Townsend faces lawsuits from its own town clerk over public records

TOWNSEND — The town of Townsend is facing multiple lawsuits from its own town clerk amid a row over the town’s handling of public records requests, with the town clerk accusing other town officials of preventing him from performing his duties as the records access officer.

At the same time, the Townsend Select Board voted unanimously Tuesday evening to indefinitely suspend all future meetings after Chair Valerie Goodrich said the board, town administration and town counsel have faced “an inundation of legal matters” recently.

The main lawsuit against the town was originally filed in April by Townsend Board of Health Chair Dr. Christian Roman-Ramirez, who alleged in his original filing that the town had failed to respond in time to a public records request he had made in February regarding all revolving account budgets for the town.

Soon after Roman-Ramirez filed the lawsuit, originally titled Christian Daniel Roman-Ramirez in his capacity of Chairman of Townsend Board of Health v. Town of Townsend, Town Clerk Harrison Mayotte filed a motion to join the lawsuit on the side of Roman-Ramirez as a plaintiff-intervenor, which Middlesex Superior Court Judge John Pappas allowed.

The case became more complicated on June 1, when the town filed a motion to have the case dismissed, which Roman-Ramirez ultimately accepted. In an emailed statement to The Sun Monday evening, Roman-Ramirez confirmed he had dismissed his complaint.

“I worked with town council and reached a satisfactory resolution since I received clarity of facts that I did not have prior to filing, and I could have avoided this,” said Roman-Ramirez to The Sun.

Part of the basis of the dismissal is that “the Plaintiff acknowledges that the documents sought by him via public records request do not exist as a matter of law; and that the Town thus complied with its obligation under the Massachusetts Public Records Law,” according to court records.

Despite the dismissal, the lawsuit appears to be continuing with Mayotte as the plaintiff-intervenor, and on June 23 he filed an amended complaint, which included additional, similar allegations that the town had failed to produce requested records concerning “copies of all Liability Insurance policies in force between 7-1-2015 and the current policy,” when a records request was made by Mayotte.

In a statement on June 26, Mayotte said the case at hand “is about whether the Records Access Officer is a real statutory officer or just a name on the letterhead.”

“The Public Records Law places the duty to coordinate timely and thorough production on the RAO. That duty cannot be performed if the records, the searches, and the facts needed to certify completeness are kept outside the RAO’s reach,” said Mayotte.

The Select Board meeting Tuesday originally had a longer agenda, with two items concerning the powers of the RAO. The items were “Reassignment of Records Access Officer (RAO)” and “Use of ARPA funds for Records Access Officer (RAO) stipend.” Before the meeting, both of those agenda items were removed, but a discussion of the main lawsuit remained on the agenda in both open and executive sessions.

The board also had an executive session discussion on RFS Corp. v. Town of Townsend, a lawsuit stemming from the ethics complaint filed against Townsend Water Department Superintendent David Vigeant, who is now appealing the State Ethics Commission’s finding that he violated the conflict of interest law.

Another executive session item added to the revised version of the Select Board agenda was for a discussion about a separate lawsuit, Harrison C. Mayotte v. Town of Townsend, which Mayotte filed earlier this month separately from the original case.

The new lawsuit was filed against a number of current and former town officials, including the entire Select Board, in response to the Select Board’s originally published agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, but before the agenda was revised to remove the items concerning RAO powers. The new filing was a request for injunctive relief to block what Mayotte sees as retaliation for his continued lawsuit as the plaintiff-intervenor in the original case. Through the new filing, Mayotte also sought to preserve the town clerk’s role as RAO at least until an injunction hearing can be held.

“Following the law is not a capital offense,” Mayotte said in a statement after filing the second complaint last week. “Releasing records the administration finds inconvenient is not a crime. Petitioning courts and state agencies is not misconduct. These are basic obligations of transparent government.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, town attorney Adam Costa said it was his opinion that Roman-Ramirez and Mayotte — whose positions are both elected by the voters rather than appointed — do not have the right to sue the town in their respective capacities as town officials without permission from the Select Board.

“Second of all, from my perspective, the public records request had been complied with. The request had asked for all revolving fund budgets, and revolving funds simply don’t have budgets … . At the annual Town Meeting the voters approve spending limits for the revolving funds, but they don’t approve budgets for the revolving funds because revolving funds don’t have budgets,” said Costa, referring to Roman-Ramirez’s original complaint.

In lieu of such budgets that Costa said don’t exist, he said the town provided Roman-Ramirez with everything it could that could possibly be related to the records request, including financial ledgers for the revolving funds.

Costa said the lawsuit has required “a substantial amount of work” since it was originally filed in late April because of what he called “a multitude of filings” in the case, which he said had cost the town between $6,000 and $7,000 by mid-June.

“About two-thirds of the time I have spent on Townsend matters has been on this particular matter,” said Costa. “What that effectively means is only a third of time I am devoting to Townsend is on all of the other matters that make up the legal needs of the town.”

Costa referenced conversations that have taken place about finding ways for the town to limit how much it spends on legal bills.

Later in the meeting, during the agenda item to set the date for the next Select Board meeting, Goodrich announced the plan for the board to be “suspending meetings indefinitely,” citing the volume of legal matters the town is facing.

“We will get back to you, we will take things up as they are emergent or required,” said Goodrich before a unanimous vote of the board. “I think it is what we need right now to let our administration get caught up on a lot of stuff that has been put on the back burner. We need to take a pause so we can all take care of the necessary matters that are important for running the town, and I am sorry to all of the boards and committees that are going to have to wait on our actions, but we need to take care of a lot of stuff right now.”

Town Administrator Kieran Meehan, who is now taking on the permanent role after recently having served as the interim town administrator, said during the meeting the pause in meetings is about “addressing the matters at hand” for the more than 9,000 residents of Townsend.

“And making sure we resolve them and refocus the ship to get it in the right direction,” said Meehan.

In a phone call with The Sun Wednesday, Meehan said the Select Board will still meet as needed, especially for emergency items. He declined to speak on any of the lawsuits that were still pending, but said the town “did a great job understanding the questions correctly, and coming to a conclusion that the resident found suitable” in the Roman-Ramirez complaint.

“The court will do the court’s thing, and I feel confident the town will follow the judicial process properly,” said Meehan.

In a statement to The Sun Wednesday evening, Goodrich deferred to Costa’s comments from the Tuesday meeting when it came to the lawsuits themselves, noting that they are still pending litigation.

“I’d also recommend anyone interested review the Town’s filings in Middlesex Superior Court directly, recognizing that the case is newly filed, has not yet been heard by a judge, and any conclusions would be premature,” said Goodrich.

On the removed agenda items concerning the RAO powers, Goodrich said the items were removed from the agenda “under an abundance of caution based on a lawsuit filed over the long holiday weekend.”

“I did not feel it was in the best interest of the town to have the select board address those agenda items at this time. This new additional lawsuit advances claims that the Select Board has no authority to re-designate the RAO despite MGL specifically giving that authority specifically to the select board,” said Goodrich. “Given the significant time and public resources required to address the pending litigation, the Select Board has determined that, for the time being, it will only convene meetings as necessary to address essential and time-sensitive Town business.”