Secrecy on Wellesley Land Purchase Questioned: Amy E. Serino Quoted in Wellesley Townsman

The issue concerns a possible violation of the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law, when members of the Wellesley Board of Selectmen discussed approaching a Town Meeting member to ask him to present a motion about a land purchase at a Special Town Meeting. The chair of the town’s Board of Selectmen confirmed that the board decided “among themselves,” possibly via “one-on-one conversations” to approach that Town Meeting member.

The Open Meetings statute does not apply to "chance" or "social" meetings, but those types of encounters cannot be used to circumvent the spirit or requirements of the law to make governmental decisions in a public forum.  According to Amy Serino, “The purpose of the law is to permit the public to see government in action; obviously that can’t happen if decisions are being made in private conversations. Whether or not there was a technical violation here, it certainly sounds as if the spirit of the law may have been circumvented.”

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