AG Files Open Government Lawsuit Against Western Coventry Fire District

Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin today filed an open government lawsuit in Rhode Island Superior Court against the Western Coventry Fire district alleging the district violated the Open Meetings Act by not timely filing meeting minutes.

The fire district posted the unofficial minutes for its Sept. 18 2014 meeting on Oct. 14 — five days after they should have posted them, the AG said in a release.

In June of 2014, the AG’s office found the district had failed to post minutes in a timely fashion seven times. At the time, officials from the district reportedly said they were unaware they were subjected to both the Open Meetings Act and the Access to Public Records ACt.

The AG did not find the district had wilfully violated the OMA then, but said that their finding last summer “served as notice that the conduct was unlawful and may serve as evidence of a willful or knowing violation in any similar future situation.”

The AG’s office issued a finding against the district in March after a complaint was filed (Novak v. Western Coventry Fire District) by Kent C. Novak, who alleged that the district was late to file minutes 11 times in 2014, including repeated instances after the June 2014 warning from the AG’s office.

The lawyer for the district, J. William W. Harsch, responded to the complaint by saying that the small and mainly volunteer district “does its best to meet transparency and public records request” and noted that minutes are the responsibility of a part-time clerk who is an elected officer, not an employee, and who works full time as the executive assistant to Coventry’s town manager.

Harsch downplayed the severity of the infractions and said that while the meeting minutes are ”important,” the complaint was a “procedural/technical matter of missing required filing dates for draft minutes.

“The district once again urges Mr. Novak to utilize his available avenues. . .to communicate his concerns directly to the district in the first instance, reserving any further requests for assistance of your office for any instance where he believes, in good faith, that the district is disregarding such concerns.”

The AG’s office ruled that the continued violations of the OMA after the June 2014 warning showed the failure of posting the minutes in a timely fashion was “willful or knowing.”

The maximum penalty is $5,000.