Date: 9/22/2022
SOUTHWICK — The Select Board has received multiple Open Meeting Law complaints recently, largely centered around the board’s appointment and reappointment process for town boards and committees.
The three complaints are from Jeffrey Neece, Burt Hansen and Angelina Simone, and each has to do with the Select Board’s series of appointments and reappointments to different town boards and committees during an Aug. 8 meeting.
Hansen, the chair of the Agricultural Commission, said in his complaint that the Select Board’s agenda for Aug. 8 only specified that appointments and reappointments would be made for four boards: the Conservation Commission, Economic Development Commission, Historical Committee and Lake Management Committee.
“While the agenda only lists four boards and commissions, about 90 minutes into the meeting the Select Board proceeded to go through the entire list of boards and commissions and to make appointments and reappointments,” said Hansen in his complaint. “Two commissioners and three alternate members of the Agricultural Commission were reappointed.”
Hansen’s complaint says that procedure violates an attorney general decision known as OML-2016-167, which states, “meeting notices must include details about each item, including the identity of the license or applicant or appointee.”
He said the appointments to the Agricultural Commission were made without him being informed beforehand as chair.
Select Board Chair Russell Fox said that he doesn’t believe he or the board have violated any laws in this year’s appointment and reappointment process. He reiterated that the board was following protocol carefully after the state attorney general’s office found that the board did violate Open Meeting Law last year.
“People have the right to file these things, but if someone files one, it does not mean it is true,” said Fox. “Last year was a technicality. There was no intent on violating anything, even the attorney general agreed on that.”
Simone’s complaint centers around the appointments of Jack Cote to the Economic Development Commission and Richard Marcil to the Historical Commission. She claims that the Select Board did not adhere to the list of appointments that was published in the meeting agendas, and that Cote and Marcil were never publicly discussed by the board before their appointments.
Both Cote and Marcil appear on the Aug. 8 agenda for consideration for the respective committees, but they do not appear on the list of open seats that was attached to the agenda, which listed only the names of people occupying seats on committees that expired on June 30 of this year.
The complaint submitted by Jeffrey Neece was sent on Aug. 23, and has already been determined by the town’s legal counsel to not have been an Open Meeting Law violation, Fox said. Neece made similar accusations to Simone’s, claiming that Cote and Marcil, as well as Conservation Commission member Andy Reardon, were not listed properly on the attachment of the agenda, and that the board failed to discuss any of the candidate’s qualifications during an open session.
Neece also accused the board of violating its own appointment policy, which it changed last year after being found in violation of the Open Meeting Law respecting the removal of Maryssa Cook-Obregon, Dennis Clark, and Chris Pratt from different boards and committees in town. Clark and Cook-Obregon were reinstated to their seats, and Clark was later elected back to the Community Preservation Committee.
After last year’s attorney general decision, Fox has repeatedly said that the board is complying with state law and with the attorney general’s orders.
“I say at every single meeting how this process was going to work,” said Fox. “That we would take our time and ensure we would be in full compliance.”
He said he would review the recent complaints with the town’s legal counsel.