BELLOWS FALLS — Shortly before the Rockingham Free Public Library Trustees sat down for their October monthly meeting, they were presented with an 11-count complaint from a former library trustee.
The letter from Deborah Wright alleges that the current board has continued violating state open-meeting and public-records laws and library board best practices.
“This board and or some of its members are in serious need of state training on [open-meeting law],” Wright told The Commons last week via email.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Michael Duane confirmed receipt by his office on Oct. 30 of the letter, addressed to Secretary of State Jim Condos and Vermont State Librarian Martha Reid.
In her letter, Wright alleges that opportunities for board participation and training from the Vermont Department of Libraries and the Vermont League of Cities and Towns have been poorly or unattended.
When queried for a comment on this most recent complaint, Wright declined, but she did respond to a question as to her desired outcome.
“Written reprimand of the board by VT Attorney General and a 30 day time frame in which to take a mandatory [Vermont League of Cities and Towns] training on Open Meeting Law and Public Record Requests,” she answered.
“Although fines for each incident would put the board on notice as to how their actions proved not in the best interest of the community, only taxpayer money will be wasted,” Wright continued.
Multiple complaints
Wright's first complaint focuses on a Sept. 24 meeting that never took place because it wasn't properly warned.
Her second complaint focuses on a letter from Arnold and Elayne Clift, which was appended to the meeting minutes as part of the public record.
The Clifts, who were energetic supporters of the four new board members who unseated Wright, replaced outgoing trustee Laura Senes, and filled two vacant seats from two board members who had resigned in protest of the board's actions leading up to and following library director Célina Houlné's firing in August 2013.
In the letter, Clift implored the newly constituted board to act immediately to reinstate Houlné, writing that “[t]he four newly seated Trustees were voted into office with a clear and compelling mandate: to end the travesty of Celina's wrongful dismissal and to reinstate her. It was no secret that this was the mission of all of us who worked so hard to get out the vote.”
Wright's complaint noted that none of the trustees disputed Clift's premise about the board's mandate.
Wright alleges next that no minutes are posted on the library website from a meeting of the Historical Collections committee, for the April 3 meeting.
According to Archivist Emily Zervas, a member of the Historical Collections committee, “those minutes have been available upon request” in their draft form “since a few days after the meeting.”
The Collections Committee had not met since then, Zervas said.
As of January, the Vermont Open Meeting Law requires minutes, even draft minutes, to be posted to official websites if they exist.
Wright's next complaint alleges that trustees have been “conducting the business of the board outside of open meeting,” when then-Chair David Gould resigned from those duties due to health problems and Carol Blackwood was named chair.
Wright continued: “Although it seemed orchestrated, no discussion of the nomination, no discussion of any kind, it would have passed if not of the following statement by the new chairperson: 'I rushed to do the agenda and left the item of the complaint off. My mistake.'
“This is not a statement to be made by a trustee not yet a chairperson,” Wright wrote. “Now it appears a meeting was had by some members, not all, outside of public view, where a decision was made in advance to select a chair and Carol, not David, did the agenda” for the meeting.
“This is not the first time I have witnessed a possible violation of meeting outside of Open Meeting law, but the first time it has been this easily noticeable,” Wright wrote.
The minutes of the meeting paint a scene of a meeting that contradicts Wright's assertion that Blackwood's nomination was previously decided out of the public eye.
According to Blackwood, Gould had asked her to put together the agenda. Deputy Secretary of State Brian Leven has determined that such delegation is within the bounds of state law.
After Gould's resignation as chair was accepted unanimously, Vice Chair Carolyn Frisa was nominated to replace him. But, the minutes reported, “Frisa is not willing or able to perform the duty as chair due to her workload and her personal life.”
The minutes note that Gould then nominated Blackwood, who did not decline, and the motion carried unanimously.
Wright's next complaint asserts violations on May 6 and Oct. 28. She alleges that “the structure of the meetings' agendas was in conflict with statute requirements and were not corrected.”
The statute she refers to reads, “Any addition to or deletion from the agenda shall be made as the first act of business at the meeting. Any other adjustment to the agenda may be made at any time during the meeting.”
The next complaint reads, “Potential abuse of power by chairperson without prior discussion and consent of the board,” and cites several emails from Gould, then chair, “making promises to reinstate the former director to a former library trustee, and stating his efforts to slow down the search process for a new director,” violating the state statute that requires a majority vote for actions by boards comprised of three or more members.
Wright goes on to cite a June 17 email to Gould “stating the abuse of library board members by taking action without full board consent and not providing full disclosure to all board members in contractual matters,” in violation of statues covering access to public meetings.
She then cites personnel committee minutes of June 6. No meeting was held on that date, but one was held on June 3, at which town attorney Steve Ankuda was present. The stated purpose of the meeting on the agenda was “To discuss pending contract with Célina Houlné” in executive session.
She noted that trustees had received only 28 pages of 140-plus pages sent by an attorney from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns who was representing the Town of Rockingham and the library in the contract negotiations with Houlné, who at that point had not been reinstated as library director after a settlement of her wrongful dismissal lawsuit.
“The remaining 128 pages of information were withheld from all trustees for their review and understanding,” she writes.
Wright's next complaint reads, “Discussing board business via email instead of meeting,” regarding then-chair Gould's solicitation from board members as to what committees they would like to serve on.
Gould had asked during the previous meeting for board members to sign up on a sheet, and for those who had not done so that evening, to let him know. Before the next meeting, he followed that up with an email reminder to get them to him before the next meeting.
Wright concludes, “Again, this is not the first such incident of this type, but the first one captured in Open Meeting.”
Her next complaint reads, “Controlling public comment to minimize criticism of the trustees special meeting, Sept. 23, 2014.”
The minutes note there was no public comment at the point on the agenda where it was provided. Yet Wright writes, “Prior to his stepping down from the chair position, during public comment, I pointed out that the meeting had not been called by the chair … and that only the director had sent out the meeting agenda for this meeting.”
Trustee and former board chair Jan Mitchell-Love had notified Gould prior to the meeting that she would not be attending, alleging violation of open meeting law in the scheduling of the meeting. Another trustee, Hope Brissette, did not seat herself with the board that night, the minutes note, choosing instead to seat herself with the public.
“I was told by the chair that that was enough and they were done,” Wright wrote. “I had not exceeded the three minutes allotted per board procedures and could not get him to understand that some of his board members had not been notified by the chair of the special meeting taking place.”
When secretary Doreen Aldrich asked about the validity of Mitchell-Love's claim in her email to Gould, Leven replied that “[e]ach board can adopt its own rules of procedure for calling a meeting.”
“Even when the chair has the authority to call the meeting, this can be accomplished by the chair delegating that function to someone else,” Leven wrote. “Also, the agenda you sent to me seems to be fairly clear about the purpose of the meeting.”
Leven, whose duties require him to clarify and advise boards in just this way, had previously clarified and quoted the statute Wright cited.
“There is no mention of the word 'warning' in this section of the law,” Levin wrote. “The notice required by this section is different than the warning that is required for a special or annual town meeting.” Leven's response was emailed to Mitchell-Love, Brissette and Gould, and discussed at the meeting, according to minutes.
The minutes record Wright's response, differentiating the actions of calling the meeting and officially warning it.
“Deborah Wright said her concern is that the power of the chair or secretary calling the meeting is not the same as distributing the agenda or warning the meeting. That is totally different. At an open meeting, you have not designated or relegated that power to another member to do that. That is not calling a meeting. That is, telling someone to send out an agenda because of computer issues is not calling the meeting. He asked how she proposed a meeting be called. She responded that the chair contacts their members and calls a meeting.”
The next complaint says, “refusal by board members to address three open meeting law violation complaints.”
Wright complains she has not received a response for “four complaints” from three meetings (Sept. 11, Sept. 12, and Sept. 24).
Wright's last complaint reads, “refusal by board members to respond or comply with multiple public record requests,” and goes on to detail eight alleged violations between April 23 and Oct. 17.
One complaint cites that the format that Wright requested was not conformed with and therefore the material requested was not acceptable, and remains allegedly unfulfilled.
Another request alleges “redacted emails in an altered format,” and complains of the method of sharing via Dropbox accounts, and another noted a broken link “so the emails could not be retrieved,” noting this was later corrected.
Lastly, Wright complains of a “conflict of interest by a board member who is also the elected Rockingham Town Agent while participating in the mediation of the former RFPL director.”
Wright alleges, “As a member of the board, Ray Massucco, in his capacity as the Town Agent, was also in the receipt of all documents and privileged conversations with the former director's counsel, knowledge that was outside the scope of the other eight trustees. In addition, he was appointed, along with the chair, as one of the three-member team to negotiate with the former director.”
'They have learned nothing'
After the Sept. 24 meeting, Wright had warned the board by email of her intent to escalate her concerns to the attorney general's office.
When asked last month by The Commons to comment about that warning, Wright said that trustees who shared the public email correspondence about the matter were out of line, given that the board as a whole had not acted officially to respond to her complaints.
By addressing the issue, Wright said that The Commons was, if anything, “pointing out how inept this board is after all the [open-meeting law] attention of last year. They have learned nothing.”
Wright went on, “If you include my name in any article I will file a complaint of slander [at Windham Superior Court] in Newfane this coming week. You are attacking a private citizen utilizing the only tools available to address violations of the Vermont Open Meeting Laws.”
Slander, according to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, is “a false spoken statement that causes people to have a bad opinion of someone.”
Wright wrote, “Using the press as a weapon to attack the public is an egregious act. The last board certainly knew better than to do that.”
Wright served as vice-chair until this spring, when she was unseated in the annual town election.
Then-chair Jan Mitchell-Love was previously found to have violated open-meeting law by Assistant Attorney General William B. Reynolds, following a violation of open-meeting law complaints filed in May 2013 by Elayne Clift, Adam and Debbie Wetzel, and Trustee Carolyn Frisa.
Reynolds responded in a letter to Mitchell-Love on Dec. 16, 2013. While he did not find criminal intent to violate the law, he did find a “failure to achieve a clear understanding of the [open-meeting] law's requirements.” Mitchell-Love was urged to educate herself about the law.
In her complaint, Wright wrote that Reynolds' 2013 investigation and guidance “do not seem to be heeded.”