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Planned executive session in Massena would have violated open meetings law

Posted 1/26/18

By ANDY GARDNER MASSENA -- An executive session, which was planned prior to the Wednesday, Jan. 24 Town Council meeting but later canceled, would have likely run afoul of the Open Meetings Law. …

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Planned executive session in Massena would have violated open meetings law

Posted

By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- An executive session, which was planned prior to the Wednesday, Jan. 24 Town Council meeting but later canceled, would have likely run afoul of the Open Meetings Law. That’s according to an official from the New York State Department of State Committee on Open Government.

Upon arrival at the Wednesday Town Council meeting, members of the public and press were given an agenda that called for a 4 p.m. executive session prior to the regular 5:30 p.m. start time. No prior notice of the executive session was given to the press.

Kristin O’Neill, Committee on Open Government assistant director, described that as “problematic” for two reasons.

“You can’t have an executive session prior to an open meeting,” she said. “The public body must vote on a motion to enter executive session during an open meeting. You can’t schedule an executive session prior.”

If the board had opened the public meeting and then voted to expel the public, O’Neill said they still would not have complied with the state’s legal requirements.

“If their normal meetings are at 5:30 and there is no clear indication they intend to move the meeting time to 4 o’clock, that’s problematic,” she said. “Any meeting scheduled, at least one week in advance, you need to give 72 hours notice of the date, time and place of the meeting. It must be given to the media and posted in public.”

The time change was not announced to the press. The agenda with the 4 p.m. executive session was available on the town’s website, but the meeting start time was listed at 5:30 p.m. on the website’s town events calendar.

Town Supervisor Steve O’Shaughnessy said he accepts responsibility for failing to notify the public in a timely fashion.

“There was a bit of confusion for releasing the agenda and I should have done it, and I don’t think I got it out,” he said. “Normally our town clerk does that, but she was on vacation.”

He said the executive session, which officials said did not end up taking place, was to discuss issues related to the Massena Memorial Hospital asset transfer negotiations. Although the words “asset transfer” do not appear in the executive session portion of the Open Meetings Law, there are a couple of allowable areas it may have fit into.

The board is allowed to go into executive session to discuss “the proposed acquisition, sale or lease of real property or the proposed acquisition of securities, or sale or exchange of securities held by such public body, but only when publicity would substantially affect the value thereof.” They may also expel the public to discuss “the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or corporation, or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation,” the law states.

The board has planned a Jan. 31 special meeting that will be open to the public to hold a work session for their new tablets, which they are using in lieu of paper documents. They also plan to hear from Boutique Air representatives and also allow town residents to air opinions on the company, which is the new air carrier at Massena International Airport.

O’Shaughnessy said he was not aware of the requirements to notify the public prior to the meeting, but after being informed of the procedure he would get notice out in a timely fashion.

According to the Committee on Open Government, the notice procedure would be the same as what they were supposed to have done for the 4 p.m. executive session.

The town is required a minimum of 72 hours before the meeting give notice to the local press, post a physical copy of the notice in a conspicuous public location such as a bulletin board in the Town Hall and post a notice on the towns’ website.

The incident with the Jan. 24 planned executive session is the second time O’Shaughnessy has run afoul of the Open Meetings Law since his election.

O’Shaughnessy, along with Councilman Tom Miller, village Mayor Tim Currier, DPW Superintendent Hassan Fayad and Steve Dailey from the DPW, met on a morning sometime around Dec. 5 at the Department of Public Works to discuss the town possibly buying an old water treatment plant at the former Reynolds site. At the time, O’Shaughnessy was still a town councilman and had not been sworn into the supervisor’s office.

During the meeting, O’Shaughnessy said he made a phone call to Councilman Samuel Carbone to discuss his recent walkthrough of the facility, which state officials say goes against the Open Meetings Law.

More details about that are here.