GREENFIELD — After the legality of the School Committee’s Feb. 19 vote to hire a mediator to resolve inner-committee conflict in executive session was challenged, per the opinion of Assistant Attorney General for the Division of Open Government Matthew Lindberg, the committee voted unanimously this week to rescind its earlier decision.
Wednesday evening’s vote preceded further conversations about alternative ways the committee might resolve its conflicts legally, with member Elizabeth DeNeeve suggesting ways to circumnavigate the legal issue.
Local attorney Isaac Mass, after hearing the School Committee’s plan to hire a mediator for use in executive session, questioned the decision’s legality under Open Meeting Law and, in turn, wrote to Lindberg.
“Open Meeting Law has 10 very specific reasons why you can go and do executive session — one of the 10 is related to mediation, but that is for mediation with other parties or entities. It’s a direct correlation to the litigation provision where you can go into executive session to discover litigation,” Mass said. “It is not designed for mediation related to internal conflict or governance of a public body; it’s not permitted within the statute.”
Responding to Mass and the legal interpretation, DeNeeve said that when she phrased plans to hire a mediator differently to the Attorney General’s Office, she received alternative methods for solving inner-committee conflict outside of executive session and the public’s earshot.
DeNeeve also told the School Committee that she contacted Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) Executive Director Glenn Koocher, with whom she attended a training seminar. She claimed Koocher said that if the committee is not “discussing School Committee business,” the body can host workshops, retreats or interactive functions to work out its issues in private.
“I know that there was an article in the Recorder and I know that a member of our public sent a message to the [Attorney General’s Office] saying, ‘They’re going to violate the law.’ I come from a family of lawyers and that’s what lawyers do when they want to make you scared, so I changed my language,” DeNeeve said. “If we are not deliberating School Committee business, we do not have to pose for the public. … We can do it on our own to become better public servants.”
Committee members previously explained that a mediator’s presence in executive session was expected to help the body work together more efficiently. Chair Stacey Sexton, who motioned to authorize the hiring of a mediator, said after the February vote that the idea “to increase productive collaboration and collegiality among members” was suggested both by themself and other committee members.
After suggesting that DeNeeve forward all written correspondence between herself and the Attorney General’s Office to the rest of the committee, Sexton said the matter will be taken up again at the School Committee’s next meeting, which is scheduled for April 8.