During his State of the Town address, Mayor Friedel advised attendees that in the interest of “transparency,” the town would release a report protected from mandatory disclosure because it contained legal advice. According to Friedel, “We don’t hide – we’re transparent…you have the moral right to know what is going on in your town.”

Friedel went on to note, “We haven’t had any executive session closed-door meetings and I don’t see any on the horizon.” This statement was subject to the following proviso, “You never know, things can change.” 

Clearly, things have changed. In recent months Friedel has presided over six closed-door meetings by my count, depriving residents of their “moral right to know what is going on in [their] town.” 

“Council decorum and communications,” a subject of keen interest to residents alarmed by the increasingly contentious and dysfunctional council meetings, was the subject of one such closed session.  

Other closed meetings stemmed from Councilmember Earle’s articulated concern that the Pierce Coleman firm had “overcharged” the town and the headline-generating fallout from her audit, described in the firm’s resignation letter as a “witch hunt” designed  as “a cover to appoint a favored ally as the town attorney.”

Closing these meetings may not have violated Open Meeting Law. It did violate residents’  “moral right to know,” the standard ostensibly adopted by Friedel.

Due to this lack of transparency, residents don’t know how the qualifications of the applicants were assessed or why Jennifer Wright’s name, as far as I can see, does not appear in the executed contract. More importantly, residents don’t know how a firm involved in two unsuccessful lawsuits alleging nefarious and illegal conduct on the part of the town’s officers and employees, could have been selected to serve as its lawyer.

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