Councilors in Gray have failed their constituents. Miserably so.

They improperly voted in executive session last week to rescind the termination of the town’s recreation director, shielding their exceedingly questionable and collective action to reinstate an employee who they know mismanaged a fair sum of taxpayers’ money.

The executive session was properly called to discuss the appeal of Dean Bennett, who had been fired by the town’s manager. Deliberation on disciplinary matters is an exception to Maine’s open meeting requirements.

However, once deliberations ended and the council was ready to take action on that decision — by vote — that action by law should have been held in open session.

This is the legal advice of the Maine Municipal Association.

It is the legal advice of the Attorney General’s Office.

It is the legal advice of the Governor’s Office, which crafted an online guide to Maine’s Freedom of Access Act used to train the state’s elected officials.

It is the advice of the Maine State Bar Association. Of the Maine School Management Association. Of a host of other groups and lawyers well-educated in the people’s right to know.

It was not, however, the advice of the town’s attorney, Bill Dale. He interprets FOAA to have a “general rule” to vote in open session, but believes personnel matters are an exception to that rule.

They are not.

Guarding privacy in disciplinary actions is paramount, Dale said, and that, “in my opinion and my experience, the only way to respect those privacy rights is to have the vote itself also be in executive session.”

The court disagrees.

In 1979, an Androscoggin County Superior Court ruling in Hanley v. MSAD 36 made it very clear that when deliberations are held and consensus established in executive session, “that must be followed by a vote in public” to take final action. In this case, the final action was to rescind Bennett’s termination and “impose a performance improvement plan.”

This, for an employee whom councilors agreed “failed to adequately collect and account for department revenues” and further “failed to correct these shortcomings in response to specific direction from the town manager.”

Bennett absolutely deserves privacy in discussing discipline, which he was afforded. Once discipline is imposed, and it was, the people’s right to know kicks in.

A day after the council vote, Council Chairman Peter Gellerson properly issued a final written decision regarding the agreed-upon discipline, which state law defines as a public document.

So, Bennett’s privacy is not really what is being preserved here. What’s being preserved is councilors’ respective votes to reverse Bennett’s termination and impose a far lesser discipline for an employee with a track record of poor accounting.

Bennett failed to collect $8,069.50 in summer camp registration fees for 2009, offered unexplained discounts of $4,302 to certain families, and failed to account for $3,802.60 in cash that he reported was paid but he has not been able to produce. That’s a total of $16,174.10 in public money that is unaccounted for, and that’s just this year. There are other balances due from previous years that Bennett cannot explain. And this is an employee the council voted to retain?

There are two very good reasons for the Town Council to hold its vote in public.

The first is simple. It’s the law.

The second is more important. Voting in public will reveal to townspeople who among the council members supports an employee who can’t manage the public’s money.

Taxpayers are owed at least that much.

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