By Michael Donoghue, Vermont News First
The Winooski School Board may have violated Vermont’s Open Meeting Law on Friday in its rush to issue a statement questioning an education answer Gov. Phil Scott gave during a debate earlier this week.
Under Vermont law a government board can only take action during a publicly warned meeting.
There was no known meeting — regular, special or emergency — listed in the past few days on the Winooski School District website. Notices have to be posted in advance at multiple sites, including the school website, according to the Vermont Open Meeting Law.
WCAX-TV in South Burlington hosted the televised debate on Wednesday night.
The School Board issued its public statement on Friday, including posting it on Facebook.
No live person answered the phone at the Winooski School District office on Friday afternoon and there was no response made to the voice message left.
Winooski Board President Nicole Mace and Vice-President Robert Millar were asked in an email when was the meeting held, who participated and what was the vote.
Mace and Millar never responded to two email messages each received on Friday from Vermont News First.
Open Meeting Law training is available for School Board members each year.
The statement attributed to the Winooski School Board said Scott suggested the Winooski School District offers 17 language classes. The board said that was incorrect.
The board statement said Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria wrote on Thursday to Secretary of Education Zoie Saunders asking that the record be corrected.
The School Board did not say why Chavarria did not reach out to Scott directly.
The School Board said Saunders initially replied that the Governor keeps a line between governing and campaigning.
WCAX reported Friday evening that Scott issued an apology for misspeaking and said it came as he was trying to highlight the educational spending differences between some rural and more populated areas.q
The Winooski School Board maintained “We do not raise this lightly, and we are not taking a side in the election.”
The General Election is on Tuesday.
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Penalties for an unauthorized public statement issued without a properly warned meeting include a maximum criminal fine of $500 for individual board members and the invalidation of the statement itself,
The legal procedure for holding the board accountable requires a specific, multi-step process:
1. Submit a Written Notice: Any aggrieved person (or the Vermont Attorney General) must first submit a written notice of the alleged violation directly to the Winooski School Board. This letter must specify the exact violation (e.g., issuing a joint board statement on October 30 without a warned meeting) and request a specific “cure”.
2. The 10-Day Response Window: The school board has 10 calendar days to publicly respond. They must either acknowledge the violation and state an intent to cure it, or state that they believe no violation occurred.
3. The 14-Day Cure Process: If they acknowledge the error, they have 14 calendar days to hold an official, publicly warned open meeting. In that meeting, they must either officially ratify the statement, declare it void, and implement preventative measures to ensure it does not happen again.
4. Filing a Civil Lawsuit: If the board fails to respond, denies the violation, or fails to properly cure it, the aggrieved person or the Attorney General can then sue the board in the Civil Division of the Superior Court (not small claims court) within one year of the incident. The court can issue an injunction, hand down a declaratory judgment, and force the public body to pay the plaintiff’s attorney fees.