Umbrage, an apology and a threatened sit-in marked Wednesday’s special meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School committee, after members learned of new invoices from the attorney who is handling the committee’s litigation against the town of Oak Bluffs.
The school committee voted in May to not spend any money from its fiscal year 2024 budget on the ongoing lawsuit against the Oak Bluffs planning board. The school sued the board in 2022 after the board denied the school’s plans for an artificial turf field at the high school.
But school attorney Brian Winner has continued to represent the town after the start of the new fiscal year in July, attending a closed-door meeting between two school committee members and Oak Bluffs officials last week, as well as the first hour of Wednesday’s school meeting.
With new legal bills continuing to come in during the 2024 fiscal year, several committee members cried foul at Wednesday’s committee meeting.
“I think it’s just profoundly wrong to move forward,” said Robert Lionette, a Chilmark member of the committee who has been an opponent of the appeal against the Oak Bluffs board.
The school committee is not breaking its past vote, though, because it is still using the remainder of the 2023 fiscal year legal budget to pay Mr. Winner without touching the 2024 budget, said Kris O’Brien, a school committee member from Oak Bluffs.
Mike Watts of Tisbury, the committee’s liaison to the school attorney, said that following the May spending vote he let Mr. Winner know the legal funding would not continue in the budget year that began July 1.
“I informed him we did not have [FY 20]24 money to spend on his services,” Mr. Watts, who attended the Oak Bluffs closed-door meeting, said.
However, as Mr. Winner prepares for a court hearing Friday on the school committee’s request for a summary judgment in the case, the committee continues to draw on the $8,000 balance from last year’s $30,000 legal budget.
“This deceitful and back door approach — I just think it’s crazy,” said school committee member Jeffrey “Skipper” Manter. “It’s not what we agreed to do. How dumb do you think the electorate is?”
Ms. O’Brien, the committee’s previous legal liaison in the case, said Mr. Manter’s words offended her and misrepresented the process under way.
“This committee is not trying to be deceitful,” Ms. O’Brien said. “We never said there would be no money spent … It’s clear if you look at the minutes. I don’t believe we’ve misled anyone.”
A review of minutes from the earlier meeting by scribe Teresa Kruszewksi confirmed that the committee had voted to limit its legal spending to the remaining 2023 budget, without further elaboration.
Mr. Manter later apologized to Ms. O’Brien, who thanked him.
But the perceived dodge around voters’ desire to end the case has clearly angered other up-Islanders as well, including Dukes County commissioner Doug Ruskin of West Tisbury, who threatened to disrupt Wednesday’s meeting by refusing to leave the high school library for the school committee’s closed session with Mr. Winner to discuss the litigation.
“If this is a legitimate executive session … I shouldn’t be here. I question its legitimacy,” said Mr. Ruskin, who was joined at the library by Chilmark finance committee member Vicki Divoll.
Ms. Divoll and Mr. Ruskin left the room only after several requests by chair Kathryn Shertzer, who asked them to return after the closed session with Mr. Winner.
State law has strict conditions for spending a prior year’s money in a later budget year, Mr. Ruskin said, and he does not believe the legal bills fall within these rules.
Ms. Divoll said she intends to bring the matter to the Chilmark finance and advisory committee when it meets this Friday.
During the roughly 30-minute executive session, the school committee voted 5-3 to have Mr. Winner continue to work on the school’s appeal, Ms. Shertzer reported.
“The committee took a vote to instruct our attorney to move forward with our appeal process,” she said.
Mr. Lionette continued to express resistance.
“I fully intend to reach out to the [attorney general]’s office tomorrow morning to seek clarity on the financial piece,” he said.
The school committee previously said it was seeking to settle the lawsuit with the planning board and was interested in a public meeting between the bodies. Neither have come to fruition.
The lawsuit will be heard at the state Land Court on Friday at 9:30 a.m.
