By Katy Savage, Standard Staff
POMFRET — Voters approved the purchase of a new fire truck in March. Five months later, the truck hasn’t been ordered. In fact, the town hasn’t sent a request for proposal to vendors because the document isn’t done yet.
“Every time we turn around…there is a small contingent of people who want to put every road block they can in front of this process,” said Fire Chief Kevin Rice.
The latest “road block” is a complaint of an open meeting law violation submitted by former select board member Scott Woodward. Woodward was elected to the board in March only to step down a month later. He filed his complaint after learning Rice, select board chair Phil Dechert and a consultant excluded the public in an Aug. 10 conference call discussing the fire truck’s request for proposal — the 50-page document of specifications created to send to prospective vendors.
“On August 10, 2015, the group met over the phone to discuss changes to the RFP and did so without adhering to the requirements of Vermont Open Meeting Law, specifically, the meeting was not noticed and nor was it made open to the public,” wrote Woodward in his complaint. “Furthermore, it is the policy of the Pomfret Select Board to record Board meetings and this policy should equally apply to subcommittees created by the Board.”
The private phone call was an hour-long conversation where the subcommittee discussed different parts of the specifications, officials said. Woodward wouldn’t say how he found out about the call when asked in a phone interview on Tuesday.
The Vermont Secretary of State’s office agreed with Woodward.
“I see this as a subcommittee of the board under 1 VSA 310(3), regardless of what they call it. They are doing the work of the board and need to do it in the open, even if they are not empowered to take any official action. As such, this group is subject to the open meeting law,” said Deputy Secretary of State Christopher D. Winters in an email to Woodward.
The select board voted to ignore the complaint at last week’s meeting.
On Tuesday, Woodward wasn’t sure what his next move was going to be, saying by phone that he was still “thinking about it.” He has up to a year to decide if he wants to sue the town. If found guilty, the town faces a fine up to $500. The Vermont Attorney General or any aggrieved person could also take the town to court.
Woodward’s persistence for open government frustrated some at a select board meeting last Wednesday.
“He’s rubbing his hands together. He’s really excited about this,” said Dechert, who made a comment about Woodward trying to “screw the town.”
Woodward resigned from the select board just after he was elected on Town Meeting day due to what he called dysfunctional behavior in Pomfret’s town government. He explained a pattern in Pomfret where the public has used the select board to settle personal conflicts they have with other town officials or former and current select board members.
Since then he’s played an active role, pushing for government transparency throughout the entire purchasing process of the fire truck.
“If there’s already a call scheduled with three members of the subcommittee, how much harder is it to hold the call (at) the town offices and allow the public to sit in? It doesn’t sound that hard to do,” Woodward said in an email.
Woodward previously expressed concerns that the RFP favored one bidder. In part due to Woodward’s advocacy for fairness, the town hired a consultant to help put the document together. So far, the town has paid Alan Saulsbury, who is based in New York, about $500.
Woodward blames the select board for the delay in getting the RFP.
A subcommittee formed?
The select board spoke with consultant Alan Saulsbury, the president of Fire Apparatus Consultants, by speakerphone at an Aug. 5 select board meeting to discuss a draft of the RFP, largely based on an earlier draft Rice put together. The consultant added a pre-construction meeting with the manufacturer, extended the length of warranty and added a section about compliance with national standards.
Following the public meeting, the board made a motion for the fire chief and select board chair to discuss the RFP with Saulsbury in a later conference call. Some residents thought at that point a subcommittee formed, which would be subject to open discussion.
The morning after the meeting resident Betsy Siebeck sent the select board an email saying she expected the conference call would be warned and open to the public. Woodward sent the board an email a couple hours later, saying he expected the same.
The select board chair appeared to disagree.
“I am not responding to Scott and Betsy. They are way off base as far as the definitions of ‘meeting’ and ‘public body,’” Dechert wrote his fellow board members on Aug. 6. “Don’t respond to this,” he instructed them.
Rice, Dechert and the consultant admitted to speaking in private on Aug. 10. Dechert called the conference call “meaningless” at a recent select board meeting and later explained that he did not believe the three people constituted a subcommittee.
The board decided to ignore Scott Woodward’s open meeting law violation in a 2-1 vote last Wednesday night. Board member Michael Reese opposed.
At the meeting select board members debated whether or not a subcommittee to review the RFP had actually formed.
“That was not my intent,” said Dechert in a recording. He later said: “I was only involved as a coordinator. I was only trying to make it work.”
Board member Eric Chase, who is on the volunteer fire department, seemed to agree.
“Our consultant is essentially a vendor to us. We wouldn’t put a vendor on a subcommittee,” he said.
And so did Reese.
“I actually wasn’t thinking of it being a subcommittee either when we voted on it. It was not in my thought,” he said.
Reese later said: “I personally think it was (a subcommittee).”
Reese made a motion for the town to hire an attorney to seek open meeting law advice on handling the complaint. That was turned town when Dechert opposed and Chase abstained. Another motion by Reese to bring officials from the secretary of state’s office and Vermont League of Cities and Towns to the meeting for future advice was also turned down by his fellow board members not seconding the motion.
A Push For Transparency
Woodward recently wrote a letter for VTDigger explaining the challenges local town governments face in the future, specifically referring to demand for accountability.
“Many of our mostly volunteer local officials are not equipped with the requisite management skills to live up to the demands of greater accountability, to say nothing of the additional time commitment. Moreover, many local officials chafe at the thought of greater accountability because Vermonters have not traditionally demanded nearly as much transparency as people might want today,” Woodward wrote.
Woodward is part of a group of residents active in Pomfret town government who have demanded transparency. The board has since had heavt turnover for a variety of reasons.
“It is frustrating as a citizen to have the same behavior keep happening and have the same result where people are upset,” said resident Melanie Williams.
This wasn’t the first time there has been frustration in Pomfret about public officials’ refusal to follow the open meeting law.
“I’m amazed that people don’t care about our government behaving in and acting in a legal fashion,” Resident Betsy Siebeck said at the meeting, adding: “I don’t think that is a waste of time. I think it’s really important that we do follow laws.
“I can’t imagine anything more important.”
At the Wednesday meeting, the select board disagreed about open meting law violations in town.
“There are a lot of open meeting laws in the town — more than I’d like to admit,” Reese said.
But Dechert had different thoughts.
“Ninety-nine percent of what we were doing is correct compared to other towns,” he said when Reese suggested having state officials talk with them about open meeting law.
‘A Difficult Process’
The firefighters aren’t sure when they’ll get a fire truck or what the price will be.
“I think our fire department is shocked and dismayed that this has become so difficult. Here it is six months later, we haven’t even put the thing out to bid yet,” Rice said.
In the beginning, Rice intended to purchase the same fire truck that the town has used in the past, a truck through Desorcie Emergency Products, LLC. He made a PowerPoint presentation in the winter convincing voters and select board members that this was the truck for Pomfret. They authorized him to spend up to $347,000 on Town Meeting day.
Two months later, in May, Woodward urged the town to acknowledge its purchasing policy, which requires a formal bid process for purchases of $25,000 or more, before buying the fire truck. He advised the public to contact the select board about holding further public discussion. In June, Woodward found problems with a RFP drafted by the fire chief, saying it was “written in a way that heavily favors one supplier” on the town’s public email list.
“This is a serious issue that warrants public attention,” he wrote on the email list.
He added to his comment: “An RFP that favors only one supplier is patently dishonest and one of the most egregious I’ve seen in over 10 years of writing and responding to government RFPs. What kind of practice does this establish for future Town purchases? Pomfret taxpayers expect and deserve full transparency in their Town Government and this is an example indicating we still have work to do.”
Woodward is frustrated and so is the board. Board member Eric Chase made a comment last Wednesday that he might not be on the board much longer. He didn’t return a request for comment.
“It’s been a difficult process,” Reese said in a recorded Aug. 5 meeting.
Dechert removed himself from the alleged subcommittee last Wednesday. It was unclear how the board was going to move forward in putting together the RFP.
This article first appeared in the August 28, 2015 edition of the Vermont Standard.