Hartford
The School Board and the nonprofit Friends of Hartford Track disagree over whether the wording of the question is legal — the wording was on a petition signed by more than 600 track supporters, but School Board members last week said the petition couldn’t be placed on the ballot because “the actions the petition seeks to take are beyond the authority of the board to grant.”
“I feel really bad that so many people, kids included, put so much effort into this,” Friends of Hartford Track President Sheila Hastie said, “and it appears to be for nothing.”
The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday by Quechee resident and former Selectman F.X. Flinn, accuses the board of violating the First Amendment petition rights of the petitioners. Flinn said on Monday that the decision to file came after a weekend effort to hammer out a compromise agreement with School Board members was rebuffed.
“They weren’t interested,” Flinn said.
Now, a judge has scheduled a status conference hearing for 1 p.m. on Wednesday, according to Flinn.
The three-part petition question is complex, but seeks to compel the School Board to allocate $50,000 for preliminary engineering and design work for a track and field at the Hartford High School campus. It also asks the School Board to form a committee to “manage” the appropriation, and spells out the membership of the committee, which would include department heads from the Hartford School District and the town, as well as representatives from the School Board, and Friends of Hartford Track. Finally, the petition directs the School Board to use the findings of that committee to put a bond on the November ballot that would give the town the chance to fully fund the project.
In both a Monday interview and in the lawsuit, Flinn said that School Board members had informally expressed specific concerns about the language of the petition to himself, Hastie and a lawyer. Flinn said his understanding is that the objection was primarily to the $50,000 price tag, and the idea that its management would be placed in the hands of the committee, which raises questions about the School Board’s financial responsibilities and oversight.
The lawsuit, which Flinn said he drafted in consultation with a lawyer, seeks to address the latter concern, and said the committee model was based on a previous successful committee that advised the town on the renovation of the Hartford Town Hall several years ago. That committee, according to the lawsuit, “did not enter into contracts, did not issue payments, but instead made innumerable decisions and relayed those to the executive offices for implementation. This common understanding of how these committees work was inherent among those signing the petition.”
Flinn said the School Board could have used its own power to put articles on the ballot to tweak the language so that it conformed to the board’s understanding of the law.
The School Board, which met for an hourlong closed-door session before announcing its decision, has declined to elaborate on the reasons for its refusal of the petition, but on Monday evening, Hartford School Superintendent Tom DeBalsi said he’d like to clarify the reasons behind the board’s decision.
“First, in terms of altering the language, there is no legal authority for the Board to alter the language of a petition. All the Board can act upon is what’s been presented, not what the Board thinks the petitioners really want,” DeBalsi said. “Second, the petition seeks something neither the Board nor the District has the power to do, namely, to delegate to a committee a responsibility which is vested by law exclusively in the Board.”
The suit also names Town Clerk Mary “Beth” Hill as a defendant, arguing that Hill has the power and responsibility to place petitioned articles on a ballot. Hill has said that after consulting with the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office, she has concluded that she does not have that power.
Flinn’s lawsuit also questions the board’s right to discuss the matter behind closed doors.
“It is not fair to hide in executive session and come up with vague rationales for keeping something unpopular with board members off the ballot,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, the Valley News filed a formal request on Monday under Vermont’s Public Records law to compel the Hartford School District to release materials that would shed light on the closed-door session held before the School Board’s vote last week.
DeBalsi declined to immediately honor the request, citing two legal exemptions to the public records law — one shields material that is relevant to litigation to which the district is a party, and the other shields attorney-client communications.
The lawsuit asks the court to make a ruling this week, before a Friday deadline for the town clerk to send the warning to the printers without incurring additional expense.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.