HATFIELD — A member of the Select Board is calling out his own colleagues for making a decision outside of a public meeting, to seek data about emergency runs in Hatfield made by out-of-town ambulances in 2018.
During the board’s March 6 meeting in which Fire Chief Stephen Gaughan was present to discuss a capital request for a new ambulance, board member Brian Moriarty questioned why correspondence, on Hatfield letterhead and signed by board member Cindy Doty, was sent to the city of Northampton, South County EMS in Deerfield and Pioneer Valley EMS, or MedStar, in Northampton, without his knowledge, and without the subject being posted as an agenda item for a public meeting.
“Violation of the Open Meeting Law,” Moriarty said when explaining to Doty and Chairman Edmund Jaworski why he was raising the issue. “You cannot do it on town letterhead with two of three members that didn’t have a meeting. You cannot do it. It’s illegal.”
Attempts to reach Jaworski and Doty for comment by phone and email were unsuccessful Tuesday.
To emphasize how inappropriate he believed the action was, Moriarty tore in half a copy of the letter in front of his colleagues. This action, and his comments, were captured in Hatfield Community TV’s coverage of the meeting.
Moriarty asked his fellow board members to explain what happened. “So did the two of you have a meeting that I was not aware of?” he asked.
Jaworski acknowledged there was a conversation, but not a meeting. “We did not have a meeting on this,” Jaworski said.
He characterized what happened as a miscommunication based on an “off-the-cuff” remark in which he might have suggested to Doty to get the data for an ambulance study.
“We did not officially sit down and approve anything,” Jaworski said.
Before he ripped the letter, Moriarty read the pertinent details of what Doty had penned: “I have been asked by the chairman of the board, Ed Jaworski, to begin a feasibility study of the ambulance services in Hatfield, Massachusetts. Being a novice, I am first requesting statistics for 2018 for cities, towns and ambulances services and responses to ambulance calls in Hatfield.”
Moriarty said Tuesday that the board should have posted a meeting to discuss the ambulance service, not only because of the Open Meeting Law concerns, but also because it caught Gaughan off guard that the board was seeking the information.
“I think the chief should have been asked first,” Moriarty said.
Moriarty said he will not be bringing the matter to the state attorney general’s office, but instead said he believed simply calling out elected officials on camera was the right way to show that this is a serious matter.
“These are my colleagues and I was letting them know it was not appropriate,” Moriarty said on Tuesday.
The concerns come in the context of a decision annual Town Meeting could make in May on whether to expand the board from three to five members, which Moriarty supports.
In fact, as he was talking to his colleagues, he said they had illustrated the need for a larger board. “My perfect point for going to five members,” he said.
Moriarty told the Gazette that an expanded board would also mean more regular meetings, which could be held even if there are absences due to vacations or illnesses, and more work could be done in subcommittees.
The Town Government Committee last fall issued a report on expanding the board. Its chairman, E. Lary Grossman, said one of the benefits is that having a five-person Select Board would permit groups of two members to work on projects, similar to how the School Committee functions. Grossman said that the town would not need to add more paid staff at Town Hall.
Moriarty said he understands that not everyone agrees with this assessment of the benefits and voters will have to be convinced if the Select Board places the article on the warrant
“While I think having a five-member board is a good idea, I’m OK if it doesn’t pass, so long as the voters get their say,” Moriarty said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
