This Shouldn't be News !!

I highlighted a few of the interesting phrases below. This isn't news to anyone who has ever actually READ the Open Meeting Law. It certainly shouldn't be news to members of the School Committee (or their counsel) who have been warned of this exact issue several times.

Basic facts: South Hadley School Committee may have committed a technical OML violation BUT Judge says its "doubtful" that it would effect the contract because the suit was not filed within the required 21 days.

No suit has EVER been filed in the Sandwich Superintendent's case to void the contract aproved by the prior School Committee.

Alert Town Counsel, bump up the litigation reserve -- I'm betting on another lawsuit!

From the Daily Hampshire Gazette:

South Hadley school panel action has day in court

By JAMES F. LOWE

Staff Writer

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

NORTHAMPTON - A judge said Tuesday the South Hadley School Committee may have committed a technical violation of the state's Open Meeting Law when it voted to extend Superintendent Gus Sayer's contract.

But Judge C. Brian McDonald said it was doubtful the possible violation would have any effect on the contract itself.

McDonald heard arguments in Hampshire Superior Court from Luke Gelinas, a South Hadley resident who sued the School Committee last month over the alleged Open Meeting Law violations, and town attorney Edward Ryan Jr.

The judge will make a final ruling at a later date.

Gelinas, 95 Granby Road, and fellow plaintiff Darby O'Brien, 116 Main St., called for Sayer's resignation after the death of Phoebe Prince, a South Hadley High School freshman who took her own life after allegedly being bullied by classmates. In their lawsuit, Gelinas and O'Brien ask that Sayer's new two-year, $129,000 contract be nullified.

Ryan argued in court Tuesday that the School Committee did not violate the law because it did not discuss Sayer's job performance, only its strategy for negotiating with him.

Chairman JoAnn Jordan testified that School Committee members completed evaluations on their own and she compiled the results. "The committee did not discuss the evaluation," she said.

Gelinas said many in South Hadley were "yearning" for a chance to voice opinions about Sayer's competence after Prince's death. The School Committee prevented townspeople from doing so, he said.

"They took our right to be heard, and our right to know, away from us," Gelinas said.

Gelinas contrasted the handling of Sayer's reappointment to the evaluation in 2003 of former Superintendent Michael Zapantis, a topic on which Gelinas said public input was welcomed.

The School Committee voted on Sayer's contract in two executive sessions Feb. 24 and March 24. In the first vote, the panel agreed to extend Sayer's contract by two years. In the second, it agreed to increase Sayer's pay by 3 percent pending a satisfactory performance evaluation.

Committee members' second vote came days after prosecutors brought charges against five students accused of harassing Prince before her death. A sixth student was charged with statutory rape.

District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel said at the time no charges would be filed against school officials, although she called the "actions or inactions" of some adults at the high school "troublesome."

The School Committee announced publicly that it had renewed Sayer's contract at its April 28 meeting. McDonald said Gelinas and O'Brien would have had to file their lawsuit within 21 days of that announcement for the secret votes to be nullified.

Gelinas said he was slow to file the complaint because he was denied access to meeting minutes from the executive sessions during which the contract was discussed or voted on. The School Committee unsealed those records May 26 in response to a public records request filed by the Gazette.

James F. Lowe can be reached at jlowe@gazettenet.com.