AG finds Southwick preservation board’s emails violated open meeting law - MassLive.com

SOUTHWICK — The state attorney general’s office has found the Community Preservation Committee in violation of open meeting law, after several committee members used email to communicate outside of an open meeting last April.

In a complaint filed last year, Select Board member Russell Fox said Christopher Pratt, who was then the chair of the CPC, led an email exchange with enough members of the committee to constitute a quorum. Under the state’s open meeting law, any gathering, conversation, or decisions made between a quorum of members of a public board or committee must take place within a public meeting with an agenda and with two days’ notice given.

Sent with the complaint was an email sent from Pratt to Fox, with members of the committee copied onto it, where Pratt said that six out of the nine CPC members decided that the CPC would not need an official meeting on the Select Board’s application for Community Preservation Act funding to repair the Town Hall roof. The Select Board had requested a meeting with the CPC.

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source: https://www.masslive.com/news/2022/02/ag-finds-southwick-preservation-boards-emails-violated-open-meeting-law.html

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