Judge C. Brian McDonald said the committee made "willful decisions to provide false purposes so as to mislead the public."
Luke Gelinas and Darby O'Brien prepare to argue their case in court.Updates a story posted Monday at 4:13 p.m.
NORTHAMPTON – Calling its conduct “shameful,” a judge has fined the South Hadley School Committee $5,000 for violating the state’s open meeting law and invalidated its 2010 vote to increase the salary of School Superintendent Gus A. Sayer.
The decision Monday by Judge C. Brian McDonald came 10 months after plaintiffs Luke Gelinas and Darby O’Brien, both residents of South Hadley, argued in Hampshire Superior Court that the Feb. 28, 2010 executive session vote to approve a two-year contract extension for Sayer violated the open meeting law and should be thrown out.
Although McDonald agreed that the session violated the law, he wrote that he could not invalidate the contract vote because it fell outside a strict deadline for filing complaints. However, he said a May 26 vote to grant Sayer a 3 percent salary increase did take place within the 21-day timeline and ruled it invalid.
The School Committee met five times in executive session to discuss Sayer’s performance and future amid the public uproar following the suicide of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old South Hadley High School freshman who hanged herself after being bullied at school. Gelinas and O’Brien were among those who blamed school officials for allowing such an atmosphere and for failing to address Prince’s needs in a timely way. They also faulted Sayer for his response to the crisis.
Gelinas was tossed from the April 14, 2010, School Committee meeting by then-chairman Edward J. Boisselle when he tried to voice some if these complaints. In his ruling, McDonald noted that the committee and Sayer were “at the center of a firestorm of adverse publicity” following Prince’s death.
“It was in that context that the committee addressed the issue of extending Sayer’s contract,” McDonald wrote.
The committee met on Feb. 24, March 10, March 24, April 28 and May 26 of 2010 to discuss Sayer’s performance and vote on his contract extension and pay raise. Although the stated reason for going into the executive sessions was contract negotiations, McDonald wrote that there is no evidence of actual bargaining and that Sayer was not even present.
South Hadley School Superintendent Gus Sayer“Boisselle wanted Sayer to continue as superintendent,” McDonald wrote. “Sayer was agreeable to two more years; it was done!”
Because the executive sessions did not involve actual negotiations, the discussions of Sayer’s job performance should have taken place in public, McDonald ruled.
“These broad references to a permissible exception to the open meeting rule not only were not precise, they were deliberately misleading,” he wrote. “Indeed, I find that the announcements were the result of willful decisions to provide false purposes so as to mislead the public.”
However, McDonald pointed out that the law establishes a strict 21-day limit for contesting actions at a session that violates the open meeting law. The clock starts on that deadline when the results of the votes are published. By that standard, McDonald wrote, he could not invalidate the Feb. 28 vote to extend Sayer’s contract.
The final vote for Sayer’s pay increase came at the May 26 executive session, but McDonald ruled that the minutes of that meeting had not been officially approved by the time he heard the complaint on July 13.
Sayer could not be reached Monday. Town Counsel Edward Ryan declined comment, saying he had not yet seen McDonald’s decision. Gelinas also declined to comment.
Although he found the School Committee in violation of the law, McDonald said it is not his place to rebuke it, as requested by the plaintiffs. By the same token, he found no reason to order a further investigation into the committee’s actions. Gelinas and O’Brien are free to pursue the matter through the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, he said.
McDonald fined the committee $1,000 for each violation, a total of $5,000, and ordered it not to break the open meeting law in the future. He also ordered the town to reimburse Gelinas and O’Brien for their legal costs.