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Date: 12/8/2021
SOUTHWICK – The Select Board said Nov. 29 that it will alter the process for making appointments to town boards and commissions, after the controversial removals of three commissioners in September.
Select Board member Douglas Moglin said during the Nov. 29 meeting that he, Town Attorney Benjamin Coyle and Chief Administrative Officer Karl Stinehart will review how the board makes new appointments after its standard procedure for the past several years was found to violate town and state laws.
The review of the appointment protocol came after Maryssa Cook-Obregon, Dennis Clark and Chris Pratt were quietly removed from their respective positions on the Conservation Commission, Agricultural Commission and Community Preservation Committee during the Sept. 27 Select Board meeting.
Cook-Obregon and Clark were later reinstated to their respective positions because the laws mandate three-year terms for conservation and agricultural commissioners, and they were not up for re-appointment this year. Pratt, who was at the end of a three-year term, was not restored to his seats.
In his response to six Open Meeting Law complaints submitted by Diane Gale, Coyle had said that the one-year appointments were made because of a delay in the implementation of a software to track appointments and terms of town boards. Southwick had purchased the software in 2019 with the hopes of launching it in 2020, though Coyle said that became delayed due to the pandemic. As a result, Coyle said, the Select Board began making one-year appointments to resolve discrepancies between the records being kept by the Select Board and the town clerk.
“The Select Board was under the belief that the appointments made in 2020 were valid one-year appointments, as they were not challenged at the time they were made,” said Coyle in his response to the complaints, later adding, “The Select Board was unaware that making appointments to some boards for one-year terms was contrary to statutory provisions and/or bylaws that require some appointments to be for a period of three years.”
Gale had also criticized the board for failing to provide notice to the commissioners that they would not be re-appointed, and for naming new commissioners without advertising for applicants, interviewing prospective officeholders in public session or publicly debating the merits of the candidates.
Moglin suggested that there should be a period of time for each potential board appointment where it is prominently advertised, and where interested parties can submit their application before a previously announced public hearing date during a Select Board meeting.
“We will be very vocal in recruiting and trying to get people out for boards and commissions,” said Moglin.
He then acknowledged that the controversy regarding the improperly handled appointments and dismissals fell at the feet of the Select Board itself.
“With the other appointments that went on in September, we made an error, I made an error, I own it,” said Moglin, to which the audience in the Town Hall auditorium reacted with applause. “Whatever it was, whatever we were told by counsel, we will do what we can to fix it. We didn’t know what the remedy was, we didn’t even know at the time that the mistake was made.”
He pointed out that the one-year appointments had been made as far back as 2018, which he said should dispel the rumors that the dismissals of Cook-Obregon, Clark, and Pratt had anything to do with the backlash to the controversial Carvana project proposal.
Moglin took a moment to condemn the strongest reactions to the dismissals in a time where the political landscape across the board is rife with division.
“There was certain heartache, there was certain aggravation, but there was also a lot of back and forth that was really unnecessary while the process played out,” said Moglin.
Select Board member Russell Fox, who faced a now-failed petition for his recall seemingly as a result of the dismissals, suggested that Coyle should be asked to approve all potential changes to the Select Board protocol for appointments.
Fox and Moglin both supported the Sept. 27 vote on appointments. The Select Board chair, Joseph Deedy, was not present at that meeting.