Response to one Open Meeting Law Complaint

Response to one Open Meeting Law Complaint

On July 18, 2017, The Advisory Committee received one of two Open Meeting Law (OML) complaints.  The Advisory Committee discussed the complaints. The AC voted for Julie Farrell to draft the response to one of the complaints. The Advisory Committee voted to send the response on August 2, 2017.

Here is the response:

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July 28, 2017

Templeton Board of Selectmen

160 Patriots Rd

PO Box 620

East Templeton, Massachusetts 01438

          Re: Your Complaint of July 17, 2017

                 

Dear Selectmen:

I, Julie Farrell, have been asked to respond to your Open Meeting Law complaint on behalf of the Advisory Committee.

You have alleged that Julie Farrell, Jeffery Bennett, Robert May and Beverly Bartolomeo violated the Open Meeting Law(OML) on June 15, 2017. This violation is alleged to have occurred on the blogsite Pauly’s Templeton Watch. 

Exhibit A –  Blog post Policies. Procedures. Pins. with comments.

Fact – Julie Farrell is one of the administrators of Pauly’s Templeton Watch.

Fact – Julie Farrell, Jeffery Bennett, Robert May and Beverly Bartolomeo are current members of the Advisory Committee.

Templeton Advisory Committee Bylaw

As you can see the Templeton Advisory Committee does not make policies and procedures for the Town of Templeton.

You have alleged that the OML violation occurred when the four members of the Advisory Committee expressed their opinions regarding this blog posting thus creating deliberation and a quorum.

Fact – Not one of the Advisory Committee members is a member of the Templeton Board of Selectmen.

 Policies and Procedures of the Town of Templeton Board of Selectmen

“PROCEDURE FOR ESTABLISHING POLICIES and PROCEDURES:
Draft policies and procedures shall be placed on the agenda for any regularly scheduled meeting of the Board. Drafts shall be in writing, and may be introduced only by a member of the Board or the Town Administrator. Upon receipt of a draft, the Board may choose to discuss the policy immediately or schedule the discussion for a future meeting. The Board may schedule any hearings or meetings it deems necessary for discussion. The Board may distribute a draft for comment to appropriate officials as it deems necessary.

The Board shall not vote on a policy at the same meeting that it is first introduced. This rule may be waived if the Board unanimously votes that prompt action is necessary.

The Town Administrator shall be responsible for the maintenance of all policies and procedures, which shall be kept in a notebook available to the Board members and the public at the office of the Board of Selectmen. “

The posting Policies.Procedures. Pins.  questions the Templeton Board of Selectmen’s apparent inability to follow policies and procedures as demonstrated by the interim Town Administrator’s email thread. Within that email thread, the interim town administrator, Carter Terenzini, contacted Julie Farrell to ask if she would serve on the Treasurer/Collector search committee. If you read the entire email thread, you will discover that this was an inappropriate request; thus the blog post regarding the inability of the Templeton’s administration and Board of Selectmen to follow policies and procedures.

As you can see from the Templeton BOS Policies and Procedures, the selectmen are the only ones who have the authority to create policies and procedures.  There was no violation of the Open Meeting Law by Advisory Committee members Julie Farrell, Jeffery Bennett, Robert May, and Beverly Bartolomeo.

As for the financial matters “lack of a bond rating; $5 Million BAN issued needs to be paid by December 1, 2017 ; the need to issue $20 million in bonds to pay for the school…” are all financial issues under the purview of the Templeton Board of Selectmen.  The Templeton Board of Selectmen discussed and signed the $5million BAN at their meeting.  The Templeton Advisory Committee was not part of that vote. Again, Julie Farrell, Jeffery Bennett, Robert May and Beverly Bartolomeo are NOT members of the Templeton Board of Selectmen.

Aside from the abovementioned reasons why no violation of the OML occurred, the complaint was submitted on July 17, 2017. The date of the alleged violation is stated as Jun 15, 2017. According to the instructions for filing a complaint, the complaint must be filed “with the public body within 30 days of the alleged violation. “  Your complaint was filed after the 30-day deadline, illustrating yet again an inability to follow procedures on the part of Templeton’s Board of Selectmen.

Therefore, after consideration of the facts as we understand them, it is the opinion of this body that none of the Advisory Committee members nor the body violated the Open Meeting Law as alleged in your complaint and we decline to take action on it.

On behalf of the Advisory Committee,

                 

Julie Farrell

Cc: Templeton Town Clerk (electronically)

       AG’s Division of Open Government(electronically)