Council Subcommittee Held Secret Meetings – Complaint Filed

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As I researched the chain of events that led to the Real Estate Acquisition & Disposition Committee’s recommendation to the Town Council regarding Daley Court I found something odd. The committee never gave such a recommendation… or at least according to the town website they didn’t. After visiting the Town Council office I learned that the Real Estate Acquisition & Disposition committee had held two secret meetings in May in which they made decisions on Daley Court and the Kilty Farms property.

According to the FOI act the town is required to give at least 24 hours notice on the town website whenever a special meeting of any of it’s bodies are called. This is to ensure that the public can attend if they so choose. After all, the public comment section of the agenda is pointless if the public isn’t notified.

No notice was filed for either the 05/14/09 or 05/19/09 Real Estate Acquisition & Disposition Committee meetings on the town website and minutes for the 05/14/09 meeting, in which the Daley Court recommendation was made, were not even posted until 06/11/09, the day after I made a trip to the council office to figure out what happened.

In response I have filed an appeal (complaint) with the State FOI Commission in response to these violations of the FOI act seeking an order against such secret meetings and a nullification of any business conducted in those meetings.

Here is the complaint.
Real Estate Acquisition & Disposition Committee FOI Complaint

My public comment for Tuesday night (assuming this doesn’t kill the agenda item) is still being written and so far is far too long and hasn’t covered all the bases. There is a lot wrong with how this project is being moved along and sadly it appears that nobody even knows it’s wrong because it’s how things are done in East Hartford… wrong.