Record Gate; who controls the public records of Templeton?


Before I offer up my view on a few things, let me pose a few questions to whom ever wishes to check.


Who are the people that are responsible for the policies of the Town of Templeton? Who is the keeper of the records that I have requested? Who has the final say on whether any fees or costs associated with the request of public records in their custody?




In the handbook for selectmen, it is stated that generally, selectmen have several important responsibilities under state law; the power to prepare town meeting warrant, to make appointments to Town boards and offices, to employ professional administrative staff, town council, sign warrants for the payment of ALL town bills, and the authority to grant licenses and permits. Seems to me, if the selectmen are responsible for the signing of warrants which result in the spending of public money, they need to or should be able to understand what they are signing. Means they should be able to read and since the warrant they sign for Town bills contain written or printed invoices from various departments, a selectman should be able to look thru various FY warrants, pull out the invoices requested and make copies and then put them together. Certainly a selectmen educated, trained and licensed as a lawyer should be able to perform this public service very easily.


There is a section from the Department of Revenue, and MGL that states; Ultimately, the Treasurer bears responsibility for the closing and reconciliation of all books & accounts in the treasurer's office, including cash book, warrants (including vendor, payroll, and special warrants) bank accounts, (checking, trust funds, bond and coupon accounts) insurance programs, retirement funds, debt records and tax title accounts. Who appoints the Treasurer to the Town of Templeton? I think you will find it is the Board of Selectmen. FYI, vendors are people or entities who do business with the Town and charge for things or services and are paid thru the warrant, basically a collection of weekly, bi-weekly or monthly bills and invoices to the town. Now who do you suppose would be the person to see or ask for help with looking at or obtaining a copy or a record of past warrants or items contain within the warrant?


Here is my hypothesis; The people who are responsible for the policies within the Town of Templeton are the selectmen, selectmen appoint the Town Treasurer, hire the Town Administrator as well as secretarial staff (political correctness, administrative assistant.) Selectmen vote on and sign Town contracts and are responsible for signing off for payment of them. They are the keepers of these Town Records by virtue of the fact the person (s) doing the work or occupying the office where they may be kept are appointed by these very same people. This means the Board of Selectmen could vote not to charge for public records. The selectmen are responsible for putting up a financial wall which may prevent or discourage people from asking for and receiving public records involving the spending of public money. Remember that the records asked for are not records that don't exist or files or emails from someone's personal computer, these are invoices from a major and very public project involving over one half million dollars and I think the people have a right to see how their money was spent before voting on or giving any more money to this or any other project. The Board of selectmen have the power and authority to put this information in the public realm. Also a detailed legal bill is not a conversation nor advice or opinion between a client and said attorney, it is a bill for services stating a date, time spent, lawyer who did work, who requested it and what was done and of course, the fee for it all.


The Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth states that a records custodian MAY charge a fee for time and copies, it does NOT say they must charge. They also state that public records that are of great interest to a large number of people must be readily available within the office of the records custodian and should be provided at a minimum cost, if any. These records include minutes of local board meetings, town meeting documents, warrants, street lists, municipal financial documents, etc.


One last note, in the receipt of sorts that I received when I picked up some of what I originally asked for, it is estimated it will be 10 pages of computer printouts at .50 per page but in the memo to the town administrator, it is stated it would involve going thru boxes in the basement that have not yet been organized which leads me to believe the copies would be photo copies as in taking an invoice and making a copy of it which the law says the records custodian MAY charge up to .20 per page not .50 per page since they will not be printing them off a computer.


Jeff Bennett