Wayland Finance Committee approves response to open meeting law complaint

WAYLAND — March 27, 2023 — Wayland Finance Committee votes 4-0-1 to answer open meeting law complaint over legal-fund transfer. The committee approved a response letter to a March 14 complaint by resident George Harris, who challenged a Feb. 27 reserve fund transfer that the agenda described as being "for legal settlement." Co-chair Pam Roman said the transfer replenished the legal line after the former police chief's settlement had already been paid, telling members "if we all had voted no to the reserve fund transfer, it wouldn't have affected the legal settlement." The letter will go out from the full committee after consultation with town counsel, and will acknowledge that remote participants were not individually identified at the meeting in question. Member Steve abstained, saying he wanted the response to concede the original agenda language was not "artfully" worded. The committee also approved March 6 and March 8 minutes after extensive line edits, and divided roughly 25 peer towns among members for an operating-budget comparison due April 10.