LAKEVILLE — The Freetown-Lakeville Regional School Committee violated the open meeting law at a July 31 executive session, the attorney general has ruled, by discussing topics that were not appropriate and were not listed in advance.

The decision supported the claims of committee member Crystal Ng, who said the listed purpose of the session was to discuss “strategy with respect to contract negotiations with the superintendent of schools.’’ Instead, her complaint states, the executive session “discussed the results of a public survey regarding the superintendent.’’

But the state’s top legal authority did not rule on claims by Ng that the committee used bullying and harassing behavior toward her, stating that accusation does not follow under open meeting regulations.

In a letter dated March 5,  Elizabeth Carnes Flynn, Assistant Attorney General, Division of Open Government, agreed that the July 31 executive session topics were "inappropriate''  for an executive session. And, Flynn added, even if the topics had been appropriate, they “were not identified in the announcement prior to convening in executive session.’’  

Flynn also ruled that insufficient meeting minutes were created at the meeting, which is another open meeting law violation. 

The attorney general’s office did not make a decision on Ng’s claim that committee members “engaged in unprofessional behavior, bullying, and harassment’’ 

Flynn wrote that although the Attorney General’s office “encourages professionalism and civility,’’ claims of “unprofessionalism, incivility, and harassment, even if true, do not constitute violations of the open meeting law.’’

Committee members have adamantly denied making harassing comments.  

Citing issues of timing, the attorney general’s office also did not rule on a second complaint by Ng about the committee’s actions at its Sept. 4 meeting. Open meeting violation complaints must be filed within 30 days of the date of the action that is being questioned, Flynn wrote, and the committee received the complaint Oct. 29.

At that meeting, the committee voted to publicly censure Ng after accusing her of sending confidential information about a student to a member of the general public.

Ng alleges that the committee members “deliberated outside of a posted meeting regarding the censure.’’ She reached that conclusion because the “collaborative and almost scripted unity led me to believe that these members, more likely than not, met or discussed the topic outside of any session.” 

In her letter, Flynn ordered the committee to be in “immediate and future compliance with the Open Meeting Law.’’ She cautioned that “similar future violations may be considered evidence of intent to violate the law.’’

“The School Committee should be an example of good government,’’ Ng wrote in an email to Nemasket Week. “That is what citizens expect and deserve.’’

Nemasket Week has reached out to Committee Chair John Burke for comment.