Enforcement of Public Open Meeting Law

Believe me I do not want to go this far, but it really bothers me that the comments of the Members of the Airport Commission regarding the departure of sole commercial airlines, Allegiant Air, from the Worcester market is referred to only as "discussion ensued"..

Mass General Law Link below on Pubic Open Meetings
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/39-23b.htm

Enforcement

The district attorney of the county in which the violation occurred is responsible for enforcing the Open Meeting Law at the local and county level. The Attorney General is responsible for enforcing the Law at the state level.

If a governmental body fails to follow the Open Meeting Law, three or more registered voters, the district attorney, or the attorney general can seek a court order. The governmental body has the burden of proving that it did not violate the Law. Any court order that is issued can include an order invalidating the action taken at the meeting at issue or an order imposing a fine against the governmental body.

The commonwealth takes the Open Public Meeting Laws very seriously.

Executive Sessions

No executive session shall be held until the governmental body has first convened in an open session for which notice has been given, a majority of the members have voted to go into executive session and the vote of each member is recorded on a roll call vote and entered into the minutes, the presiding officer has cited the purpose for an executive session, and the presiding officer has stated before the executive session if the governmental body will reconvene after the executive session.

Since no board minutes have ever had a vote on an Executive Session then I can assume that we have not had any Executive Session meetings since January, 2005.