Unsealed Non-Public Board of Selectmen Minutes of February 27, 2023
Complaint against the former Interim Town Administrator filed by the former Fire Chief.
In response to a right-to-know request, the Board of Selectmen reviewed the minutes of their February 27 meeting and determined that it was appropriate to unseal them. The request to make these minutes public is associated with the previously reported conflict between the town’s former Interim Town Administrator and former Fire Chief. About this, the minutes say little but this:
“John Scruton was not present and Fire chief was present for a discussion.
Fire Chief left and John Scruton returned.”
And
“Respectfully submitted,
John Scruton, Interim Town Administrator”
In other words, the Interim Town Administrator was the one taking minutes. He was asked to leave the room for the Fire Chief’s presentation, during which no minutes were kept.
According to the New Hampshire Municipal Association:
“...it is best to exclude anyone whose presence is not essential. This may mean excusing the town administrator and/or the recording secretary and instead having one of the board members take minutes. Whether to do this is a judgment call to be made by the board….
In many cases, the issues around the sealing of minutes can be avoided by keeping very simple minutes that do not contain confidential information. If there is nothing confidential or inflammatory in the minutes, then there probably is no reason to seal them, and a problem is avoided.
The law requires only that the minutes include the names of members present, names of persons appearing before the public body, and “a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions.” Thus, depending on the circumstances, it might be perfectly legitimate for the minutes to simply list the people present and then state:
“The board heard a complaint about a town employee. The town administrator was asked to obtain further information and report to the board.”
OR
“The board received an update on the litigation involving John Doe. No decisions were made.“
In the first case, there probably is no need to include any more information about the complaint. In the second case, no purpose would be served by describing all of the questions that were asked or the strategic discussions about the litigation.”
[Commentary: While it might have been better for the minutes to be clearer about what it was that the Fire Chief said that required the Interim Town Administrator to be required to leave the room, from context it is clear enough that the Fire Chief complained to the board about the Interim Town Administrator. As any decision by the board must by law be recorded in the minutes, presumably the board took no action on the complaint.]