Maine has rules that force public business to be done in public. It’s important that elected officials take them seriously.
A story last week out of Winslow shows why.
Jerry Quirion, who has served on the Winslow Town Council for 12 years, told the Morning Sentinel that other councilors get together regularly in private to discuss municipal matters ahead of their official meetings. Quirion said the meetings, which take place at a property owned by council chairman Peter Drapeau, have been going on for at least a couple of years.
Drapeau said the allegations are false, and that they are the result of a feud between Quirion and himself and other councilors.
Thankfully, Bill Lee, the town’s attorney, will now investigate the claims. Winslow residents deserve to know what’s going on.
Even by Drapeau’s own admission, Winslow councilors are at the very least pushing the envelope when it comes to Maine’s open meeting laws. Those actions are making some Winslow residents suspicious of their government. That’s the council’s fault, and they need to take steps to remedy it.
Maine’s laws say that governing bodies such as town councils and boards of selectmen, with few exceptions, must conduct business in public. Discussions on nearly all matters must be held entirely in view of the public, with extensive minutes kept of the meeting. Votes must be taken in public.
And, that means that at no time can a voting quorum of the body — in Winslow’s case, four members of the seven-member council — meet outside of public view and discuss public business.
It’s a rule for a reason. If four councilors meet at a private residence to discuss how to vote on town business, the town’s residents are robbed of that deliberation. They’ll never get to hear how the decision was arrived at, or what trade-offs were considered. It keeps the public in the dark, and lets elected officials get by without explaining themselves. It leads to poor decision-making, and poor behavior, and makes the public worry about the intentions of their local government.
Even if councilors are following the letter of the law, they may not be following its intent, with much the same results. There’s nothing in the rules to prevent two or three councilors from getting together and talking town business. But it would be very easy for a group of councilors to coordinate their views and votes over a series of small private meetings without ever having a quorum. Just the suggestion that such meetings may be taking place is enough to make residents leery of their elected officials.
“With a seven-member council, if there are three together, it’s not a violation,” Lee, the town attorney, told the Sentinel. “However, I don’t encourage it because it’s easy for public perception to be that meetings are being held in private.”
Some councilors don’t feel the same way, unfortunately. Drapeau told the Sentinel that it’s necessary for councilors to discuss town business outside of public meetings. At a recent council meeting, Councilor Dale Macklin, who Quirion also accused of attending the secret meetings, told residents the same thing.
Why did the matter come up? Because residents were worried that the meetings the Town Council were holding in public were moving too fast and with too little discussion — as if the councilors arrived already knowing how the vote was going to go.
Regardless of whether four Winslow councilors are meeting secretly, or if it’s just two or three at any one time, residents are losing faith in their elected officials. When that happens, elected officials must take it seriously.
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