NEW GLOUCESTER — All five selectmen were not trained or certified in the Freedom of Access Act at the time the Sun Journal filed a FOAA request for copies of their certificates but have since completed the legal requirement.
Copies of their certifications, which were requested Nov. 19, were sent to the Sun Journal on Wednesday. According to Maine law, town officials are required to complete the certification process within 90 days of being elected.
Town Manager Sumner Field III, who is the freedom of information officer for the town, received training in 2012 but did not file his certification until Nov. 20 of this year, according to a copy of the document sent to the newspaper.
Also on Nov. 19, the Sun Journal filed a FOAA request for a copy of a memo by Field to the board, and mentioned by Chairman Steve Libby, in regards to a controversial executive session Nov. 4.
After that executive session, which was attended by Field and the town’s attorney, the board voted 3-2 in public session to cut the bookkeeper’s position from 40 hours to 24 hours per week and eliminate all benefits, and to create an interim finance director position for six months starting Jan. 2. The finance director will be paid from savings from the bookkeeper’s position and from the town’s administrative account.
Selectmen Josh McHenry and Mark Stevens rejected the motion; Libby, Linda Chase and Nathaniel Berry voted for it.
Bookkeeper Sandra Sacco, a 25-year employee of the town, said she was not advised of the executive session and learned about it the next day.
Responding to the Sun Journal’s request for the memo, Field said, “The town has reviewed your request and has determined that we have no public documents responsive to your request. The Board of Selectmen voted to go into executive session … to discuss the employment, assignment and duties of employees; the employee who was the subject of the executive session was present during the meeting. Thus any documents produced for the purpose of the executive session are not public records.”
Field confirmed Wednesday that he was the employee referred to in his response.
Selectman Josh McHenry opposed the executive session, saying it did not meet the precise requirements of the law, whereby an employee’s performance was being evaluated and needed protection.
“I am confused,” McHenry said Wednesday. “We did not discuss his (Field’s) performance, but the conversation was about organization and not exclusively about the town manager. His duties are public record, his performance is not public record.
“There is nothing to protect insofar as the town manager’s performance,” he said. “I would have a hard time reconciling that statement about the employee and content of the memo and the content of the executive session.
McHenry said his frustration increased trying to learn how the town manager responded to the Sun Journal’s information request.
“I made several attempts to find out the status of the response to the paper,” he said, but got no information from the town manager. Eventually, Libby responded to him in an email, McHenry said.
He said Libby’s response read: “We have a manager plan and he shouldn’t take direction from members, and this matter is quite sensitive.”
“There is nothing to protect,” McHenry said.
The executive session and resulting vote prompted an outcry by residents, who spoke against the action for two hours at the board’s Nov. 18 meeting. Residents asked the board to rescind its vote of Nov. 4.
The board refused, with Libby, Chase and Berry opposed and McHenry and Stevens in favor.
On Monday, Sacco tendered her resignation, citing a hostile work environment as the reason.
Selectmen will meet at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 2, at the Meetinghouse. Two items on the agenda are action in regard to a severance package and action on organizational changes. No further details for those two issues are listed on the agenda.
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