Members of the Board of Selectmen are trying to rewrite their policy on videotaping public meetings, a subject that was a thorn in the side of former First Selectman Robert Koskelowski.
Resident Frank Loda regularly videotapes Board of Selectmen meetings. He posts the video on the Seymour Democratic Committee’s Web site and on local access television.
In 2005, the Selectmen adopted rules as to where Loda could stand to videotape meetings.
In the ensuing years, Loda has filed a number of complaints with the state’s Freedom of Information Commission, rebuffing the town’s efforts to box him to the back of the room.
The videotaping rules adopted in 2006 were vacated by the state’s Freedom of Information Commission, who have several fines pending against the town.
Now, with newly-elected First Selectman Paul Roy, elected officials are trying to come up with a new set of rules that won’t run afoul of the public’s right to know.
At a Selectmen meeting earlier this month, officials held a brainstorming session on the regulations, trying to decide how to marry recommendations from the state Freedom of Information Commission with their own new rules.
Attorney Colleen Fries, operating as town counsel, drafted an alternative set of rules for the commission to adopt. While largely the same, there are a few key differences.
One difference — the state FOI Commission states that if it’s said at a public meeting, it’s in public. There is automatic right to privacy.
That’s apparently too open for some of the Selectmen. Minors were used as an illustrating point, with most agreeing they shouldn’t be filmed at a meeting without permission from the parents.
The other major difference was that the FOI Commission proposes that no rules on the use of the recorded product could be enforced, beyond existing general laws. In other words, the government can’t dictate where the video or audio recording is posted.
Loda urged the Selectmen to be open.
“All three of my complaints, which I won up in Hartford, addressed these two items,” he said.
The Selectmen tabled the matter, declining to vote on either the FOI Commission’s version, Fries’s version or other ideas given to them.
Like most of the Selectmen, Roy agreed that they needed to come to a decision but they needed to make the right one.
“We want to get this over with, but it has to be right,” he said.
