In a bid for better oversight, the Charlotte Selectboard is considering creating its own municipal fire and rescue department. But initial deliberations took place behind closed doors and subsequent executive sessions have raised concerns about whether the board is being transparent.
Residents, the fire department board and even two members of the Selectboard have challenged the closed-door meetings on multiple occasions.
Concerns were first raised after a July 25 executive session in which Selectboard members discussed creating a municipal department and invited former fire and rescue employee Rob Mullin to join in, according to the Charlotte News. In moving to enter executive session, board chair James Faulkner cited an exemption to Vermont’s Open Meeting Law that allows public bodies to discuss contracts in private.
That prompted Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Services to pen an Aug. 1 letter, signed by acting board president Jared Bomba, calling on the Selectboard to hold all future meetings on the subject in public.
About a week later on Aug. 8, as board members worked to schedule a special meeting to include members from the fire board, Selectboard member Lewis Mudge asked, “Does it have to be an executive session? Could we do a public meeting?”
“The reason we want to do it in executive session is because we don’t want to get dirty laundry out,” Faulkner replied. Discussing it publicly “may not be comfortable for them,” he said.
In the fire service’s letter, Bomba wrote that while transitioning to a town-run department may well be a natural and positive progression, the decision shouldn’t be taken lightly.
“(Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Services) believes these discussions should be happening in open meetings within the town rather than in so-called executive sessions,” he wrote.
Run as a private nonprofit since 1950, the Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Services receives the bulk of its funding from the town and is overseen by a board of directors. Its relationship with the town is governed by a memorandum of understanding.
In response to the concerns, the Selectboard held a special meeting with members of the fire board on Aug. 18. Selectboard member Matthew Krasnow called for an executive session to discuss moving from a nonprofit fire department to a municipal one.
Krasnow cited the Open Meeting Law’s contract exemption, and pointed out that executive sessions can be held when “premature general public knowledge would clearly place the public body or a person involved at a substantial disadvantage.”
But fire department board members pushed for including the public in that discussion.
“What contract?” a member of the fire board asked, according to a video recording of the meeting. (It was not clear which fire board member asked the question. Bomba could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.)
“The MOU, the contract the town has” with the fire department, Krasnow said.
“That’s public record so the disclosure cannot be disadvantageous to us,” said the fire board member.
That prompted Selectboard member Louise McCarren to also question the reason for the executive session.
Krasnow cited “possible breaches” in the agreement that include personnel, a federal health privacy law known as HIPAA or other “privacy concerns” that the Selectboard would like to first discuss with the fire board in executive session.
Some members of the public challenged him.
“I want to know why the public is being excluded from this endeavor,” said Peter Richardson, a resident who attended the Aug. 18 special meeting via Zoom. “I mean, you’re just shutting the door saying there are secrets that need to be had and there’s no basis in said statute that substantiates that.”
Mudge suggested assuring the members of the fire department board that they “could have a public meeting on this issue” later.
After 20 minutes of back-and-forth, Faulkner agreed to an open meeting, along with a five-minute executive session. Allegations of lack of transparency and the board having discussions “behind backdoors” are not true, he claimed at the time.
“It’s just not what we’re doing. … It makes a good news article but it’s not real,” he said at that meeting. “Going forward, if we can do everything in the public (eye), we are going to do it.”
A member of the fire and rescue department before being elected to the Selectboard, Faulkner declined to discuss the matter with VTDigger despite multiple calls, emails and an in-person request this week.
“I’m not going to answer your questions,” he said before the start of Monday’s Selectboard meeting. “None of the stuff you’re going to ask me about has been decided.”
Faulkner also declined to meet or talk at a future date.
The rest of the Selectboard members declined to respond to an email this week about Open Meeting Law and their use of executive sessions.
The Selectboard approved a request for proposals Monday for a consultant to assist with transitioning from a nonprofit fire and rescue service to a municipal department that would directly report to the town.
The deadline for bids is Sept. 12 and a consultant could be hired at the Sept. 26 meeting. The contract should not exceed $30,000 and the work should take six to 12 months, according to the Selectboard’s request.
Fire Chief Justin Bliss, who was hired a month ago, said there are seven full-time employees, including himself. They also have approximately 20 part-time staff to run the ambulance and 10 to 15 volunteer firefighters and EMTs.
A former South Burlington firefighter, Bliss said he is a part of the Selectboard conversation to consider a municipal option and that fire and rescue employees are not opposed.
“I think when you talk about changing an organization like this, anyone could get nervous just because of change,” he said. “But overall, I think we’re all very positive about it. We like the idea of a municipal department. We recognize that this is the direction it was probably going to end up eventually.”
Municipal departments tend to have better oversight, straightforward budgeting and can more easily qualify for government grants, he said.
“We just recognize that it needs to be done in a methodical fashion and it needs to be done very thoroughly over time in order to maintain continuity of service,” Bliss said.
At this year’s Town Meeting, residents approved a fire department budget of $890,000, an increase of more than $108,000 over its previous $782,000 budget.
Because the department is not currently managed by the town, “how do we monitor and control what goes on there?” resident Tony Kinson asked during the public comment period of the July 25 Selectboard meeting.
Faulkner replied that Kinson’s concern was “spot on.”
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