Open Meeting Report Complaints - Feel Like Filing One?

We recently requested copies of the Board Meeting minutes for September and the prior 6 meetings from Rick Veilleux. Mr. Veilleux denied a portion of our request, specifically related to Executive Session minutes. We take issue with this and question the legality of his denial and the purpose behind many of the Executive Sessions themselves. We believe that in an effort to gain the attention necessary to initiate positive change within our school, the more parents that send this letter, the more likely this issue is to gain their attention. We are asking that any parent feeling comfortable doing so, file complaints. After speaking with our contact at the Attorney General’s Office, the complaint procedure includes two options which we have completed the dialogue portion of (bolded text)

The first involves filing a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office using the complaint form located here (Attorney General's Complaint Form - Open Meeting. While some information will require your personal information, we have completed the dialogue portion of the complaint if you prefer not to compose your own.

The second option involves contacting the Supervisor of Records within William Galvins Office, Secretary of the Commonwealth. For this complaint we have included pre-written letters that require little more than the inserting of personal information.

~~~~~~~Should you decide to send your own request for minutes ~~~~~~~

October 26, 2010

Mr. Rick Veilleux

Mystic Valley Regional Charter School
671 Salem Street

Malden, MA, 02148

Re: Massachusetts Public Records Request

Dear Mr. Veilleux:

This is a request under the Massachusetts Public Records Law (M. G. L. Chapter 66, Section 10).

I am requesting that I be provided a copy of the following records:

            A copy of Board of Trustees Open & Executive Meeting Minutes Jan 2010 – Sep 2010

I recognize that you do charge reasonable costs for copies, as well as for personnel time needed to comply with this request.  If you expect costs to exceed $10.00, please provide a detailed fee estimate.

As you may be aware, the Public Records Law requires you to provide me with a written response within 10 calendar days.  If you cannot comply with my request, you are statutorily required to provide an explanation in writing.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Your Address
City, State, Zip Code
Telephone Number [Optional]

~~~~~~~~~~The Complaint Process -- Attorney General's Office ~~~~~~~~~~

The complaint form for the Attorney General’s office can be found at Attorney General's Complaint Form - Open Meeting law and requests your personal information along with the following:

OPEN MEETING LAW COMPLAINT FORM

Office of the Attorney General One Ashburton Place Boston, MA 02108

Open Meeting Reports Anyone?

     We feel all parents and members of the MVRCS community, as permissible by law, are entitled to view a copy of the minutes from both the Open & Executive session meetings. We have been working towards obtaining them but have hit a road block as the school has refused to turn release the Executive Session minutes stating that they are protected from publishing. We go into the law that they are basing their actions on but feel that the minutes should be reviewed by the Attorney General to ensure that they not only exist but that the discussions are refined to the subject matters permissible under the Executive Session laws. We feel that this would be best obtained by having numerous parents make the request and go through the progress so that the matter receives the attention we feel it deserves. If you would be interested and willing to file a complaint, please see below for the required steps.
    Under Mass State laws, the school is required to keep minutes on both the open portion of the meeting, as well as the Executive Sessions.Individuals may request a copy of both minutes and the school must provide them within 10 days with the exception of portions of the Executive Session "may be withheld from disclosure to the public in their entirety.....defeat the lawful purposes of the executive session, but no longer" (see actual law below). Additionally, the Board may only enter into Executive session under a very limited number of certain circumstances (i.e. to discuss specific issues). We have included a list of these ten purposes along with the law in its entirety further down within this post.
       That being said, we have been volleying back and forth with Rick Veilleux from the school regarding getting copies of the minutes from not just the last meeting, but from the last 6 meetings. The school has chosen to require us to pay .20 per page for a copy of these minutes (which  is permissible by law) and that we are willing to pay for. We are unaware and unable to locate Agenda's for past meetings (they are not posted online as this one was) but apparently they do exist.  We do have a copy of the Agenda from the September 15, meeting and it reads as follows regarding the Executive Session:

Transportation Issue per DESE

In light of the on-going discussion and debate concerning the bus issues at MVRCS, we reached out to Jay Sullivan who handles transportation and reimbursement issues at the DESE. He did in fact acknowledge that MVRCS has been notified that they must provide transportation to any student who lives 2.0 miles from school. According to Mr. Sullivan, since buses do not fly, MVRCs can not determine a students eligibility for busing based on linear mileage. He suggested using Mapqest (mapquest.com) to determine the most 'common route' (and therefore mileage) to school. The unfortunate part is that although Mr. Sullivan was informed that no announcement was made on the part of the school, according to the rules or laws of the DESE, they are not required to do so. Even more unfortunately, the Mr. Sullivan was not concerned about the schools unwillingness to rectify or properly inform parents since being informed of their mistake. He did however suggest that parents who have have not had their transportation issue rectified, contact the school (specifically Rick Veilleux at either 781-324-1875 or 978-667-0109 or you can email him at rveilleux@mvrcs.org).
If you are still unable to rectify the situation with Mr. Veilleux, then Mr. Jay Sullivan should be contacted @ 781-338-6594).