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Sunday, September 28, 2014

Attorney General cites Charlestown for open government violation – AGAIN

For all their talk about transparent government, the CCA Party does not practice what it preaches
By Will Collette

Platner and the CCA Party are taught, once again, that you can't run
government cloaked in secrecy
Since the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) was formed in 2006 to battle then Town Council President Jim Mageau, they have preached the virtues of open and transparent government. 

Maybe they only meant that to apply to Mageau because they sure haven’t practiced it themselves during these past six years that they’ve been running Charlestown government.

The state Attorney General’s office has just handed down yet another decision that cites the CCA Party town leadership for two violations of the open government law. This time, it’s Ruth Platner’s Planning Commission that broke the Open Meetings Act by holding a secret ballot during an open meeting.

Read the decision here

The decision comes from the complaint filed by former Town Council President Deb Carney that charged the Planning Commission with violating the law at its May 7 meeting by holding a secret vote of the Commission members on their preference for which consultant to hire to help rewrite the town’s Comprehensive Plan. Carney also charged the Commission with failing to record the actual vote.

She also asked the Attorney General to deem the violation “intentional” and thus subject to penalties because this is the second time in a year that a CCA Party-controlled Charlestown town body used a secret ballot during an open meeting. 




Crocodile Dan Slattery wanted Charlestown to operate
by Australian rules
The other decision, in Carney v. Charlestown Town Council, called the Town Council’s use of what Councilor Dan Slattery called the “Australian Ballot” to pick an appointee to fill a vacancy on the Chariho School Committee a clear violation of the Open Meetings Act.

Ms. Carney argued that Councilor George Tremblay (CCA Party) was on the Town Council when that earlier violation took place and, as Council liaison to the Planning Commission, should have known better and should warned the Planning Commission not to commit the same violation.

The Attorney General’s decision upholds Ms. Carney’s main charges: it is indeed a violation of the Open Meetings Act for the Planning Commission to stage a secret ballot on who to hire as a consultant in the middle of an open meeting, stating unambiguously that “voting by secret ballot in open session violates the OMA, and we therefore find that the Commission violated the OMA.”

They also upheld Ms. Carney’s second charge and said that failure to record the the votes the Commission members, either in the secret vote or the open vote that followed, in the meeting minutes violated the Open Meetings Act.

They brushed off the Town’s defense that if a person wanted to know the votes of members on the open vote, they could watch the Clerkbase video (presuming they could get access to Clerkbase), noting that the law clearly states that “all public bodies shall ‘keep written minutes of all their meetings’ and that these written minutes included, among other things, ‘[a] record by individual members of any vote taken.’”

Even though the Planning Commission “fixed” the record after Ms. Carney filed her complaint, the fact remains that the Planning Commission broke the law. The only effect of the "fix" is that the Attorney General will not need to file suit to compel the Planning Commission to take corrective action.

But in an e-mail, Deb Carney told me, “The very notion of taking a secret, anonymous vote at a public meeting runs contrary to the Open Meetings Act.” 

The Attorney General did not deem the violations to be intentional, despite their earlier Carney v. Charlestown Town Council decision on the same issue. They gave the Planning Commission the benefit of the doubt, even though their Council liaison George Tremblay was part of the earlier violation and was present when the Planning Commission committed the same violation.

They ruled that they can't be sure Tremblay actually “had the requisite knowledge” despite on his earlier experience with violating the law in the same way to advice the Planning Commission not to commit the same offense. Come to think of it, given Tremblay’s tenuous grasp of the facts on most issues, they may have a point. The AG's Office also said it is not clear that his role as Council liaison to the Planning Commission actually meant anything.

Deb Carney" "The very idea of secret
anonymous votes runs contrary to the
CCA's claim that they support good
government."
Ms. Carney said
“Both the Town Council and the Planning Commission are made up of a majority of CCA supported candidates and both bodies have taken secret paper ballots (both times proposed by CCA supported candidates, first Dan Slattery, then Ruth Platner), and both bodies have been found in violation of the OMA by the AG's office.  
That very idea of secret, anonymous votes runs contrary to the CCA's claim that they support ‘good government.’"
Further:
“Ruth Platner has been a member of the Planning Commission for over 10 years. She should know that secret votes cannot be taken, and she should know by now what information needs to be included in the minutes.”
The Attorney General’s Office was recently taken to task for giving too much leniency to public bodies charged with violating open government laws. In my opinion, the Attorney General’s Office gave the Planning Commission too much leniency by not upholding Ms. Carney’s request for a finding of “intentional” wrong-doing. But on the bright side, it also means that Charlestown taxpayers won't be stuck paying the fine for the CCA Party's reckless hypocrisy.

For what it's worth, this is how the CCA's current platform reads
Nonetheless, chalk up yet another two violations against the CCA Party’s “open and transparent government” pledge and remember that when you go to the polls on November 4.

The Planning Commission plans to “Review, Discussion, and Possible Action Regarding Opinion Letter from Attorney General Concerning the Planning Commission Meeting of May 7, 2014” at its meeting on Wednesday.

I wonder if they’ll go into closed session to do that.

Planning Commissar Platner has shown her contempt for state law on open government before. In addition, she has taken the position that Charlestown should ignore state laws it doesn’t like, such as the Affordable Housing Act which she has long opposed, and most recently, the authority of the Water Resources Board to enter into private land purchases with private citizens.

Maybe the Planning Commission will decide to lead the charge for “nullification” (the discredited radical idea that you can simply ignore or “nullify” laws you don’t like). Maybe they’ll hire radical lawyer Blake Filippi who also thinks municipalities can “nullify” state laws they don’t like. He and Platner are right on the same page.

But hey, why not go all the way and give individuals to ignore any law they don’t like? Oops, I think I just described the “sovereign citizen” movement.