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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.