SOUTHWICK – At the board’s meeting on Oct. 5, Select Board Chair Douglas Moglin announced that the board had drafted a policy to set standards for the town’s security camera system, saying it was “something that had been brought up in a meeting several months ago.”
“The board has met several times to discuss and come up with a policy around security cameras and the recording and retention thereof, and we have a policy that we’ve brought forward for discussion in open session,” he said.
That “something” was Select Board member Joseph Deedy, who asked this during a board meeting on June 22: “So, the camera system. Are we going to have a policy written?”
Moglin apologized, saying “we have a policy written” that he had forgotten to include as a discussion item on the board’s agenda.
Until that moment, the board had not publicly discussed the need for a security camera system.
Despite no board member formally requesting at the meeting that the board develop a policy on the use of the town’s security cameras, Moglin announced at the Select Board’s June 8 meeting that the board would go into executive session to discuss “the deployment of security personnel or devices, or strategies with respect thereto.”
The matter was included again in the agendas for executive sessions for board meetings held on July 8, Aug. 17, and Sept. 14 and 21, before appearing on the board’s formal agenda on Oct. 5 for discussion and possible adoption.
However, during a board meeting in July 2025, Deedy asked about the cameras placed in and around Town Hall before he was elected in May.
At that meeting on July 28, 2025, Deedy accused fellow board member Russ Anderson and the town’s Chief Administrative Officer Nicole Parker of using the town’s camera system to “review security footage of me, watching to see what paperwork I’m carrying, who I’m meeting with, and taking notes of my movements … it is not appropriate for any town employee to use surveillance to track or monitor other officials,” Deedy said.
Anderson responded to Deedy two weeks later, calling the accusations “baseless and irresponsible” and saying “to clarify” what he had told Parker concerning Deedy’s presence in the building.
“Mr. Deedy was observed in the public lobby meeting a known contractor that we had a few issues with at the end of a building project,” Anderson said during the board’s Aug. 11, 2025, meeting.
“I found it odd that he would meet in Town Hall as Mr. Deedy, as finance chairman, has no involvement in any town contracts. The men left the lobby to go somewhere else in the building. A short time later, Mr. Deedy returned. This time, he walked through the lobby and he waved to the clerk office staff to be led into a secure staff only area for which he was granted access.
“Let me be clear, this would raise concerns no matter who entered the secure area,” Anderson said at that meeting.
“It is a secured zone containing sensitive records and is monitored and alarmed for a reason. I simply reported the observation to the town administrator. I did not download footage. I did not share images,” Anderson said.
Deedy also asked at that meeting whether, during the municipal election on May 13, 2025, Anderson, who was running for a seat on the board, had used the security cameras to “meet and greet specific voters,” which Anderson also answered.
“On voting day, the only one camera had a partial view of the back parking lot. There was no visibility to voters’ entrances or voting activities. The idea that I would shag votes from the parking lot using a camera system is ridiculous,” Anderson said.
He also said during the August 2025 meeting what he believed was Deedy’s reason for making the accusations against him and Parker.
“Last fall, Mr. Deedy was informed that using town assets for personal benefit was inappropriate. Since then, he has persistently used his position to retaliate, targeting the senior center director [Lisa Anderson and Russ’ wife], myself, family members, the town administrator, the assistant town administrator and others. He has been very vocal about his intent to have them all terminated, a fact well documented by former select board chair, media sources and concerned residents,” he said.
At the July 27, 2025, meeting, Deedy also asked, “for a formal response from [the] board publicly and on record about who has access to the surveillance system, how is it being used, and what policies are in place to prevent abuse.”
When Deedy finished speaking, former Select Board chair Diane Gale, who Deedy defeated in May for the seat on the board, asked him for a copy of the letter he read.
He never submitted it to her or the board, she said.
After the board’s first executive session on June 8, when the camera policy was discussed, Deedy emailed Parker about the issue and what happened during the session, which Reminder Publishing requested and Parker provided.
“After reviewing the document you provided in response to my public records request, I’m struggling to reconcile that response with the discussion that took place last night. The document states that you are the only individual with access to and control over the camera system, yet the information presented at the meeting appears to indicate otherwise,” Deedy wrote to Parker on June 9.
When The Westfield News asked Parker about the public-records request Deedy was referring to, she said she wasn’t entirely sure because he had made so many public-records requests over the last year, but she thought it was probably about who could monitor the camera system.
Deedy said in the letter that the town needs a “clear, written policy governing the camera system, including who has access, under what circumstances that access may be used, and how oversight is maintained.”
He wanted the Police Department to manage the camera system and be “removed from the authority of the Select Board and CAO’s office.”
The security camera system was in Parker’s office when she was appointed in April 2024, but she had it moved to the Emergency Management Agency Office in the Town Hall basement.
In her June 9 letter to Deedy, Parker said she believed the system should continue to be monitored in the EMA’s office.
“I think having it in the [EMA] is the most appropriate place for it to be,” she wrote to Deedy.
She also offered an observation about an incident during the June 8 executive session.
“There’s a lot of energy being funneled into this issue, and I certainly can’t help but think it’s become personal between you and Russ after the heated exchange between you both last night. I think it’s appropriate where it is as nobody has direct access except the [EMA],” Parker wrote.
Anderson and Deedy confirmed there was an exchange — Anderson said “strong disagreement” — between them during the meeting, but, citing executive session rules, they did not provide details.
Despite Deedy’s insistence that the Police Department monitor the camera system, the draft policy removes the Police Department from any responsibility.
In fact, the CAO will serve as the designated authority for administering, overseeing, and enforcing the policy, with the Select Board offering “general direction.”
When Moglin was asked about the need for the policy, he responded with an email: “This was a policy that needed to be addressed due to the proliferation of cameras and security measures that have been implemented throughout the Town in various departments and Town properties. We wanted to standardize access control and protocols, as well as the retention periods etc.,” he wrote.
Parker also addressed the need.
“The purpose of a policy is not to create unnecessary bureaucracy. It is to establish a clear, consistent and transparent standard for how the Town will handle situations. It protects the Town, provides employees and residents with clear expectations, and ensures that similar circumstances are treated similarly. Most importantly, it allows management to make decisions based on an established municipal standard rather than on individual circumstances or personalities,” she wrote.
Moglin was asked if Deedy’s earlier allegations and Anderson’s response had anything to do with drafting the policy.
“There was no one incident that directly lead to this policy,” he wrote.
The board didn’t approve the policy, which does not include the use of automatic license plate readers, but decided to have all department heads with cameras in their offices or facilities offer feedback before making a decision.
