The Public Was Wrongfully Excluded

At yesterday’s special Board of Selectmen meeting on the Ierardis' request for retirement and the resulting pension (video of it is available here), there was far too little discussion of whether the meeting should go into executive session, and to what extent. From the beginning, it was assumed that the entire meeting had to go into executive session or not, and this is simply not true, as was pointed out by New Haven Register reporter Ann DeMatteo.

The Freedom of Information Act assumes that all meetings are open. The public can be excluded (the Act’s language) only under certain limited circumstances. One of these is discussion of an employee’s performance. There is no doubt that discussions about the Ierardis' performance, to the extent these affected the Board's decision on accepting their requests for retirement and determining their pension rights, should be held in executive session. The public should not have been excluded from the rest of the Board’s discussions.

I do not believe that the Board of Selectmen’s special counsel O'Brien gave the proper advice with respect to this issue. He gave as his reasons for an executive session that the matter might impinge on the Ierardis' criminal proceedings, and that actions taken could result in litigation or liability to the town. Neither of these are reasons for an executive session pursuant to Sec. 1-200(6) of the Freedom of Information Act. There has to be pending litigation to require the exclusion of the public, and there is no pending litigation that involves the town. Criminal proceedings are not pending litigation “to which the public agency or a member thereof ... is a party.”

Selectwoman Janet McCarty voted in favor of an open, public meeting, but she was wrong not to argue that only part of the meeting should be closed, that in fact the meeting might go back and forth from open to closed, depending on how the discussion proceeded.

First Selectman Kevin Kopetz was wrong to present the matter as all or nothing, open or closed. He is a lawyer and has been on boards and commissions in North Haven for many years. He knows the law, and he misrepresented it. Our town attorney, Jeffrey Donofrio, spoke but did not correct him. It was three lawyers against one non-lawyer (Ms. McCarty), and the town lost once again, because the lawyers did not fully and accurately present the law (Note: I am a former lawyer myself, so this is not prejudice).

Representatives of the press better presented the issue. A Channel 3 reporter opposed closing the meeting, and Register reporter Ann DeMatteo was the only person who correctly noted that the meeting should be partially open and partially closed. It is sad when only a member of the press is willing to present the law correctly, and when lawyers presented with a correct presentation of the law ignore it and thereby exclude the public.

The Kopetz administration has always assumed that the public should be excluded unless there is some exception. They have turned the Freedom of Information Act on its head, as they have so many laws. Holding Board of Selectmen meetings during the workday and allowing public comments only after adjournment (so that NHTV won't fill them) are only two ways Kopetz tries to keep the public in the dark (this has been criticized for years, including by a Register editorial).

What happened yesterday is another example of the way our town is not run for the benefit of the public, but rather for the benefit of town officials and, in this case, for keeping potentially embarrassing information (embarrassing to officials) out of the public eye.