by Dan Ring
dring at repub.com
"We made a mistake, a simple mistake," he said.
More than 30 years after passage of the law, that's an all-too-common refrain among municipal leaders.
In one of the most egrigious cases, the Boston City Council was fined $11,000 in 2006 by a Superior Court judge for repeated violations of the law spanning about two years.
Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court of Massachusetts
Public Case Information
http://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/display_docket.p...
[State Seal]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_Massachusetts
APPEALS COURT
Panel Cases
Case Docket
__________________________________________________________________
KEVIN MCCREA & others vs. MICHAEL F. FLAHERTY & another
http://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/display_docket.p...
2007-P-0224
__________________________________________________________________
CASE HEADER
I am one of the trio that successfully sued the Boston City Council for 11 violations of the Open Meeting Law between June 2003 and March 2005.
The City Council filed an appeal (!) which is being heard tomorrow at 9:30 ; John Adams Courthouse, Courtroom 4, Third Floor, Boston.
Since we will be arguing pro se and the City Council will be represented by Kirkpatrick and Lockhardt as well as the City's Corporation Counsel, we could use some support.
If you can make it, please come.
If you are free tomorrow morning (December 6), please join me at The Massachusetts Appeal Court - the John Quincy Adams Courthouse, Courtroom 4, Third Floor. (This is adjacent to the Suffolk County Superior Court in Gov't Center).
We are scheduled for oral argument on the City Council's Appeal at 9:30 (McCrea,Kressel and Devine v. Michael Flaherty and the Boston City Council). We sued the City Council for 18 Open Meeting Law violations and we won. The Council is appealing the Superior Court decision.
Kevin McCrea, one of the plaintiffs, reports a Superior Court judge has ordered a Dec. 8 trial on allegations the council broke the public Open Meeting Law in approving raises for itself, the mayor and other city personnel.
In March, the city council lost an Open Meeting suit, also brought by McCrea (and others).
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