SHELBURNE FALLS — An open meeting law complaint, filed with the Attorney General’s Office, was discussed as part of a Senior Center Expansion subcommittee meeting on Friday.
Town Counsel Donna MacNicol addressed the three parts of the complaint — which was filed by Buckland resident Marilyn Kelsey on Oct. 15 — and answered questions from the Senior Center Site and Design Committee, a subcommittee of the Senior Center Expansion Committee to which the open meeting law complaint was applied.
“I think all three (complaints) were legitimate,” MacNicol said following the meeting.
The complaint references:
■An executive session held by the subcommittee on Sept. 25 that included nonmembers, rendering the meeting illegal;
■How minutes from that meeting were “intentionally sanitized to withhold information from the public,” the complaint reads;
■And lastly, how documents from that executive session should have been made public.
In particular, the complaint highlights the Masons’ proposal to sell its Mountain Lodge to the Senior Center, which was presented to the Senior Center Expansion Committee in May.
MacNicol agreed that the Site and Design subcommittee “violated executive session laws. They didn’t have public documents available” and the minutes from an illegal executive session should have been made available, too, she said.
However, MacNicol disagreed that the violation was intentional.
“It’s not fair to accuse them of bad faith,” she said.
“The minutes were close to accurate, (only) half of the executive session was illegal (and) public documents are being made available now,” MacNicol added.
MacNicol said she shoulders some blame for not explaining the law clearly to Sylvia Smith, chair of the Senior Center Expansion Committee, when the two spoke about executive session before the Sept. 25 meeting.
Executive session can be used by a committee “to discuss (how) to negotiate with the seller, not to negotiate with the seller,” MacNicol clarified.
To address Kelsey’s complaint, MacNicol drafted a letter, which was signed by the subcommittee and given to Kelsey, who was present at Friday’s meeting. A copy will also be sent to the Attorney General’s Office. MacNicol handed out an open meeting law guide to each subcommittee member.
“I feel like it was addressed to my satisfaction,” Kelsey said of how MacNicol addressed the complaints. “It was an excellent civics lesson.”
MacNicol answered questions by subcommittee members and explained what types of documents should be made public.
“Open meeting law minutes need to have and list all of the documents (from the meeting) and those documents need to be available to the public,” she explained.
Documents sent or received by a public entity are presumed to be public record, MacNicol said, with the exception of documents relating to personnel matters and the security of the building and the people inside.
The offer from the Masons was a public record, MacNicol said, and should have been made available to the public.
However, she continued, it is up to the subcommittee to decide how the document is made public, if it should be made available in the Senior Center or put online.
Site and Design Committee Chair Mike McCusker said that the subcommittee “will undoubtedly go back into executive session” in the future, but, he added, “we will do everything to be transparent.”
Reach Maureen O’Reilly at moreilly@recorder.com or at 413-772-0261, ext. 280.