Wayland Open Meeting Law Violations Lead To New Guidance

WAYLAND, MA — The state Attorney General's Office has ruled that the Wayland Board of Selectmen violated the Open Meeting Law multiple times in 2018 and 2019 during negotiations with town unions.

The Board of Selectmen is now issuing new guidance to town boards and commissions to avoid violations in the future.

Wayland resident George Harris reported the possible violations to the AG's office in 2019, alleging that the Selectmen did not properly communicate before entering executive session to discussion negotiations with unions representing town employees, among other errors.

The AG's office found the following violations:

• At a Jan. 7, 2019, meeting, the Selectmen failed to conduct a roll-call vote — where each member's name and vote is said out loud — on a move into executive session.
• The board failed to identify the unions it was going to negotiate with in a meeting notice posted on May 13. Karlson also did not announce the specific unions before entering executive session during the Feb. 4 and May 13 meetings.
• The Board waited until February 2020 to approve executive session minutes from the Nov. 25, Dec. 9 and Dec. 16 executive session meetings in 2019. Minutes are supposed to be approved within 30 days or three meetings of a meeting under the Open Meetings Law.
• And finally, notices for the Oct. 15 and Oct. 29, 2018, meetings did not provide sufficient detail about why there was a need to hold executive sessions. That's because the notice used the acronym "PEC" in reference to the Wayland Public Employee Committee union.

The new guidance warns town boards to be very detailed when posting meeting notices and agendas, to always approve meeting minutes within 30 days and to hold roll-call votes during Zoom sessions.

"It is highly likely that violations are occurring, not due to malice or intent, but to lack of awareness of the very strict OML requirements or honest mistakes that may potentially be the subject of an OML complaint," the guidance says.