ROWE — Two long-time residents say the Selectboard deliberated town business in violation of the state’s Open Meeting Law and are threatening to file a complaint with the state Attorney General’s Office.
Cynthia Laffond and Margaret Rice are seeking a public apology and acknowledgement that all votes taken during that May 11 Selectboard meeting were null and void.
Addressing the complaint is on the agenda for tonight’s Selectboard meeting, May 31, starting at 6 p.m. in the Town Hall.
According to Laffond and Rice, two of the town’s three Selectboard members were discussing fuel oil bids for the highway department before 10 a.m., when the posted meeting was to have started.
Also, their complaints say the board was meeting in a smaller office, with only two chairs, instead of in one of the conference rooms that better accommodate the public. They also say the Selectboard voted on issues not listed on the agenda.
The only item posted on the agenda was fuel oil bids, but after the bids were finished, Selectboard Chairwoman Marilyn Wilson discussed town bridges that need repair and plans for fixing them.
Then Broadband Committee Chairman David Devore came in and asked the board to vote to disband the Broadband Committee and to appoint himself as the town’s utility manager and Russell Jolly as assistant manager for the town’s future internet service. The board’s vote was taken on these items, and then the meeting was adjourned.
Open Meeting Law says that “all meetings of a governmental body shall be open to the public,” except for exemptions that have to be stated and voted upon before a meeting can be closed to the public.
A town board majority cannot deliberate town business outside of a posted meeting, and subjects for discussion at a board meeting must be posted in advance on the agenda.
In their complaint, Rice and Laffond said they were outside the Town Hall for about 10 minutes after the adjournment, before they noticed that none of the Selectboard members had yet come out.
When Rice went back into the Town Hall, she found that the full board was still in the office, talking about a controversial health insurance issue. “When I asked, ‘what’s going on?’ (Wilson) said: ‘Oh, we reconvened.’ They left about 10 minutes later.”
Rice said she found the board talking about town employee health insurance, which had been controversial at another board meeting earlier in the week.
Wilson could not be reached by telephone Tuesday.
“It’s very disturbing and very annoying,” said Rice, who had been on Rowe’s School Committee for 27 years and is familiar with Open Meeting Law procedures.
Rice said she had 30 days to file her complaint and that the board had 14 days (until Thursday) to respond. “My complaint was specifically at the (chairwoman),” Rice said. “If I’m not satisfied with the response, I have 30 days to continue my complaint.”
Laffond filed the same complaint, but leveled it at the full Selectboard.
Both complaints give the same narrative: “I am outraged that the selectmen … met in a remote area of the building that had two chairs … when there were two empty conference rooms in the building” and that the board “discussed and acted on four items (bridges, Broadband Committee, appointments for utility manager and assistant manager) that were not on the agenda. And — hearing that they reconvened the meeting to discuss a very controversial matter after I left— is the icing on the cake.”