The Rhode Island Attorney General recently ruled that the Barrington School Committee violated the state’s Open Meetings Act when it convened in executive session to interview the construction firms that bid on the district’s school renovation project.

The Attorney General stopped short of imposing a fine against the school committee or taking any action in Superior Court.

“We further do not find, based on the totality of the evidence, that the Committee’s violations of the OMA were willful or knowing,” wrote Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. He added, however, “We remind the Committees that this finding serves as notice that the actions and omissions discussed herein violate the OMA and may serve as evidence of a willful and knowing violation in any similar future situation.”

The decision stemmed from a complaint filed by Barrington resident and former Barrington Town Council member Jacob Brier, and focused primarily on the Feb. 27 meeting of the Barrington School Committee and Barrington School Building Committee.

In his Feb. 28 email to the Attorney General, Brier wrote that there were “multiple violations of the OMA, specifically related to closed-door discussions of a bid award.”

Brier’s email included a list of alleged violations including the convening of a public body without a posted agenda, and a representative of the school committee telling a meeting attendee that they could not take a picture or record the proceedings of the open meeting. 

Brier’s email listed eight alleged infractions. The AG’s decision found two violations. 

The first violation was that the Barrington School Committee and School Building Committee violated the OMA when it met in a closed session to discuss bids submitted by construction management services firms under the law that permits a body to do so for “discussion of the job performance, character, or physical or mental health of a person or persons.”

The Attorney General said the reasons for meeting in executive session did not include discussing firms or corporations.

“The plain language of the statute provides no indication that this provision would also apply to non-human entities such as a firm or corporation,” stated the Attorney General’s decision. 

The second violation was based on a complaint that the school district’s OPM (owners project manager) told a meeting attendee they could not record the meeting. The Barrington School Committee argued to the AG that “neither it, nor the superintendent, prohibited the recording of the open session and that if the OPM did prohibit the act, he did so without the school committee’s knowledge or approval. 

That did not matter to the AG.

“Although we appreciate that the School District’s OPM may not have had the authority to speak on behalf of the School Committee, it is undisputed that when the incident occurred the OPM, who was employed by the School District, was ‘presiding over the meeting, introducing guest presenters, facilitating the Q&A after each presentation, and the like.”

The AG stated that it was the School Committee’s responsibility to ensure that anyone who could be perceived as having authority to speak on behalf of the Committee knew what they could and could not instruct audience members to do. 

“The School Committee also does not proffer any evidence disputing that the OPM prohibited the recording of the meeting,” Neronha wrote in the decision. 

The Barrington Times reached out to the chairman of the school committee, TJ Peck, on Monday afternoon. Peck said the OPM has no recollection of telling anyone that they could not record the meeting. 

Peck also said the Attorney General’s decision runs counter to the legal advice his board received from their attorney regarding the executive session meeting, and added that the Attorney General’s ruling could have a chilling effect on school departments and municipal governments in the future as they deliberate over bid awards.

Peck shared a written statement with the Times regarding the AG’s decision:

“It important to note, that the selection of Shawmut was for preconstruction services only. Shawmut receives a fee of $27,950 per month to participate in the advancement of the architectural drawings of the project and provide the project management team with expertise in cost estimating and logistics.  Selecting which firm or firms that will act as general contractor to build the projects will be a future school committee decision.

“The process of holding discussions in executive session to review organizations was precleared with our attorney and is a widespread practice among Rhode Island municipalities. As the AG office indicates in their opinion, they found that the Open Meetings Act violation was neither “willful or knowing” on behalf of the school committee and that their office has never been asked to review the ability for Rhode Island governmental bodies to review organizations in executive session.

“Four of the five school committee members do not have experience in construction and had requested to hear from both the project management team and members of the Barrington School Building Committee about their thoughts on the firms. Both the project management team and the volunteer members of the school building committee work with all of the firms that interviewed and communicated the difficulty of providing candid feedback on the firms in open session as it could have a detrimental effect on their careers and businesses. 

“Individuals who are purporting that the school committee acted with bad intent are misrepresenting the attorney general’s opinion letter and are part of a group of individuals who regularly attack the school committee’s action through repeated misrepresentation of material facts.”

Brier’s email

In an interview on Monday, Brier said that he sent the email to the Attorney General’s office after he attended the Feb. 27 meeting of the Barrington School Committee and School Building Committee and witnessed numerous issues. He said that the complaints focused on the closed door meeting to discuss the school construction bid award and the OPM telling an audience member to not record the open portion of the meeting — both of which led to OMA violations — were the areas of substance. 

Brier said he was frustrated and disappointed by the Committee’s actions that led to the violations. Brier said that while the Attorney General stopped short of imposing a fine, he believes the public becoming aware of the Committee’s violations is penalty enough. 

Brier said he would like to see the details of what was discussed in the executive session meeting in question and an acknowledgement, if not an apology, for the breach of the public’s trust. Brier said he would also like to know what processes and policies are being put in place so that the Committees did not repeat the actions that led to the OMA violations. 

Brier said he was particularly frustrated with the situation because the chairman of the Barrington School Committee campaigned on improved transparency.

Brier also said his decision to send an email to the Attorney General’s office was not politically motivated. Brier is a Democrat, while the majority of the School Committee are Independents. 

“If this issue was about me, I’d point to my record of addressing process and transparency concerns I see across the political spectrum including colleagues in my own party. But it’s not about me,” Brier wrote in a follow-up statement. “Even if a person were to have dismissed the complaint because of their views of me, the fact is the Attorney General affirmed the core issues in the allegation and determined that the School Committee did violate the OMA. That should disabuse anybody of the false notion that this is about partisanship.”