In an opinion released today, the state Appeals Court has held that the Boston City Council violated the state open meeting law at least once, and possibly several times. The confirmed violation was in 2005, when the City Council convened a meeting shortly after an accidental release of tularemia at a Boston University research facility created both a potential public health problem and a political problem relating to Boston University’s ongoing quest to build a laboratory in the South End to study the world’s most dangerous pathogens. (BU’s quest to open the scary-virus lab has been plagued by screw-ups, and IMHO remains a bad idea. More details and links are in this post.)
The Court began its opinion on a bad note for the city:
The city council of Boston (council) finds itself, not for the first time, on the losing end of a determination that it has improperly excluded the public from its deliberations.
When an opinion starts like that, you know it’s not going to go well for the city. The Court went on to conclude that the City Council definitely violated the open meeting law in 2005, after the tularemia release was reported:
On January 20, 2005, the council convened a “councillors only” meeting with a representative of Boston University (university) after having been advised by representatives of the Boston University Medical Center that a number of its researchers were exposed in the prior year to tularemia. As was the case in connection with the BRA closed meetings, not all of the councillors were of the view that the public could legally be excluded.
The meeting dealt specifically with public health issues; in particular, according to councillor Hennigan’s affidavit, she raised the question whether the tularemia outbreak at the university’s medical laboratory might be indicative of the university’s inability safely to operate a biolaboratory in a densely populated area….
In sum, the council failed to file a notice of a meeting to which all councillors were invited to “gather[] information to aid [them] in arriving at a decision” on a subject — the safety implications of the proposed biolaboratory siting — within the council’s jurisdiction. See Gerstein v. Superintendent Search Screening Comm., 405 Mass. at 470. The fact that, by chance, less than a quorum of councillors actually attended did not excuse the failure of notice. We note that the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office issued a notice to Flaherty on March 21, 2005, stating in plain terms that the January 20, 2005, meeting was in violation of the open meeting law and recommending that “any meeting to which all City Councilors are invited should be posted pursuant to the [statute].”
The record thus demonstrates that the meeting of January 20, 2005, was a violation of the open meeting law.
There may have been other open meeting violations as well — the Court ordered additional proceedings in the trial court with respect to several meetings relating to the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s urban renewal plans.
Meetings that the law requires to be open are closed. Legislation is killed behind closed doors to the benefit of politically-wired players. Other legislation for which politically-wired players lobbied strategized is hustled through the House. And that’s just what’s come out in the last week! No wonder people are cynical.
David:
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p>Thank you very much for posting this. I just heard about the decision on my way home. First of all thanks should go out to Kathleen Devine and Shirley Kressel who came to me with this case in 2005 when I was running for City Council. The law requires 3 citizens to file a suit, and they could not find a third person to join them because of fear of retaliation from the City. Sure enough, after I joined them and we filed this suit the taxes on the house I lived in nearly doubled (coincidence?).
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p>One clarification, the decision is not just about the Tularemia meeting, but a series of at least 11 meetings held over a period of 2 years involving zoning, the BRA and other issues that the public is interested in.
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p>The law says that a hearing should be held in 10 days, it is now almost 3 years later. The City of Boston hired $600 dollar an hour lawyers (obtained from a FOIA request) to fight this case and spent between $50-100,000 of taxpayer money to fight the original $11,000 fine. When we offered to sit down with them and craft a working open meeting policy they ignored us and filed the appeal. You can follow our trials and tribulations at electkevin.blogspot.com. Neither Kathleen, Shirley or I are lawyers but we argued the case ourselves, pro se. It is easy to see why voters would not want to get involved and are cynical as we spent hundreds of hours on this. I appealed in person to both District Attorney Connolly and then Attorney General Reilly but they refused to look into the matter.
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p>In an ironic twist, as soon as I got home I checked my email and there is an email from Councilor Michael Flaherty which is headed “Opening the Doors to City Government” Here is a copy of his email blast, funny how he says he wants to open government to the people but he fights tooth and nail to make the decisions behind closed doors.
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p>Opening the Doors to City Government
From: Michael Flaherty (info@michaelflaherty.com)
Sent:Thu 5/01/08 6:14
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p>Dear Friend,
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p>As you may already know, City Council President Maureen Feeney and Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) Executive Director Jim Rooney are hosting a day-long Boston Civic Summit this Saturday, May 3rd at the BCEC. Unfortunately, due to a previously scheduled commitment, I will be unable to attend this important event. However, I hope you will consider participating as I believe that its goal to bring more residents into the political process is an important strategy to make our city stronger for all Boston families and businesses.
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p>I think government is at its best and most efficient when its agenda is driven by residents’ priorities and ideas. As elected leaders of the city of Boston, it’s our job to solicit constituent input on all issues important to Boston residents. Becoming politically involved is the first step to ensuring that your interests are protected and represented in the city’s decisions and solutions to the critical problems we face.
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p>The city elections last fall had a very low and disappointing voter turnout, which I took as a sign of resident apathy and frustration with their local leaders. For me and some of my colleagues, the elections served as a call to action; a call to bring City Hall to the people. That’s why earlier this year I launched my “Kitchen Table Conversations” Tour, which is allowing me to find out what concerns are keeping residents up at night and why families are leaving Boston. Through this Tour, I am challenging residents to turn their feelings of apathy and disconnect into a desire to affect positive change; to make government work better for them. Like you, I also want to change how some of Boston’s programs and services work. And I think we need to change the political process in a way that opens the doors to more residents.
Working in tandem, my “Kitchen Table Conversations” tour and this Saturday’s Boston Civic Summit should help mobilize residents, as well as foster better dialogue between community members and city leaders.
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p>No matter which neighborhood of Boston you live in, we all have mutual concerns, shared responsibilities and goals for a stronger, safer Boston. It’s time that people from each neighborhood capitalize on that common ground and work together as a cohesive, committed community. I am hopeful that the Boston Civic Summit, along with the “Kitchen Tables Conversations” Tour, will empower residents to become more involved in their communities and assure them that they can make their voices heard.
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p>Best always,
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p>MICHAEL F. FLAHERTY
Boston City Councilor, At-Large
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p>It’s hard to take seriously that they want to Open the Door to City Government when they spend tens of thousands of dollars of our money fighting to keep the doors closed.
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p>I’m going to read the opinion now, and maybe report back later.
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p>Kevin McCrea, co-plaintiff
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without any hope of ever seeing the light of day or being in any way open to public examination or input. At least with the City Council there is at least some expectation of public deliberation, debate, etc. In any event, we should all keep our eyes on the JP Morgan tax deal- supposedly the City Council has to vote on it, but I’ll bet that the issue is eventually decided “off-line”, in chambers.
Our Boston City Council staff director and city stenographer have been blocking access to the stenographic machine data recorded at Council public meetings. The staff director directs a hundred staff at the Council to deny, delay, deflect public enquiries for public information about the transactions and proceedings of public meetings. The City Clerks office denies, delays, deflects public enquiries for public information about the Council docket, including the cross index of docket numbers. All public information that should be made available on the web.