AMHERST — A strong majority of the Amherst School Committee is defending the actions of three members who are the subject of an Open Meeting Law complaint for their role in supporting the $67.2 million for a co-located school to be built at the Wildwood School site.
In a 4-0 vote last week, the committee said a string of emails that showed the three members worked to convince Town Meeting to vote in favor of the project Jan. 30 did not constitute a violation of state law. Member Vira Douangmany Cage abstained from voting.
The committee will share its vote and viewpoints in a letter to be state attorney general’s office. That letter is being written with the help of Thomas Colomb, an attorney with the law firm Murphy, Hesse, Toomey & Lehane of Quincy.
The complaint was filed by late Town Meeting member and blogger Larry Kelley, who attended the meeting and asked that the response be expedited so he could respond to it. Kelley died Friday in a car accident, less than two days after the meeting.
The complaint names Chairwoman Katherine Appy and members Phoebe Hazzard and Anastasia Ordonez as participating in email discussions prior to Town Meeting.
At the Feb. 15 meeting, School Committee member Eric Nakajima said his colleagues’ actions were appropriate.
“The question is whether the conduct was illegal,” Nakajima said. “I don’t see a clear argument to that effect in this case.”
Ordonez said in the weeks leading up to the Town Meeting that she participated in numerous conversations about facts about the project.
“Though I don’t wish to offend anyone in our community, I have to say I’m deeply concerned about the types of accusations that have been launched against me and my colleagues for supporting this project,” Ordonez said.
Over 10 months on the board, Ordonez said she has seen members ridiculed and shamed, accused of wrongdoing without proof and portrayed in Machiavellian terms
“It is highly inappropriate to imply that members of this committee have committed illegal acts or have acted unethically because they dared take a position on a matter that is not actively before this committee,” Ordonez said.
Hazzard said the project is out of the committee’s jurisdiction because its last vote on the project and grade configuration took place in January 2016. Hazzard added that she felt she had an ethical obligation, as a parent, to support the project.
“For people to attempt to suppress me from doing so via scare tactics and political maneuvering is shameful, I reject such operating and I will not allow it to guide my actions,” Hazzard said.
Appy said the Town Meeting matter was clearly not under School Committee jurisdiction and the Open Meeting Law complaint serves as distraction.
Only Douangmany Cage said the complaint might be legitimate, noting that other actions have occurred without her knowledge, such as a letter sent by board members to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education last summer requesting help in dealing with internal divisions.
“So there is precedence that there have been private meetings involving school committee matters that I have not been part of,” Douangmany Cage said.
How the attorney general’s office will handle a matter submitted by someone now deceased is unknown, but Kelley asked that members be fined if a determination came in his favor.
According to the state’s Open Meeting Law, “As a general rule, any matter of public business on which a quorum of the public body may make a decision or recommendation is considered a matter within the jurisdiction of the public body.”
But the law also specifically exempts Town Meeting from aspects of it.
“Town Meetings, which are subject to other legal requirements, are not governed by the Open Meeting Law,” the law states.
Meanwhile, Shutesbury resident Michael Hootstein on Tuesday filed an identical Open Meeting Law complaint against the same committee members, which he noted was “filed in honor of citizen journalist Larry Kelley.”
Hootstein is asking for $5,000 penalties to be assessed against the three members if a violation is found.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com
