AGAWAM — The City Council voted 10-1 on Aug. 4 to table Councilor Thomas Hendrickson’s resolution to record, televise and post video of subcommittee meetings on the city’s website. Hendrickson was the only “no” vote.
Earlier that night, the Legislative Committee voted 4-1 to recommend that councilors table the proposal. According to Hendrickson, councilors George Bitzas, Anthony Suffriti, Anthony Russo and Peter Smus voted “yes” to table, while he voted “no.” Hendrickson said Bitzas made the motion, but Bitzas said Suffriti made the motion. Suffriti, vice chair of the committee, did not respond to a call for clarification.
Although subcommittee meetings are open to attendance by the public, currently, the only record taken is the written meeting minutes, which were not available by Reminder Publishing’s deadline.
At the Legislative Committee’s meeting, Hendrickson said there was discussion, debate and deliberation about the resolution that members of the public won’t hear because it wasn’t recorded. Some councilors had questions, concerns and complaints, he said. Recording the meeting would have provided context to the full council’s vote, Hendrickson said.
Bitzas said the subcommittee recommended tabling it so councilors with questions could get answers. He said he had no issue with the resolution itself, and would vote for it.
“I’m for open meetings,” he said. “I love to be there and people have the right to know what’s going on in the subcommittees and the council meetings.”
Agawam Media manager Les Tingley said his operation, which televises full council meetings and meetings of several other town boards, ran audio quality tests at the subcommittee meeting, which went well. He said that recording subcommittee meetings would not be a big burden to his staff, which largely consists of volunteers.
Hendrickson previously told Reminder Publishing that recording subcommittee meetings would provide “evidence and accountability” in cases where a councilor says one thing to the subcommittee and another thing to the public. He said that tabling the resolution allowed councilors to avoid having to “answer questions about why they don’t think they should be subject to what [he] would consider to be a basic level of transparency and public scrutiny.” A motion to table doesn’t require discussion before a vote.
Asked to respond to that, Council President Rosemary Sandlin said, “what he said is absolutely right, there’s no discussion after a motion to table it.”
She also said that, while she hasn’t heard anyone report being against it, there have been many different suggestions for amendments since he filed it. That includes one person who suggested to amend the resolution to require recording all town boards. She said there’s no consensus in favor of that.
Tabling the resolution allows the council “take it off the table” to discuss and vote on it again. None of the councilors who spoke with Reminder Publishing could offer a definitive date when that would happen. In any case, Hendrickson said on Sept. 6 that he expects the council to approve it eventually.
“I think we have the votes at this point,” he said.
Sandlin, who supports the resolution, said she believed few people would watch the subcommittee meetings. She said she hasn’t gotten any calls on the matter.
