By Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com

POTTSTOWN — Members of the Pottstown School Board's Neighborhood Schools Committee violated Pennsylvania's open meetings law if they discussed matters on which they might vote when they met privately, the district solicitor has ruled.

The matter came to light on March 2 when school board member Thomas Hylton, who chairs the Neighborhood Schools Committee, confirmed he had privately discussed his proposal for the elementary schools with the other two members of the committee, Nat White and Valerie Harris.

At the time, Hylton said he did not believe it to be a violation because his committee did not represent a quorum of the full school board.

Asked March 4 to look into the matter, district solicitor Stephen Kalis had initially offered a similar opinion that because the three-member committee did not constitute a quorum of the school board, that such discussions were not a violation.

However Melissa Melewsky, legal counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and an expert in the open meetings law, disagreed with Kalis' thinking. She said because a committee of the school board is considered "an agency," it is bound by the same rules as the larger entity of which it is a part.

At the March 18 school board meeting, Kalis announced that he had come around to Melewsky's way of thinking.

Kalis said he was not sure, initially, whether the committee constituted "an agency" under the definition of the law.

Research determined that in fact it is "an agency" and that a "pre-arranged gathering with a quorum for the purpose of deliberating agency business" was in fact a violation of the law, which prohibits such meetings occurring without public notice.

However, said Kalis, because he has no way of knowing what was discussed, it is difficult for him to say that a violation of the open meetings law definitely occurred because he does not know if agency business was discussed.

Had the three gathered and not discussed agency business, it would not be a violation under the Open Meetings Law.

"However, the appearance alone of impropriety, if only in the eyes of the public, is a violation of the public trust," said Kalis.

Kalis said he would advise that in the future, committee members avoid holding such meetings.

None of the board members, including Hylton, who has in the past criticized the district for having a "culture of secrecy," had any questions for Kalis or disputed his advice.

Should a violation have occurred, the legal consequences are minimal as Pennsylvania's open meetings law carries no fines or penalties for its violation, requiring only that the discussion occur again in public.

That is likely a moot point as the proposal Hylton was discussing with White and Harris was dealt a serious blow at the same meeting when School Board President Rick Huss reversed his previous position and cast a key vote against applying for federal funding.

Because the deadline for that funding application is April 1, the vote may well have killed Hylton's proposal, which called for moving fifth graders to the middle school, which has excess capacity, as well as installing geo-thermal heating and upgraded electric and technology wiring in all five elementary schools.

Huss subsequently announced he would establish a task force to study the matter further — a process he predicted will take at least two years.

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