Woodbury Board of Finance Warned of Potential FOI Infractions

After looking through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for email correspondences between the members of the Board of Finance, Woodbury’s town attorney sent a letter to the board members warning them against holding what could be constituted as illegal meetings.

The emails (see some above), going back to Jan. 1, 2012, set meeting times and agendas — legal under the FOI Act — but also include some planning and more substantial discussions and at least one reference suggesting a “pre-meeting.”

“A thorough review of the email exchanges provided indicate that some of those emails fall on each side of the equation,” attorney Paul Jessell wrote in the executed opinion sent to the BOF. “While some of the emails appear to be merely informational about upcoming meetings, others are far more substantive.”

Jessell points to discussions about altering meeting minutes in a Sept. 17 email.

“This is just the type of discussion that should be held in an open forum, and the tenor of the email exchange is that the decision to make the changes has already been made through the email discourse,” Jessell writes.

Jessell also cites a board member’s suggestion in a May 31 email to hold a “pre-meeting” before a scheduled meeting to discuss the School Resource Officer program.

“I am not sure what was intended by that comment, but it would not appear to comport with the open meeting provisions of the [Freedom of Information] Act,” he wrote.

First Selectman Gerald Stomski, who is running for reelection in November, said he doesn’t want to pursue the issue during a campaign when it could seem politically motivated.

(Board of Finance Chairman Bill Butterly challenged Stomski for the Republican Party nomination earlier this year and petitioned onto the November ballot.)

Stomski said he forwarded the letter on to the Board of Finance members and won’t be taking any further action unless directed to by the town attorney.

“Just keep your business in the public limelight where it belongs,” he said.

Butterly said he does believe the FOI request was meant to be political retribution but targeted at the Board of Finance’s actions rather than his own.

Butterly contends that the probe was triggered by the board’s questioning of certain expenditures approved by the Business Office, namely fencing around the skate park and security cameras installed in the Shove Building that were not specifically appropriated for.

The BOF has attorney Jessell’s letter on its agenda for Wednesday night (7:30 p.m. in the Shove Building) and will discuss how to proceed as a body.