Let the municipal offices, boards, and committees of the Tri-Town beware: Someone is watching you.

Mattapoisett is the second municipality in the Tri-Town that the Attorney General’s Office has found in violation of the Open Meeting Law within the past two months, just after Marion was found to have violated the law in two of three complaints filed by a man who doesn’t live in either town.

But that doesn’t stop Ronald Beaty of Barnstable from watching to make sure that public officials everywhere are following their legal obligations, almost exactly to a T.

Beaty, an elected Barnstable County Commissioner, told The Wanderer via email that he ran for that office on a platform of open, transparent, and accountable government. He said he’d earned a reputation on Cape Cod as “somewhat of a government watchdog.”

“As a result of my activism on the Cape, it is now rare to find any OML violations, so I have had to branch out a bit,” said Beaty. “The most recent ‘wins’ involved the Mattapoisett Board of Selectmen and the State Ethics Commission.”

Beaty filed the Open Meeting Law complaint on October 12, and the AG’s Office received the complaint on November 15. The complaint alleges that the notices for the board’s September 26 and October 10 meetings lacked sufficient detail because they did not contain a date and time of posting by the town clerk, or the specific purposes for executive session.

In a January 30 letter to Town Administrator Michael Gagne, the AG’s Office stated that it found no evidence of violation pertaining to the date and time stamp on the meeting notice, but it did find the Board of Selectmen in violation concerning the insufficient detailed notice for its September 26 meeting.

“We order the Board’s immediate and future compliance with the Open Meeting Law,” states the letter signed by KerryAnne Kilcoyne, assistant attorney general, “and we caution that similar future violations may be considered evidence of intent to violate the law.”

According to the AG’s Office letter to Gagne, citing the Open Meeting Law, the Mattapoisett Selectmen “failed to identify the non-union personnel with which it was negotiating,” in addition to the litigation matter it had posted without specifying which litigation matter it planned to discuss.

The letter further states, “Although not raised in the complaint, we remind the Board that it must also identify the nonunion personnel with which it is negotiating and the litigation matter it plans to discuss, in the verbal statement made before entering into executive session…” Specific details and matters may not be disclosed, however, if it should be determined that it could compromise the executive session purpose.

Will Rochester be next? Just this week, the Rochester Board of Selectmen’s public notice for its February 5 meeting, like the Mattapoisett Board of Selectmen’s, lacks similar detail in its executive session posting, listing only a general reason for executive session as “To conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union personnel.”

Marion’s notice for its February 6 meeting also features an executive session notice with no specified information for its purposes – the real property up for discussion for purchase is not identified, nor is the non-union personnel in its negotiations strategy discussion.

“Along with the press and local citizens, I will continue to periodically monitor public meetings in the Tri-Town area,” Beaty told The Wanderer. “However, it is sincerely hoped that public officials will mainly monitor themselves.”

As for Beaty, he’s made a name for himself on Cape Cod, and Internet search engine results turn up plenty of mentions of his name in the news, including his 1991 conviction of threatening to kill former President George H.W. Bush, for which he was sentenced to serve 16 months in prison.

The Open Meeting Law can be explored by visiting www.mass.gov/the-open-meeting-law.

By Jean Perry

Facilities Manager Andrew Daniel was at the Rochester Board of Selectmen meeting on February 5 to describe the renovation plans for the new ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessible restroom at the Town Hall that will be fully funded by a state grant. Although he received approval to move ahead with the building permit for the project, Daniel’s plan received some opposition from Selectman Naida Parker.

The drawing that Daniel had on display showed an open area of the meeting room near the inside entryway being used as the location of the new handicap accessible bathroom because the existing women’s and men’s rooms are too small to comply with the space requirements for wheelchair access.

Parker right away asked Daniel where the file cabinets and audio-visual equipment for ORCTV would be relocated, to which Daniel replied he did not as of yet have a plan for the file cabinets, but a closet would be built for the equipment.

Parker wondered why Daniel couldn’t just use one of the existing bathrooms and expand it.

“Because of the space requirements I have to have for an access bathroom,” said Daniel, he would have to build a new bathroom in the only space available. The design of the restroom requires minimal distances from toilets and sinks, which equals to about a 6.5-foot by 7-foot area – the average size public ADA accessible bathroom, he said. Next to it the audio-visual equipment would be housed in its own 5-foot by 4-foot ‘closet’ space, in which the ORCTV equipment operator would sit during meeting recordings.

Also, Daniel added, the walls would be sound proofed for “bathroom” sounds such as toilet flushes and sinks running through the construction of double walls.

The new bathroom would be a unisex handicap accessible restroom that will replace the existing women’s room located in another location in the Town Hall. The existing women’s room would be transformed into a storage space, Daniel suggested.

“There’s no way to take the two existing bathrooms and combine them into two unisex?” Parker asked him.

Daniel said the Town Hall, by law, must have two bathrooms.

“You know, that makes no sense in a building that’s predominantly female,” Parker said. ”This is the building where the women occasionally have to wait for the bathroom.”

Daniel replied, “This one will be much nicer than the one you’re using now. There’s still going to be two bathrooms.”

Selectman Greenwood Hartley suggested that Parker and the other women could use the men’s room if there was a wait, which led to a ‘no I can’t; yes you can’ exchange.

Hartley asked Daniel what would constitute a ‘unisex ‘ bathroom, and Daniel said, “Just the sign and policy.”

“We’ll put a sign up that says ‘unisex’ then,” said Hartley.

Town Administrator Suzanne Szyndlar said she was going to suggest making both restrooms unisex, which Hartley liked.

“[The ADA compliant restroom] was the biggest thing on our list,” said Hartley. “It really takes away a lot of liability that we have.”

“We’re not one hundred percent, but it’s a big chunk,” said Daniel.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” commented Chairman Brad Morse.

When it came time to grant Daniel permission to seek the building permit, both Morse and Hartley voted in favor.

“I’ll abstain,” said Parker. “I don’t like doing it. I have concerns about the audio-visual equipment.… It’s still claustrophobic for people and that equipment has to be ventilated. I strongly urge that you work with ORCTV so that we don’t create a problem with that.”

In other matters, the board signed the inter-municipal water agreement with the Town of Middleboro for the water line extension on North Avenue for water service to the Annie Maxim House that was discussed during the January 22 meeting.

The board also approved four fundraiser events for the Rochester Country Fair at the fairgrounds for May 12, June 9, October 20, and November 3.

The next meeting of the Rochester Board of Selectmen is scheduled for February 12 at 7:00 pm at the Rochester Town Hall.

Rochester Board of Selectmen

By Jean Perry