01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 21, 2007

By Maria Armental

Journal Staff Writer

A legal squabble over whether the Open Meetings Law applies to council members-elect prior to the certification of the election results is set to be heard in Providence County Superior Court on July 24.

The case stems from an complaint for declaratory relief filed by James M. Mageau, John O. Craig Jr. and Bruce W. Picard — three of the five Charlestown Town Council members — asking the court to rule the law “does not apply to the activities of [Mageau, Craig, and Picard] prior to the certification of their election” and declare a finding by Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch “null and void in that it is contrary to state law.”

The attorney general’s office concluded in March the council violated the Open Meetings Law when the three, council members-elect at the time, met “outside the public purview to discuss and plan public business.”

Namely, the three council members-elect agreed to appoint former town administrator Edward M. Barrett “town administrator at the Town Council meeting after we were sworn into office.”

The three appointed Barrett acting administrator in December, and administrator later that month, on a 3-to-2 vote.

Robert E. Craven, Charlestown’s town solicitor, argued that the Open Meetings Law did not apply because under state law “a candidate is not elected until the election is certified seven (7) days after election.”

Moreover, he said, the three men “did not engage in a meeting within the definition” of the law, which defines a meeting as the “convening of a public body to discuss and/or act upon a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.”

(Craven also represents the three council members on a private basis.)

Lynch’s office has asked the court to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the matter falls outside the purview of the court as the three men “are seeking a review of an administrative ‘decision’ that does not fall within the ambit of the Administrative Procedures Act.”

Special Assistant Attorney General Michael W. Field also argued the three councilmen lack standing — as the decision was issued against the Town Council — and that “any asserted controversy has long since past and is now moot.”

Moreover, Field wrote, the complaint “does not allege — let alone demonstrate — an ‘injury in fact.’ ”

marmenta@projo.com