By Will Collette
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| As Deputy Dan would put it, Charlestown has a moral, ethical and legal obligation to abide by the Open Meetings Act |
Well, that commenter might have read my mind because, in the
course of responding to a request for more information from the Attorney
General’s Office, I noted that there may be eight additional town commissions
with tardy or missing records. That went out in a June 25 e-mail, cc’d to Town
Clerk Amy Rose Weinreich.
Since then, some but not all of the deficiencies have been
fixed. Just as CRAC Secretary Maureen Areglado was able to instantly produce the
missing CRAC minutes, apparently so did some of those other delinquent
commission.
Here’s a run-down:
This Commission had not posted any minutes since July 14, 2010, despite having six meeting agendas
posted since then. Since June 25: three
of the six meetings are now shown as cancelled, but there are still no minutes
for the three remaining meetings.
This very powerful Commission, chaired by
Richard Sartor, was missing their last two sets of minutes (3/20 and 3/23). The
damage had already been done – the commission presented its report to the Town
Council, the Council acted on them and the voters voted on the budget on June
4, all while the Town was in violation of OMA’s disclosure requirement. Since June 25: The missing minutes are
now posted. Too late.
This commission has not filed minutes since
early 2006, but it appears they stopped. This sense, since Charlestown hasn’t building anything recently. They’re down to one member – town Council
liaison Gregg Avedisian . Since June 25: there are still no
minutes of that last meeting to close the book on this Commission.
This commission has only posted draft
minutes since August 2011. Since June 25:
this problem has been partially fixed.
This commission had two items posted. One was a set of draft minutes without a meeting agenda. The other is an agenda without minutes. This
group was discussed at the October 11, 2011 Town Council meeting as being on hold due to pending litigation. appears to be totally dormant. Since
June 25: no change.
This group, chaired by CCA President
Virginia Wooten, posted one agenda but no minutes or anything else. Toxic
contamination left over from the old Navy air base is a serious concern, but it
looks like this committee didn’t do much about it, including maintenance of
records. Since June 25: The town
removed the page from its website. Down the old memory hole.
This Commission has not posted its minutes
from its 12/15/2011 meeting. Since June
25: no change.
This group had not posted final minutes
since April 21, 2011. Since June 25: the
draft minutes have been posted.
That’s eight commissions that were delinquent in their
records filing on June 25.
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| Missing records should not be a capital offense |
These include
Affordable Housing (chaired by Evelyn Smith), Beach Structures, Economic
Improvement (chaired by Frank Glista ),
Mosquito Abatement (yes, this is a real town commission and it is chaired by Mac
Richardson), Ninigret Park Dog Park (formerly chaired by Tim Quillen), Parks
and Recreation (chaired by Paula Andersen), Planning (chaired by the
redoubtable Commissar Ruth Platner), Senior Citizens and Wastewater.
Yes, yes, yes, I know all of this seems pretty nitpicky. But
in Charlestown ,
we have citizens who like to speak from the Council platform and the
Speaker’s podium or on the CCA blog about the absolute necessity of complete,
total, and uncompromising transparency and openness in government.
These transparency preachers have set an uncompromising
standard and have made it plain that, no matter how innocent, unintended or
inconsequential the breach of transparency, you could lose your job or get run
out of town.
As much
as I’d like to say we all ought to be less rigid and more tolerant about how
well our town’s volunteer-run, sometimes unstaffed commissions and committees
operate, there is the matter of state law.
The
Open Meetings Act prescribes the way public bodies must behave to ensure
community access to needed information. I think we should all applaud the work
of all of our Commission volunteers and insist that they get the help and
guidance they need to comply with the Open Meetings Act..
I don’t lose much sleep over the missing minutes for most of
these groups – though I am relieved to see how meticulously the Mosquito
Abatement Commission maintains its records.
But I do object to sloppy record keeping and public notice
by groups, such as the CRAC or the Budget Commission, that put important
matters before the Council without properly posting all their meeting
information on the Town website.
And certainly, this is a central issue in the Donoghue v. Charlestown lawsuit that
has kept the town from blowing $475,000 on a worthless conservation easement to
buy a rural junkyard.
I think that everyone in Charlestown politics – candidates,
noncandidates, PACs and party committees – is prepared to stipulate that openness
and transparency in government is a good thing. I think everyone would also
stipulate that, from time to time, innocent mistakes will happen.
But from what I found on June 25, and what we’ve seen in
this Town Council, we seem to have a systemic problem with openness and
transparency in our town government. The issue with the commissions can
probably be fixed with some clear instructions to the commissions from the Town
Solicitor and a better tracking system in the Town Clerk’s office.
We should also consider the merits of carrying so many
Commissions and Committees on the books. I couldn’t help but notice that the
Ninigret Park Contamination committee disappeared from the town website right
after I pointed them out. If a committee has gone dormant, maybe it’s time to
consider taking it off the list.
But what we do about the breaches committed by the Town
Council majority will probably take more serious action.