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The Planning Board is busy assembling its committee which will draft their new zoning ordinance for Tamworth. Members of the public were invited to be interviewed to be on the committee at the Planning Board’s most recent meeting. Subsequent to talking with everyone who attended, Planning Board chair Dom Bergen stated they would be convening a couple people to deliberate on who would be “open minded” enough to be on the committee. When prompted as to whether these deliberations would be public, Bergen stated “No, just a couple guys are going to meet. It’s not going to be…well, you tell me, am I making a mistake? We’re just going to meet to deliberate.” Planning Board member Tom Cleveland responded in jest to Bergen “Whatever you do is right.” Other Planning Board members have since stated that the final choices the couple Planning Board members (Tom Cleveland and Willie Farnum were selected to deliberate in private) come up with would be put before the full board for a vote.

Privately deliberating on government committee appointments flies in the face of RSA 91-A, New Hampshire’s “open government” statute. Section 91-A:2-a particularly refers to communications outside of meetings as a no-no. That said, it really doesn’t matter who ends up on the committee or how they get there: the Planning Board will generate whatever zoning ordinance they please in the end – if not fully so this round, eventually. But as long as the state government has provided for a means of more openness, it ought to be fair to ask that the Planning Board go along with making their process for increasing government control publicly available for scrutiny.