By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – A late-night vote by the City Council to go behind closed doors angered at least one resident this week.

City councilors voted 6-1 to go into executive session Monday night at the close of their regular meeting. City Manager Pat Finnigan said the closed meeting was needed to discuss two topics: committee appointments and labor negotiations.

Only Ward 5 Councilor Belinda Gerry voted against the closed-door meeting.

After voting to close the doors, councilors voted to adjourn the meeting immediately afterward. They then excused themselves and moved to a smaller office for their meeting.

Resident Jonathan LaBonte objected. Once councilors had voted to go into executive session, they could only vote to end that session – not to end Monday’s meeting.

“You have to come back into public session to vote to do anything else,” LaBonte said.

He appealed to City Clerk Mary Lou Magno, who said she had a different understanding of the rules and called the council’s vote perfectly valid.

“I think it’s ridiculous to have to discuss this,” she said.

Attorney Jonathan S. Piper agreed with LaBonte. Piper is a partner with the Portland law firm Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau, Pachios and Haley.

“Technically, they should have come back into public session whether anybody was there or not and then voted to adjourn,” Piper said Tuesday.

Piper also said councilors should have met in two different executive sessions, one to discuss committee appointments and a second to discuss labor negotiations.

“Again, that is a technicality,” he said. “I don’t think a judge would be horribly upset by that.”

Maine law requires municipal boards and city councils to precisely state the intent of executive sessions – naming the labor contracts being discussed under labor negotiations, for example. The City Council’s vote did not name the specific labor contract being discussed.

The Sun Journal has previously objected to the Auburn council’s actions in connection with executive sessions.