Judge: Sayer contract vote violated law

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (WWLP) - A judge has ruled that the South Hadley School Committee broke the state’s Open Meeting Law when they held a secret meeting to renew their superintendent’s contract.

The Open Meeting Law is in place to make sure that elected officials do not act in secret and are transparent in their actions.

There are some exceptions, but Luke Gelinas and Darby O'Brien , the South Hadley residents who brought the case to court, felt this was not one of them. On Tuesday, Gelinas and O’Brien announced that Hampshire Superior Court Judge Brian McDonald ruled the School Committee did violate the law when they decided to renew the superintendent's contract, and also when they decided to give him a raise. Because the town was under intense scrutiny after Phoebe Prince committed suicide, the judge ruled that this meeting should have been open to the public. While the judge cannot reverse their decision, he did say that Superintendent Gus Sayer's pay raise should be cancelled.

O’Brien and Gelinas say that they want more than just that. "Anybody who was part of those secret meetings, who misled the public, which was illegal, should be dismissed, especially (former School Committee Chairman) Ed Boisselle, who was really driving it all behind the scenes,” O’Brien said.

"There is no healing, there's no moving on,” Gelinas said. “We need to restore justice here. We need to restore our government. It is a government of the people, not of a select few individuals.”

22News tried calling all of the members of the South Hadley School Committee, as well as Superintendent Gus Sayer, but none of them returned out phone calls.