Executive Session Minutes (Middlesex County) (Maynard Town Clerk)
| Submitted | Oct. 25, 2016 |
MuckRock users can file, duplicate, track, and share public records requests like this one. Learn more.
Communications
From: Caitlin Russell
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, M.G.L. c.66, §10, I hereby request the following records:
Pursuant to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 66, Section 10, I'm requesting all executive session minutes generated, by the Board of Selectmen for the years 2010 through the of end 2015.
Massachusetts law requires that executive session minutes be reviewed and released regularly, and that once the stated purpose for a particular executive session has ended, the minutes of the executive sessions are to be made public.
Please be advised that denial of this request, or redactions made to released materials must be accompanied by citations of the exemptions you believe allow you to withhold the information requested.
I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as we believe this request is in the public interest, as suggested but not stipulated by the recommendations of the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.
I expect the request to be filled in an accessible format, including for screen readers, which provide text-to-speech for persons unable to read print. Files that are not accessible to screen readers include, for example, .pdf image files as well as physical documents.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 calendar days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Caitlin Russell
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Oct. 25, 2016. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Andrew Scribner-MacLean
Attached is our response to your recent records request.
Andrew
978 897-1375
[cid:image002.jpg@01D0E643.D0A4C140]
-
image001
From: Caitlin Russell
Hello,
Are Maynard's executive session minutes from 2010-2012 not available in an electronic format, or are they not available at all? If they're available on paper I'd appreciate an estimate. Thank you!
From: Andrew Scribner-MacLean
We have already responded to this.
From: Caitlin Russell
I'm just trying to clarify. Are you saying that the Board's minutes from 2013-2015 are available, and that the minutes from 2010-2012 are not? If that's the case, I'm requesting that the Board review the executive session minutes from 2010-2012, and release all that are not exempt from disclosure.
Under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 30A Section 22 (g)(2), the Board is required, upon a request for executive session minutes, to review any unreleased executive session minutes, and release all that are not exempt from disclosure. Thank you.
Caitlin
From: Andrew Scribner-MacLean
Our current Town Administrator has served since April 2013. Executive session minutes under his tenure are available - he is confirming which ones have actually been accepted - as you are likely aware, many executive session topics cover long time frames — legal issues, collective bargaining, etc., and we won’t bring exe. session minutes back to the BOS for approval until the issues discussed no longer require the confidential nature of the executive session meeting.
In our previous email, I suggested they would be available the week of November 14th. I still expect the Town Administrator to provide those sets available to be released by then.
Executive session minutes prior to his tenure (2010 - March/April of 2013) are not available at this time as our current TA does not have a record of them. We will review files to determine if they have been stored somewhere he is not aware of.
Andrew
From: Caitlin Russell
Hello,
I'm confused about why the length of the current Town Administrator's tenure has any impact on the Board's ability to produce minutes of its meetings. Are all sets executive session minutes that were recorded before April 2013 unavailable?
From: Caitlin Russell
Hello,
I'm confused about why the length of the current Town Administrator's tenure has any impact on the Board's ability to produce minutes of its meetings. Are all sets executive session minutes that were recorded before April 2013 unavailable?
From: Andrew Scribner-MacLean
Yes. We do not have a record of executive session minutes prior to current TAs administration.
Sent from my iPhone
From: Caitlin Russell
Hello,
Massachusetts General Law Chapter 30A, Section 22(a) states: "A public body shall create and maintain accurate minutes of all meetings, including executive sessions, setting forth the date, time and place, the members present or absent, a summary of the discussions on each subject, a list of documents and other exhibits used at the meeting, the decisions made and the actions taken at each meeting, including the record of all votes."
The "public body" responsible for creating and maintaining the minutes in this instance is the Maynard Board of Selectmen, so I'm wondering if you can tell me why the Town Administrator's office appears to have been tasked with doing so. Is there now, or has there ever been, someone in the Board of Selectmen's office who's responsible for the creation and maintenance of the Board's meeting minutes?
From: Andrew Scribner-MacLean
I met with our TA today and we went through his predecessor’s files and have found minutes from a period before his tenure here. I have scanned them in by year. So each attached file is a complete set of executive session minutes by year.
No executive session minutes since September 2015 have been approved for yet, so 2015 is a partial set and there are none for 2016. Some of these are on-going collective bargaining or litigation related. Some of these will be brought to vote for approval before the calendar year end.
Andrew
978 897-1375
[cid:image002.jpg@01D0E643.D0A4C140]
-
image001
Files
pages