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Date: 10/27/2021
SOUTHWICK – The Select Board received six Open Meeting Law complaints last week for actions that were taken in public meetings going back to June 7.
The complaints were written by Diane Gale, who said she discovered most of them while researching the legality of the board’s Sept. 27 vote that resulted in the controversial dismissal of three volunteer commissioners. One of the complaints relates to the Sept. 27 vote, while the other five have to do with other actions that Gale found while looking into how the board had handled appointments in the past.
The Select Board has until Nov. 4 to respond to the complaints. As of Friday, Oct. 22, no response is known to have been submitted.
Gale claimed that the board did not properly advertise ahead of the Sept. 27 meeting that Maryssa Cook-Obregon, Dennis Clark, and Chris Pratt would each be removed from their respective commissions, and that new commissioners would take their place. Those new commissioners are Bob Mucha on the Agricultural Commission, and Rose Hanna and Kevin Solek on the Conservation Commission.
“The board failed to discuss in open meeting that certain commission members were not being reappointed, but were removed – without notice to the public, nor to those members,” wrote Gale in the complaint. “Also, the board failed to discuss in open meeting that certain names read out were actually new appointments.”
At the meeting, Select Board members read a long list of names of people being appointed to several boards and commissions, without commenting on whether any current members were being omitted. The new slate of commissioners was adopted with little discussion in a 2-0 vote, with Select Board members Russell Fox and Douglas Moglin voting yes, and Select Board Chair Joseph Deedy not present.
Gale is a member of Save Southwick, a group that formed to oppose plans for a Carvana automobile sales processing facility on College Highway earlier this year, and butted heads with Select Board members throughout the summer. Cook-Obregon is also a key member of the group. All three dismissed commissioners have said they believe they were being punished for their political opinions on Carvana and other town controversies.
Some, including Planning Board Chair Michael Doherty, have argued that the dismissal of Cook-Obregon on its own could be a violation of the law, as her term of office was not up for renewal until 2022. Doherty has suggested that treating all commissioners as having one-year terms is a violation of Chapter 40, Section 8C of state law, which details how local conservation commissions are supposed to be administered, and specifies three-year terms for commissioners.
Gale said in her complaint that the fact that there were no interviews of the newly appointed members constitutes an Open Meeting Law violation. In her complaint, she called for the three dismissed commission members to be reinstated, the new commission members to be removed, and for the Select Board and Chief Administrative Officer Karl Stinehart to publicly apologize.
Gale said in another complaint that the appointment of Lain White to the Southwick Emergency Management Agency and the Community Emergency Response Team was conducted improperly. She said before the vote, there had been no discussion in open session of a letter of interest from White, nor any discussion about White’s qualifications. She said the only discussion she heard at the meeting was that Deedy said that he met White recently and that he seemed to be a good fit.
She said the Select Board should disclose White’s qualifications in open session in response to the complaint.
In the Aug. 9 Select Board meeting, Gale said she found that the appointment of members of the High Speed Internet Committee were conducted improperly, with the board referring to it as a reappointment of existing members, when new members had been discussed outside of open session, and voted on along with the reappointed members. She said the newly appointed candidates should be rescinded until a review can be conducted in open session.
The remaining complaints for July 26, July 12 and June 7 each allege similar violations in which the Select Board improperly appointed or reappointed someone to a board, commission, or town department.
Gale spoke during public comment in the Select Board meeting Oct. 18. She said she and two other residents were given possibly false information on how to properly submit an Open Meeting Law violation complaint, which she said caused one of them to miss the deadline to file it.