Central Mass. towns inconsistent on releasing meeting minutes

  Central Mass. towns inconsistent on releasing meeting minutes

Westboro Town Manager James Malloy stands among the town archive files, which contain executive minutes in addition to other records. Photo/Chris Christo

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  By Elaine Thompson
  Telegram & Gazette Staff

  
  Posted Nov. 7, 2015 at 4:17 PM
  Updated at 6:31 PM
  
  
  

  Municipalities don’t always follow the law when it comes to making minutes from executive sessions available to the public.

  The Massachusetts Open Meeting Law requires public bodies to periodically review minutes of their closed-door sessions and release them once the reason for nondisclosure no longer exists.

  But some boards and committees may forget about the minutes once they are tucked away.

  Westboro Town Manager James Malloy was surprised recently when he went to retrieve executive session minutes that a local resident requested. Mr. Malloy told selectmen that it appeared that executive session minutes had not been reviewed and released, going back to the 1960s.

  Mr. Malloy said when he worked as town administrator in Sturbridge from 1994 to 2009, he routinely went through the executive session minutes every year and gave them to the Board of Selectmen to review whether they should be released.

  “That’s what I was used to. This was a little bit different,” said Mr. Malloy. "There are reasons why we are allowed to go into executive session. We should be releasing (minutes) so people have trust and faith in their government." He said once town offices are resettled in the newly renovated Town Hall, he plans to go through the executive session minutes in five-year spans.

  Westboro Selectman Denzil Drewry, who has been on and off the board six times since he was first elected in 1989, said he was under the impression that the board was following the law. He said selectmen did not intentionally withhold any minutes. His understanding, he said, was that once the reason for going into executive session no longer applied, the minutes were available to anyone who requested them. He said he did not know the board had to periodically review the executive session minutes.
  

  The Westboro board was indeed doing what the law said, until it changed five years ago.

  Prior to 2010, public bodies were not required to review and release executive session minutes as part of the normal course of business. They became public records available upon request after the reason for confidentiality no longer applied.

  Under the new Open Meeting Law (Chapter 28 of the Acts of 2009, sections 17-20), which is now under the auspices of the Attorney General's office, executive session minutes must be reviewed “at reasonable intervals” to determine whether the reasons for nondisclosure are still warranted. The determination is to be announced at the public body’s next meeting and included in the minutes of that meeting. There are some exemptions to disclosure at that point, including attorney-client privilege.

  "Under the old law, executive session minutes were released as public records upon request provided the purposes of the executive session was not a present condition, but were never systematically reviewed. This is one of the changes with the new law," said Shrewsbury Town Manager Daniel J. Morgado. Since 2010, Mr. Morgado said, he keeps executive session minutes in a separate notebook. Every two to three months he goes through the book to see if there are any minutes that no longer need to be kept confidential. Those, he said, are presented to selectmen to vote to accept them. "We did three sets at the board meeting the other night, he said."

  Alan L. Agnelli, Gardner's city clerk, said he has brought one set of executive session minutes, dealing with the purchase of land for the new police station, to the council for review. He said of the nine sets of executive session minutes during the six years he has been city clerk, some involve litigation and can't be released. There are a couple, he said, that probably should be released. Some other executive session minutes date back to 1989. One set was from 1977.

  He said he plans to take a group of the executive session minutes to City Solicitor John Flick to see if the issues are disclosable.

  "It's very, very important, obviously. The public should know what's going on," he said.

  The Open Meeting Law provides for a $1,000 civil penalty for an intentional violation.

  Robert A. Bertsche, whose law firm Prince Lobel Tye LLP wrote the 2011 Open Government Guide Open Records and Meetings Laws in Massachusetts, said the new law is "fairly toothless."

  "I think the law could be strengthened in many different ways," he said. He said that in general, Massachusetts stacks up very poorly against other states in terms of public records and open meeting disclosure requirements.

  "We have to remember that this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Public officials are our servants working for us and we need to know what they're doing so we can properly oversee what they're doing on our behalf," he said. "I've heard of some boards not being fully aware of what the law is. Sometimes I think when there's not been a request for minutes, they can get lost in the shuffle."