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Date: 11/18/2016
EAST LONGMEADOW – The Attorney General’s (AG) Office has ruled that the town violated the Open Meeting Law twice this year.
The AG confirmed both the now-defunct Board of Selectmen and the disassembled Police Chief Search Committee were guilty of Open Meeting Law transgressions.
According to the AG’s findings dated Sept. 29, the Board of Selectmen violated the Open Meeting Law by failing to respond to a request for open session minutes within 10 days, failing to respond in a timely manner to a request for executive session minutes, and by failing to respond to Open Meeting Law complaints made by Planning Board Chair Ralph Page.
“The complaints were originally filed with the board on or about Feb. 8, to which the board did not respond,” the AG’s office stated in a letter to Town Counsel James Donahue. “In his complaints, Mr. Page alleges that the board failed to respond to his requests for open and executive session meeting minutes.”
In its finding, the AG’s office stated, “We order immediate and future compliance with the Open Meeting Law. We extend this order to the Town Council as the town’s new legislative body and caution that future similar violations may be considered evidence of intent to violate the law. We now consider the complaints addressed by this determination to be resolved. This determination does not address any other complaints that my be pending with the board or with our office.”
Page told Reminder Publications he decided to file a complaint because he noticed there were no minutes for the Board of Selectmen available on the town’s website during the past two and a half years.
“I approached the Selectmen’s Office [and] I asked them for copies of the minutes, they told me they weren’t done – that they would get to them when they could. From there, I issued a complaint that they weren’t done because once a complaint is issue they’re supposed to give them to you within 10 business days. They told me they weren’t going to comply with it, so I went to the Attorney General,” he explained.
According to information from the AG, the office received Page’s three Open Meeting Law complaints on March 28. Page sent his initial letter to the Board of Selectmen requesting the minutes on Jan. 12.
In a Jan. 22 letter to Page from then-Board of Selectmen Chair Paul Federici, who now serves as Town Council vice president, he told Page, “This is to advise that the executive session minutes are not public records so they would not be available to you. The board periodically is required to review executive minutes to determine whether the purpose of executive session has been completed and the minutes can be transferred to the regular minutes files, therefore, without specific information from you as to the subject matter or other identifying information you are seeking there are no documents that are public records that correspond to your request.”
Page said under Massachusetts General Law the town is required to review its executive minutes and redact any sensitive information that can’t be released when a public records request for executive minutes is submitted.
“Obviously from the letter, Mr. Federici must not have known that,” he noted. “Subsequently, I talked with Jim Donahue to find out if he was actually in touch with Paul before the letter went out and he stated that it was on his behalf basically – that Paul contacted him and he told him to write the letter like that. I was appalled by the letter. It flies directly in the face of what the Massachusetts General Law is and Open Meeting Law.”
Page said the town was not fined.
“It’s basically putting them on notice that they have to comply with this in the future,” he added.
When asked if he believes the Town Council is following Open Meeting Law procedures correctly, Page, who was also member of the Charter Commission, responded, “Absolutely. If you follow the council meetings you’ll see that each new council meeting they’re approving the minutes from the past council meeting and they’re immediately going up on the website, which is wonderful.”
The AG’s Office also ruled the Police Chief Search Committee violated Open Meeting Law in a Sept. 8 letter addressed to Donahue. The complaint was submitted by Attorney Austin Joyce on June 9. Joyce originally filed his complaint to the committee on Jan. 6.
Joyce served as former Police Chief Douglas Mellis’ lawyer during settlement negotiations with the town due to a breach of contract. The Town Council unanimously agreed at its Sept. 27 Mellis $165,000 after several months of negotiations. As part of the settlement, Mellis agreed not to take any legal action against the town in the future.
According to the AG, “In his complaint, Attorney Joyce alleges that, during its March 9 meeting, the committee convened in executive session ‘without an appropriate motion and roll call vote.’ Additionally, Attorney Joyce alleges that the committee voted by secret ballot during its Feb. 26 executive session.”
In its conclusion, the AG’s office stated the committee violated Open Meeting Law in both cases.
“Finally, we order the committee, or the Town Council in place of the committee, to revise the Feb. 26 executive session minutes and to release the ballots to the public within 30 days of receipt of this determination.”
Town Council President Kevin Manley said he believes the AG is right in its determination.
“There’s a lot of lessons learned from the past selectmen and there’s a lot to be sure that we don’t repeat,” he added. “If you can make one good thing out of that whole situation as with the last selectmen is we’ve been able to educate, not only the board members, but the public about what those laws are to avoid those traps and not step in them.”