Informational Meetings, November 17, 2012 and Others

One item that Sullivan County Superior Court found in favor of the VDE officials was pertaining to the ECA/VDE Joint Meeting of November 17, 2012; on the basis that VDE Commissioner Sullivan attended that session as a private citizen.

Our Court filing was based on the New Hampshire Attorney General's July 15, 2009 Advisory Memorandum concerning NH Right to Know Law RSA 91–A. That Memorandum states the following:

   "IV Meetings

       A. What constitutes a meeting of a public body?

2. When members of a public body constituting a quorum find themselves together either coincidentally or when gathering for a purpose other than discussing or acting upon a matter or matters over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power, communications between the members shall not be used to circumvent the spirit and purpose of the Right to Know law-- RSA 91-A: 2-a, II. The convening of a quorum of a public body that does not have a purpose to discuss or act on business could easily constitute a meeting...."

G. Minutes are a permanent part of the body's records and must be written and open to public inspection not more than five business days after the meeting. RSA 91-A:2, II there are no exceptions to this requirement for minutes of open meetings....."

The VDE Officials’ position regarding the November 17, 2012 ECA Forum, that it was not a public meeting, means the following was accomplished by the Village District of Eastman Commissioners and ECA Board Members:

• No person was allowed to record the meeting
•  No videotapes, cameras or other such equipment was authorized to be used by the assembled parties
•  No meeting minutes were kept and did not include:

        (1) the names of the members present

        (2) the names of the people appearing before the Board

        (3) a brief description of each subject discussed

       

Simply put, this means any document produced by the Eastman Sewer Company or the ECA Board is a fabrication that serves the agenda of the ECA Board and ECA Council President. This is the standard practice of all forums run by Eastman governance. It enables governance members to author whatever they please and claim whatever they wish. It is clearly in direct conflict with any open transparent governance that one might claim exists within the Eastman community.

Submitted by Robert Logan--40 year resident of Eastman