Board must conduct the people’s business in public

What is it that gives an elected board charged with serving the public credibility? Openness, attention to detail, understanding of its charge and an ability to fulfill it might all be good for starters. Conversely, what is it that might diminish such a board’s credibility? This question is more appropriate when talking about the current Winchester Board of Education (BOE). The behavior of this board has not helped its image in the community at large.Certainly, threatening a member of the press with police action does not make for good media relations for a town’s governmental board. Neither does finding ways to suppress and hinder the inspection of information relating to board business. Yet, the Winchester BOE did just that during a special meeting on Saturday, Sept. 17. Before the meeting, members of the press were handed a packet filled with documents by Superintendent of Schools Tom Danehy. As the meeting went on, Danehy said that he accidentally handed out a letter from the board’s attorney, Mark Sommaruga, to members of the press. Danehy then requested that reporters hand back the letter to him and cited attorney-client privilege. Winsted Journal reporter Shaw Izikson did not give the letter back at first and noted that once the letter is in the hands of the media, it becomes property of the media. Board member Paul O’Meara then threatened to call the police on Izikson if he did not give the letter back. O’Meara also threatened that the board could sue Izikson if he had read Sommaruga’s letter (he did — and reported on it. As of press time, The Journal has not received any notification of legal action from the board). Izikson eventually complied and gave back Sommaruga’s letter to Danehy, as did two other members of the press present at the meeting. Instead of threatening police action and lawsuits against a reporter, why couldn’t O’Meara have called for a recess to look into the laws regarding the situation? Also, in The Winsted Journal’s continuing quest to inspect and view emails regarding school district business sent by board members, the board imposed strict restrictions on inspecting these emails. This includes the barring of any type of recording materials, including notebooks, tape recorder or a camera, as the emails are inspected. With all of these threats of police action, lawsuits and excessive stipulations barring any type of recording materials as emails are inspected, it all comes back to the question that we asked in last week’s editorial: What is the Board of Education trying to hide? And a few additional questions: When is the Winchester BOE going to realize that what it is doing is the public’s business, not its own? Does this board realize that the public is entitled to know all the business being done on its behalf? And that all the discussion of issues facing the board should be in the open, for the public to see?And by the way, after all, it is the taxpayers who ultimately hire the board attorney, and the opinions and insights that attorney brings to the table on open information should be known by the public. Discussions with the board’s attorney on issues of freedom of information should also be done in the public eye.