The Board of Education is heading to the Freedom of Information Commission on March 11 to again resolve issues regarding executive sessions.
Board member Juan Arriola filed a complaint last fall concerning the September 25, 2024 meeting in which an executive session was held “To discuss an attorney-client privileged communication related to an employee.” The complaint alleges that “board members discussed a communication from the former principal’s attorney” during the executive session, thus the client “was the former principal, not the Board of Education.” Arriola also noted that the principal was no longer an employee when the executive session was conducted, and that the communication “does not claim pending legal action against the board.”
Arriola claimed that at the time “I could not address my concerns regarding the appropriateness of holding an executive session to discuss the matter because I was the only board member who was not sent the communication prior to the meeting, and therefore did not know its contents”. Though Arriola was the subject of the attorney’s correspondence, which lists as recipients all of the board members except Arriola, he did not receive it until September 28 in response to a Freedom of Information request.
The second complaint concerns the October 23 meeting when an Executive Session was held for a “discussion concerning an attorney-client privileged communication regarding a complaint pertaining to the conduct of a Board member.” When Arriola was informed that he was the subject, his request for an open session was denied, the complaint states, because of a communication from the board’s attorney on the matter. According to the governing statutes, persons being discussed during executive sessions have the right to an open, rather than a closed, session. In his complaint, Arriola suggests that “while the attorney client privileged information was appropriately held in a closed session, the rest of the executive session…should have been held in an open session, per my request”.
Arriola requested that both parties use the commission’s ombudsman program to resolve the issues, so that taxpayers wouldn’t incur exorbitant legal expenses. Though board members never discussed the possibility, or even the complaints themselves, as of press time, Superintendent Skarzynski and Arriola have both been in contact with the commission in the hopes of resolving the first complaint and sparing the town the legal fees associated with the hearing.
Last year, the Board of Education spent approximately $5,000 arguing the case against Arriola regarding former Superintendent Sarli’s presence at an executive session, with commissioners unanimously siding with the hearing officer’s decision that concluded the school board breached the statute regarding attendance at closed executive sessions. The board spent an additional $2,264 when attorneys representing them asked to reopen the hearing, a request that was denied by the commission. At no time did the board vote or even discuss the complaints and how to proceed in resolving them.
Though the board budgeted $20,000 for legal expenses in FY2023-2024 to cover contract negotiations, which ultimately cost only $5,194, $46,998 was spent. Of that amount, approximately $18,000 was spent on the investigation of a complaint lodged against former principal Patrice Merendina by former custodian Armin Harris, though the board did not vote to hire attorneys to investigate the complaint and has yet to review the results of the investigation. A Freedom of Information request for the report remains unanswered.
Gazette Staff