PARIS — Perceived clandestine activities among members of the Board of Selectmen led to a heated discussion at last week’s board meeting.

The matter started when Selectman Jean Smart made an inquiry to Maine Municipal Association lawyers.

Smart said she was alarmed when two selectmen at a board workshop began discussing a bond to repair roads. She said that while Town Manager Phil Tarr had once introduced the issue, “this is not an idea the board has ever discussed.”

“I think your question to the MMA was reckless,” Selectman Ted Kurtz said. He read the inquiry, which asked if it was “appropriate and/or legal for two members of a five-member select board to meet privately in order to create a list of priorities for the rest of the board to act on without the consent, knowledge or input of the other members.”

Nothing like that happened, Kurtz said, and it made the board look bad to suggest it had.

Smart said the MMA attorneys were divided but most said such a discussion between two members could be inappropriate.

“All of us ought to be exquisitely careful that we do not give the impression that we are meeting in small groups, making decisions,” she said.

Kurtz said discussions are based on setting topics for board meeting agendas. The bond suggestion stemmed from an email from board Co-chairman Robert Kirchherr, he said.

Kurtz said that as chairman, it was his job to help set the agenda, even though the town manager has the job of writing up the official agenda.

“That is what happened,” Kurtz said. “There’s nothing improper about that. It’s perfectly legal, and that practice is going to continue as long as I’m the chairman of the board.”

Earlier in the meeting, selectmen discussed another legal opinion from the MMA: that it was OK for Kurtz to discuss the meeting agenda with Tarr and that Kirchherr could sometimes be involved, as long as the discussion did not go into substantive board issues.

“However, it is reckless and a disparagement of the board,” Kurtz said, for a member to write publicly to the MMA and suggest that two members were meeting privately so set priorities. Calling it an “act of disrespect,” he said Smart owed the board an apology.

He went on to discuss another guideline that says it’s inappropriate for a board member to solicit another member to change a vote. He referenced an incident last year in which Smart asked former Selectman Lloyd “Skip” Herrick to withdraw a second on the street sweeper matter, opening it up for discussion at the following meeting.

Smart said former board Chairman Raymond Glover told her that to continue debate on the street sweeper, Herrick would have to withdraw his second of a motion to end discussion on the topic. Herrick agreed to withdraw and the issue was placed on the next meeting’s agenda for further discussion.

“At the next public meeting of the board, you should have turned to Skip and asked him to change his vote,” Kurtz said, rather than asking him outside a meeting.

The board dropped the issue, as the meeting had been going for more than 3½ hours and there were still items on the agenda.

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