Selectmen finally ad "public comment" item to agenda, per their own policies and procedures. To bad it was done to an agenda that was posted finally at 10:23 P.M. Thursday evening, past the 48 minimum requirement per the Open Meeting Law. The public comment item was added on Friday Morning at 11:36 A.M. So here is a pat on the back selectmen for a job well done . . .sort of!


from the AG's Open Meeting Law guide:

Meeting notices must be posted in a legible, easily understandable format; contain the date, time, and place of the meeting; and list all topics that the chair reasonably anticipates, 48 hours in advance, will be discussed at the meeting.  The list of topics must be sufficiently specific to reasonably inform the public of the issues to be discussed at the meeting.  Where there are no anticipated topics for discussion in open session other than the procedural requirements for convening an executive session, the public body should list “open session” as a topic, in addition to the executive session, so the public is aware that it has the opportunity to attend and learn the basis for the executive session. 


The finally posted agenda has items 1, 2, 3, 4a thru 4q, then 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 adjourn. The Town Administrator weekly report posted earlier in the day has references to those 4a - 4q items, indicating some knowledge of what was going to be included at the next open meeting of selectmen on June 26, 2017. So, why was the meeting not posted until Thursday evening past the 48 hour rule? Is this another case of selectmen snubbing rules, procedures and the law? Is this an open meeting law violation. Could that be a $1,000.00 fine? We shall see.


posted by Jeff Bennett