HADLEY — A Hadley resident’s Open Meeting Law complaints with the state attorney general’s office contend that agendas for Select Board and Finance Committee meetings held last fall contained insufficient information for the public to understand topics that would be discussed and decisions that would be made.

But the elected members of the Select Board, and appointed members of the Finance Committee, are responding both in writing and in oral comments at recent meetings that their agendas are in compliance with the Open Meeting Law.

The complaints were filed by Susan Delmolino of River Drive. One complaint focuses on the agenda for the Nov. 15, 2023 Select Board meeting lacking “specificity and detail as to what is to be discussed,” while the second complaint is about the Finance Committee meetings of Oct. 2 and Oct. 11, 2023, whose agendas stated that minutes and special Town Meeting warrant would be the topics.

The Select Board at its Jan. 17 meeting discussed Delmolino’s complaint, with member Molly Keegan observing that the agenda included a tax classification hearing and a town administrator report, among other topics, with more information available about those items on the town website.

“My personal opinion is that these agenda items are fine,” Keegan said.

Licensing Coordinator Jennifer Sanders James, who prepares the Select Board agendas for the town website, said she has been trying to make agenda items as explicit as possible, with more details about what action might be taken.

Select Board Chairwoman Amy Parsons said the agenda postings are more specific than they used to be.

“Personally, I didn’t think there was anything wrong before,” Select Board member Joyce Chunglo said.

The state attorney general’s office disagreed in September 2021, ruling that the Select Board violated the Open Meeting Law for not providing enough specifics on the agenda when it implemented a COVID-19 policy related to vaccination and access to municipal buildings. The policy and discussion came after “COVID-19 Update” was all that was written on the agenda.

Keegan said the hope is that officials are doing enough. “The goal is that anybody picking up an agenda for any publicly posted meeting should reasonably be able to figure out what is going to be discussed,” she said.

The complaint against the Finance Committee centers on meetings where the members, as part of a discussion on the special Town Meeting warrant last October, recommended that the spending on plans for a new Department of Public Works headquarters be reduced from $3 million to $225,000. That was the figure brought to Town Meeting for consideration.

“The agenda lacked enough specificity for the public to know what was to be discussed,” Delmolino wrote in her complaint.

Delmolino is asking for a revote and another discussion on the topic, training for the town administrator on the Open Meeting Law and for Finance Committee Chairman David Fill to be reprimanded, due to his being a part of the Select Board when it violated the Open Meeting Law in 2021.

At the Finance Committee’s Jan. 25 meeting, Fill said the agenda was clear. “The agenda item for the warrant discussion, that’s something that been on every agenda since the beginning of time, as far as I know,” Fill said.

While the dollar amount for the DPW project changed, there was no way of knowing it would come up. “It would be impossible to post every single possible direction that a conversation could go during one of these meetings,” Fill said.

Committee member Paul Benjamin said a Town Meeting warrant should be seen as a dynamic document, with the Finance Committee making recommendations on any of the articles, but the residents get the final decision.

“We believe that a quorum of the Finance Committee appropriately reviewed all articles of the warrant and recommended changes as updated information related to the warrant became available,” Fill wrote in the response.

The complaint against the Select Board also contended that the Nov. 15 meeting wasn’t posted online, but Sanders James said Town Clerk Jessica Spanknebel informed that the posting met all legal requirements of being on the town website calendar within 48 hours of the meeting.

“Everything was posted correctly and on time,” Sanders James said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.