Critics of Northampton Mayor Mary Clare Higgins have long charged---both anonymously, on the MassLive Northampton Forum, and openly, on the listserv maintained by the Paradise City Forum, that the mayor is in the habit of making decisions "behind closed doors."
The burden of proof in these allegations has, until now, lain with the accusers. It now, I believe, lies with the Mayor of Northampton. Why destroy public records? And what's with City Solicitor Janet Sheppard--who, or what. is she protecting?
Here's a snip from Crowley's most recent article on the records purge, which appeared on July 14: (subscription required at gazettenet)
NORTHAMPTON - Recent closed-session meeting notes taken by a clerk were destroyed and deleted from computer files before they reached the City Council in the form of minutes for approval, the Gazette has learned.
That action is an apparent violation of the state's Public Records Law, according to the office of the secretary of state. Mayor Clare Higgins says she may seek an opinion from the attorney general's office on how the city is handing its executive-session minutes.
At-large City Councilor Michael R. Bardsley said he learned of the destruction of the notes in a phone conversation with the council's executive secretary, Mary L. Midura, who told him she was instructed by City Attorney Janet M. Sheppard to shred and delete them, according to Bardsley's account of that conversation.
Here's a snip from an editorial that appeared in the Gazette on July 13:
"Among the most recent minutes released are those of a nearly hour-long closed-door session in which the council ultimately voted to borrow $1.2 million to buy properties around the regional dump off Glendale Road. The move was reportedly made to end costly litigation that was continuing to spiral upward, but there is no record in the minutes of the council's May 21 deliberations, nor any record of the information presented to city leaders by attorneys on hand. In our opinion, this is wrong because, apart from a mayoral press release after the Gazette broke a story on the issue, the public will never fully know what transpired before the council that night.
The lack of these details not only stifles the public's right to know, but it flies in the face of the state attorney general's Open Meeting Law guidelines."
Those are strong words from the Gazette, a newspaper that has traditionally been reluctant to criticize Northampton's 5-term mayor.
Of course, since this is an election year, the mayor's supporters are out trying to deflect attention from this embarrassing and possibly damning topic, and trying to make the mud stick her political opponent in the upcoming race, Councilor Michael Bardsley.
Here's a letter to the editor penned by Valle Dwight, a mayoral cheerleader of long standing:
"As a former reporter who has dealt extensively with towns that did not follow either the letter or the spirit of the open meeting law, I was pleased to see this story about minutes of executive sessions of city council meetings. Northampton needs to give its citizens insight into how decisions are made.
However, the quote from Michael Bardsley: "I was surprised that the minutes were so devoid of content." is disingenuous at best. The city council votes to approve all minutes, including executive session minutes. I assume that he reads the minutes before he votes to approve them, so I don't know how this could possibly come as a surprise to him.
If he is a big proponent of transparency, why has he never spoken out about this in 16 years on the council, or why did he approve the minutes? I also wonder why Bardsley was the only councilor quoted for the story, especially without mentioning that he is running for mayor."
Here's Councilor Michael Bardsley's response, widely circulated on the web:
"In the recent Weekend Gazette (July 11-12) there appeared a letter to the editor by Ms Valle Dwight questioning my surprise over recent Northampton City Council executive session minutes which contained little or no information about the matters discussed in those meetings. For whatever reason, Ms Dwight's criticism of my response omitted some significant facts.
When the minutes of the executive sessions were presented to the council for approval, I questioned Mayor Higgins as to why there was virtually no content to those minutes. My memory was that minutes of previous executive sessions were more informative than the ones we were being asked to approve. Higgins' response was that the minutes being presented to the council were consistent with how the city handles executive minutes. Rightly or wrongly, I accepted the Mayor's explanation as being accurate and voted to approve.
Next morning I found myself still curious about those sparse minutes. I contacted Assistant City Clerk Lyn Simmons, the previous clerk to the city council, and asked about the executive session minutes she had taken. She stated that her minutes did indeed contain more information than those that the council had approved the night before. Apparently the Mayor had been incorrect.
I then contacted the current clerk to the council, Executive Secretary Mary Midura, and asked her if the minutes she had submitted were indeed the same set of minutes which appeared before the council. She stated that they were not. She further explained that she had submitted minutes containing information comparable to previous executive session minutes but City Solicitor Janet Sheppard had expunged all the content. When I asked Ms Midura if she still had those draft minutes, she stated that the City Solicitor had not only confiscated her draft minutes but had also instructed her to shred all her notes of those executive sessions and to delete the draft copy of those minutes from her computer.
I then questioned why Ms. Midura would follow the directives of the City Solicitor when her direct supervisor was the City Council President, James Dostal. She explained that Mr. Dostal had instructed her to do whatever the City Solicitor wanted her to do.
When Dan Crowley contacted me about my questioning of the executive session minutes the evening before, I shared with him the information I had learned from Ms Simmons and Ms Midura. When he asked if I was surprised that the minutes were void of content, I thought my positive response was quite understated. I have not said any more publicly on this issue because I first wanted to speak directly with the City Solicitor, whose has been out of town on vacation. However, Ms Dwight's partially informative letter could not go without a response.
Ms Dwight, let me be clear. In my sixteen years as a member of the Northampton City Council nothing comparable to this has ever happened. That is the only reason why I have spoken out at this time.
However, the truth be known, I am not surprised; but I am shocked."
