meeting there on one occassion.

However, Buono said members of the patriotic committee simply didn’t know the parks and recreation committee was planning to meet there.

“If somebody had said something, we would have let them use the room,” Buono said.

She also denied the board of selectmen has been withholding information from McDonald.

“As far as I know, we’ve given him everything he’s asked for,” Buono said.

McDonald said he has requested information about the Weare Patriotic Committe and was denied access to their records, which is why he filed his right-to-know suit in January.

He said the issues of employee settlements and the patriotic committee will be addressed at the hearing.

Following the postponment of the March 30 hearing, no new hearing date has been established.