The current Open Meeting guidelines can be found and reviewed here for those with an interest in legalese. However, before you get too involved or excited, be aware that the rules are changing July 1, 2010.

From the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts website, Martha Coakley offers the following:

Historically, the Attorney General has enforced the Open Meeting Law applicable to state governmental bodies. (M.G.L. c. 30A, s.11A 1/2) Local District Attorney’s Office’s were responsible for enforcement of the laws relative to cities, towns, and counties.

The Open Meeting Law was recently revised as part of the 2009 Ethics Reform Bill, and will centralize responsibility for state-wide enforcement of the law in the Office of the Attorney General. The effective date of the revised law is July 1, 2010.

In the coming months, the Attorney General will be reaching out to various groups to discuss the revised law. Please check this site again for future meeting dates and training opportunities as they become available

Until the Attorney General assumes responsibility for enforcement, your local District Attorney’s Office will continue to handle open meeting law complaints regarding cities, towns and counties.

The purpose of the Open Meeting Law is to eliminate much of the secrecy surrounding the deliberations and decisions on which public policy is based. The Open Meeting Law supports the principle that the democratic process depends on the public having knowledge about the considerations underlying governmental action. The Open Meeting Law requires that most meetings of governmental bodies to be held in public. There are some exceptions, which are designed to ensure that ,public officials are not “unduly hampered” by having every discussion among public officials open to the public. As a result, the Open Meeting Law provides for particular circumstances under which a meeting may be held in executive, or closed, session.

For information on the Open Meeting Law for cities and towns, M.G.L. c. 39, s. 23B, or to report a violation of that law by a city or town, please contact your local District Attorney’s Office.

For questions on the Open Meeting Law, or to report a violation of the law by a state board, commission, or committee, please contact the General Counsel’s Office, within the Office of Attorney General Martha Coakley, at (617) 727-2200.

For more comprehensive information, see the Open Meeting Guidelines (updated April 2009) available here.

Perhaps it’s just me, but one would think that members of boards, committees and other government bodies would be aware that the guidelines had been revised and signed last April and were awaiting implementation this coming July. The fact that they seem to not have a clue speaks volumes about why citizens should carefully consider their options before voting to reseat the current group of so called leaders to new terms. Quite frankly, I don’t see how a fully reconstituted School Committee could be any worse that what we have now.

Let’s hope that candidates will try to force greater transparency of School Committee deliberations and functions by merging their website and vital documents with those of the general town government in a way that makes them easy to find, to sort through, to review and to comment upon by interested parties. It’s time to pull back the curtain, make the wizard’s mechanism public and stop hiding the educational system’s dirty laundry from public scrutiny to protect board members from having to explain their actions and decisions. Enough is enough and the two members up for re-election have served more than enough. It’s time to put their pens in the Smithsonian under miscellaneous junk and look for hires that are more favorable to the public struggling day-to-day in Billerica.