Woburn Library Board Among 2021's Worst Open Meeting Violations

WOBURN, MA — The Woburn Public Library Board of Trustees was responsible for one of just five cases of intentional violations of the Open Meetings Law found by Attorney General Maura Healey last year, Healey's office said in its annual report on the law.

In the report, released Jan. 31, Assistant Attorney General Carrie Benedon said the office made 112 determinations of Open Meeting Law violations in 2021, but just five were intentional, as first reported by Commonwealth Magazine.

In Woburn, Benedon said, a quorum of the Board of Trustees held two secret meetings which were not posted to the public or even shared with two trustees who disagreed with the majority of the board on proposed staff layoffs.

"During these two meetings, the participating Board members authorized paying a public relations firm and hiring legal counsel to represent the Board," Benedon wrote. "There is no more basic requirement of the Open Meeting Law than that meetings of public bodies be open to the public; therefore, we found that even if these two meetings were not held with specific intent to violate the Open Meeting Law, then at the very least they were undertaken with deliberate ignorance of the Law’s requirements."

Healey did not impose any fines only because the trustees involved had resigned after the meetings came to light, her office said when releasing the finding in July. But the current members were ordered to approve meeting minutes as best they can and to take an Open Meetings Law training with the Attorney General's Office within three months.

Other intentional violations were found on the part of the Great Barrington Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, the Ashland Select Board, the Swansea Board of Selectmen and Malden City Council.

The letter traces the violations back to a spring 2020 discussion of proposed library layoffs. A controversy grew around the proposed staff cuts, the board, and then-Library Director Bonnie Roalsen until a Jan. 19 meeting where one of the secret meetings came to light.

In the fallout of that meeting, Mayor Scott Galvin introduced legislation to change the library's leadership structure and seven trustees, the director and the assistant director all resigned.

"Due to these resignations, the evidence available during our investigation was at times limited," Assistant Attorney General Sarah Monahan wrote.

As of February, the board still only has five members, the minimum needed for a quorum of the nine-member body.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.

An earlier version of this story attributed the report directly to Healey, rather than to her office. It has been updated to reflect Assistant Attorney General Carrie Benedon authored the report.