Board President Goldman Misrepresents the Facts

At the January 18, 2014 Eastman Council meeting, Board President Maynard Goldman made the following statement:

"One thing that is interesting to me is that since August to the best of my knowledge there has been not one public statement by the Intervenors about their objectives in all of this indeed it is my best guess that the two sets of Intervenors have different agendas.”

Mr. Goldman’s statement is a misrepresentation of the facts. Since every item before the NH PUC is in fact, public, and on the PUC website, all statements are public. The facts show numerous public statements made by Intervenors. If one goes to the Public Utility Commission's website for the filings in PUC Case #13-171 which is: The Eastman Sewer Company-Joint Petition to Approve Sale of Assets….Mr. Goldman was/is a Joint Petitioner in this filing, so is well aware of our public statements. There you will find a minimum of seven separate filings by the Intervenors between the beginning of November 2013 and prior to the end of December 2013--#27, #30, #32, #33, #35, #36, and #37. These are part of the public record as it pertains to the Intervenors’ positions and they are public statements.

So why does Mr. Goldman misrepresent the truth and the facts as it pertains to the Intervenors?
His powers as Eastman Board President, granted to him by the Board Members, Mr. Parker, the ECA Council President, some members of the Eastman Council as well as some members of the community allow this.

Is he acting any differently than Senator Joseph McCarthy did when he wrongfully accused people of being communists? Eastman Governance members in responsible positions, think it is perfectly acceptable to allow the Board President and others to make false statements in front of the Council and for that matter in written correspondence.

In one of the aforementioned public statements (#27) the filing of 11/04/13 by Intervenors Robert and Geraldine Logan, they stated their objections to the content and distribution of the Board President's 9/27/13 letter to the Eastman Community. They requested that the PUC Commissioners review the letter in light of their objections which included:
   "2. Furthermore we find the rhetoric of this paragraph:

It is difficult to speculate on the legal costs which are being incurred by the VDE, ECA and the ESC on these matters but it will certainly be many thousands of dollars. In addition, countless hours of time will be spent by all three parties. At the September Council meeting, in response to a request, Ken Ryder agreed to keep a record of these costs, as well as the projects that are being delayed by this legal process, and to report to the Community on a quarterly basis. In the meantime the ESC will continue to manage operations of the sewer system and to keep the VDE informed. Clearly, all capital improvements except emergency repairs will have to be put on hold until the PUC rules on the transfer of the ESC to the VDE.

to be both an attempt to interfere with our civil liberties and rights as well as inciting others to harass us. The letter’s content targets the Intervenors as the source of blame for any future claimed problems with the sewer operation, sewer capital and whatever costs the ECA General Manager decides to claim are the Intervenors’ “fault”. Given the adversarial positioning that the letter is encouraging and the subsequent inappropriate correspondence and emails that it incited from other governance members, Eastman members should be deeply concerned about their social welfare and civil liberties at Eastman."

Playing on people's desire to trust elected officials has and is a very successful emotional play. It causes the public to not bother with appropriate due diligence to get the facts. It can result in the citizen abdicating his/her responsibility to think independently on community matters. Each of the three intervenors stated clearly in their filed public testimony of 12/19/2013 why they objected to the ECA Board’s sale of the Sewer Company to VDE. Each testimony filing is a public statement.

In fact, the NH PUC DOES NOT evaluate whether NH Right to Know (RTK) laws are broken in assessing the managerial, financial or technical competence of a public body-in this case the VDE Commissioners and District Manager. 

However on March 20, 2014 at the Sullivan County Courthouse in front of Judge Tucker, the Village District Commissioners and the VDE District Manager acknowledged that they had done just that at multiple meetings. Two weeks earlier on March 7, 2014 the same VDE Commissioners and VDE District Manager denied in the same courthouse that they violated the Right to Know Laws. As Justice Tucker stated in his Notice of Decision on 4/18/14,

“…..However, in its Answer to the Complaint the District took the position that it did not violate RSA 91-A with respect to the nonpublic sessions. See Answer to Complaint pp. 3-5, pp. 7-8. (document no. 5).  Even though the District acknowledged candidly at the start of the evidentiary hearing that it did violate the law with respect to nonpublic sessions, the posture of the case is such that the complaint was necessary to bring the District to that point….”

Submitted by Robert Logan--40 year resident of Eastman