By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — Dozens of town staff and members of boards and commissions attended training sessions on the state’s Freedom of Information Act on Thursday.

A 3 p.m. session in the Town Hall auditorium drew about five dozen attendees. The 7 p.m. session had only about a half-dozen.

Eileen Francis, the selectwomen’s office manager, began the first session by saying the sessions had been in the planning stages for months, after the town government endured the COVID lockdown.

Town Attorney Ira Bloom made a point of saying he believes the Town Attorney’s Office is not a public agency, but several lawyers from a firm hired by the town.

He said questions would be welcomed, but asked that any issues before an agency not be brought up.

The training might have been in the works for some time, but it was timely.

Some current and former officials have recently raised questions about open-meeting law compliance.

In February, at a meeting of the Transit Committee of the Representative Town Meeting, concerns were expressed about FOI compliance after Transit Director Peter Gold, also an RTM member, said First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker had formed a committee to study whether the district should merge with a neighboring transit district or remain independent.

Many had never heard about the new group, including an RTM member on the Transit Committee and a former Transit District director in the audience.

A request by the Westport Journal to the town clerk, citing FOI, for meeting notices, agendas and minutes regarding the group shed no light.

Questions also arose after Tooker made mentions of an ongoing Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Task Force.

The Westport Journal sent a detailed email request for more information that body, citing FOI. Among the questions were who are the members? When did the group meet? When will it meet in the future?

The Journal received a brief reply from Bloom saying it was made up of staff, and not a public agency.

The Journal asked Russell Blair, director of education and communications for the FOI Commission, about the public agency status of such a group if it was given a task to solve, such as making recommendations on traffic and pedestrian safety issues.

“The FOI Commission does make exemptions for meetings of staff,” he said. “But if this is a task force or a working group, something created by the first selectwoman, then it would be considered a public agency,” Blair said.

Also, failure to post meeting agendas, raised by the Journal, forced cancellation of a meeting of the Aspetuck Health District directors earlier this month.

Thane Grauel, executive editor, grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 35 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.