By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Two public boards’ failure to follow state Freedom of Information regulations forced cancellation of one meeting Monday, and last-minute publication of an agenda for another.

The Board of Directors of the Aspetuck Health District, a regional agency serving Westport, Weston and Easton with headquarters in Westport, cancelled its “special meeting” planned at 7 p.m. Monday, March 20, after the Town Clerk’s Office informed Mark Cooper, the district’s director, the meeting notice did not include an agenda.

An agenda, as required by the FOI law, must be posted at least 24 hours before a public board or agency’s in-person meeting, which means it should have been posted by end of the business day last Friday, March 17.

Town officials were notified about the lack of an agenda by the Westport Journal on Monday morning.

Town Clerk Jeffrey Dunkerton said Monday morning that since the Health District is not strictly a Westport government body, the regional agency could have met FOI requirements by posting an agenda on its district website. However, by 5 p.m. Friday, there was no notification of the original meeting — with an agenda — on the health district’s website, or on the Westport, Weston or Easton town websites.

Later Monday, the health district’s website had a notice stating Monday’s meeting was cancelled “due to scheduling conflicts.” A notice of the meeting cancellation also was mailed to those on a subscription list for westportct@public.govdelivery.com at 9:45 a.m. Monday.

Dunkerton said that although an agenda posted on the district’s website would have sufficed to comply with FOI rules, the district usually posts its meeting notices — although often without the required agenda — on the town’s “Meeting List & Calendar.”

“I don’t want them to get in that habit — if they post their notice on our website I want them to have an agenda,” the town clerk said of all town bodies.

Computers blamed, but earlier agendas also missing

Cooper said Monday afternoon the agenda was mailed electronically the previous Thursday, March 16. The reason it did not get posted on the town’s website, he told the Wesport Journal, is “because of computer problems. We have a new computer system and it did not get on there,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, we’ve gone to a different computer system — stuff is going to the cloud.”

However, a check of the town’s list of earlier meetings and agendas shows that none of the health agency’s meeting notices since September 2022 included an agenda. There did not seem to be any record of past meeting agendas on the health district’s website either.

“Our meetings are always open to the public,” Cooper said.

“Human error” cited for senior services board misstep

The other town meeting notice that did not include an agenda was the Commission on Senior Services for a meeting scheduled at 10 a.m. Monday. 

As with the health district meeting, no agenda was attached to the meeting notice on the town website as of 5 p.m. the prior business day. However, after the issue was reported to the Town Clerk’s Office by the Westport Journal, the meeting’s missing agenda was emailed via the subscriber list at 9:25 a.m. Monday — 35 minutes before the meeting was supposed to start.

Elaine Daignault, director of the town’s Human Services Department, said when she investigated the omission of the required agenda for Monday’s meeting, she was pleased to see there was a time stamp of March 3 on the printed version given to the Town Clerk’s Office. But the agenda usually posted by her staff was “not posted electronically,” she said. “It was human error; we’ll do better next time. We’re not happy about it.”

Compliance by “transit study group” questioned

Questions about other Westport government bodies not following FOI regulations also arose Feb. 22 at a meeting of the Representative Town Meeting’s Transit Committee when it was revealed that meetings of a “transit study group” had neither been announced publicly nor were there any records of its meetings.

Since the study group apparently includes at least three elected officials its legality was questioned by Sal Liccione, RTM member from District 9, and Jennifer Johnson, a former Transit District director and RTM member. 

FOI rules ensure transparency, accountability 

The state’s Freedom of Information laws are designed to ensure transparency in government and to keep the public informed of the discussions, decisions and actions of municipal agencies. 

According to Russell Blair, director of education and communications for the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, appointed and elected officials don’t always understand the law.

For example, “people have to be careful of what things come up in public comment” at meetings of boards and commissions, he said Monday.

“It’s fine if they bring up public issues, but if the board begins to deliberate the issues, it should be on the agenda.”

If a board’s members were to start debating an issue not on the agenda, it requires a two-thirds vote of the board to add the item to the agenda for discussion. If the item is not formally added to an agenda “at that meeting it would not be proper for the board to begin the discussion,” Blair said.

He also noted that agendas for all public meetings must be posted 24 hours ahead of the meeting, although the meeting notice and the online link for a virtual meeting must be posted 48 hours in advance. He believes the timing difference was adopted during the COVID pandemic, when online government meetings became the norm, to assure that technical difficulties wouldn’t stall a meeting. 

Blair also explained that although details of an agenda item are “not specifically spelled out in the law … it needs to be something so that people can be reasonably apprised” of the item’s purpose.

An agenda that simply says “contract” or “personnel matter,” for instance “needs to be more specific … The item needs to give sufficient information so that somebody can figure out what’s going on.”

The first selectwoman’s office has planned a March 30 meeting for Westport department heads, staff and elected and appointed officials on the Freedom of Information Act. There will be two sessions — one at 3 p.m. and the other at 7 p.m. — in Town Hall, according to Tom Kiely, operations director for the first selectwoman.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.