Attorney general’s office holds Open Meeting Law training

LENOX – A well-attended, fireworks-free, public training on the Open Meeting Law has been held in Lenox.

Each year, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, which is in charge of enforcing the state’s open meeting law, selects communities across the state in which to hold these trainings. These forums are open to the public, and designed to educate local public officials and their constituents about the law under which most governmental bodies in Massachusetts operate, as well as to answer any questions that might be raised by those in attendance. This year, Lenox, Taunton, Barre and Barnstable were the communities selected.

The training in Lenox, the first of these four, was held at town hall on Sept. 12 in the auditorium. Most of the available seating was occupied by the approximately 70 people in attendance, which included Lenox Town Manager Gregory Federspiel, Lenox Selectmen Channing Gibson, Dave Roche, Kenneth Fowler and Ed Lane and Lee Selectman Gordon Bailey.

A large part of the forum was taken up by a presentation that gave a detailed overview of Massachusetts’ Open Meeting Law. Assistant Attorney General Hanne P. Rush and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Sclarsic gave this presentation, with help from paralegal Philip Mantyla.

“The Attorney General herself…believes that most violations of the open meeting law are not intentional but rather misunderstandings of the law,” said Asst. Atty. Gen Rush. “We feel that training is [a] very important aspect of reducing the number of complaints that are filed.”

The presentation covered all aspects of the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law.

Areas of key importance addressed were: what public bodies fall under the law, the need to properly post all meetings 48 hours in advance, have meetings be kept open to the public unless the public body enters executive session, the 10 purposes that a body can use to enter executive session and the need to keep proper minutes in both regular meetings and in executive session. Officials were also cautioned to be careful not to inadvertently deliberate with their fellow board members outside of public meetings, particularly through such avenues as email and social media.

In order to not disrupt the presentation, audience members were asked to write down their questions on cue cards, which were collected at different points during the presentation, as well as after it was completed.

It was also made clear that neither Asst. Atty. Gen. Rush nor Asst. Atty. Gen. Sclarsic could discuss cases pending before their office or particular offense patterns that may or may not have occurred.

Largely because of this format and the skills of the two assistant attorney generals, the presentation went forward without incident or interruption, lasting about an hour. The assistant attorney generals then answered dozens of questions, mostly the ones those in attendance had written on cue cards, but also from audience members directly, a process that proceeded in a similarly calm and orderly fashion.

The training featured none of the contentious stand offs and accusations that have become the highlight of a number of Lenox public meetings in recent years. Overall, reaction to the meeting seemed quite positive.

“I really learned a lot from that meeting,” said Lenox resident Nancy Armstrong.

“I think it was great, very interesting information,” said Lenox Planning Board Member Kathleen McNulty Vaughan.

“Obviously education is the way…we reduce complaints and we have fewer incidences of the public not being aware of…what we’re doing,” said Select Board Chairman Fowler.

“I think it was important for the public to hear particularly the point about that…access is different than input,” he added, referring to the ability of a chairman of a public body under the Open Meeting Law to limit or not take comments from the public, a power that was challenged at a recent select board meeting.

Not everybody was happy with the training, however.

“I was unimpressed,” said Lee resident Monica Ryan. “There’s no teeth, no enforcement.”

Ms. Ryan said that she had filed an Open Meeting Law complaint with the Attorney General this February and was still waiting on a ruling.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on September 20, 2012. Filed under Community News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry