GREENFIELD, MA (FRANKLIN COUNTY NOW) — Greenfield Mayor Ginny DeSorgher announced the city will be working with a new attorney’s office for labor and municipal matters – Sullivan, Hayes and Quinn, LLC, a Springfield-based attorney’s office, and from there Lila Taylor was present at Wednesday’s City Council meeting to discuss the most recent Open Meeting Law complaint, to which Taylor said she believes the council acted lawfully in their decision and procedure to go into executive session on January 17th, however there was some “imprecision” in the motion made resulting in confusion to the public.
The council entered into Executive Session in order to discuss the previous executive session minutes to determine if they could be released to the public. According to Taylor, that type of Executive Session can be entered into based on either the original purposes of Executive Session for the minutes they are reviewing, or under purpose 7 of the ten permissible reasons for entering into Executive Session. Taylor determined Councilor Bottomley’s motion was based on the former process which was lawful, but the language was long and could be “tightened up.”
Councilors voted in favor of allowing Taylor to respond to the Attorney General’s Office, expressing she’s had experience working on Open Meeting Law violations and with the Attorney General’s Office.
Additionally, Councilor Perry asked Taylor about the portion of the complaint regarding no discussion by the council prior to entering into Executive Session, and Taylor responded by saying it was not unusual to not have substantive discussion when entering into Executive Session in order to review prior minutes for public release.
Ultimately, in the January 17th Executive Session, most of the minutes were not released for reasons related to attorney-client privilege, ongoing litigation, and certain privacy exceptions.