June 30, 2025
Valley Patriot publisher Tom Duggan has filed an official complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and the Lawrence City Council President citing five members of the council violated the Massachusetts Open Meeting law on June 27, 2025 by conducting an illegal, secret meeting outside of public view.
The five council members who signed the letter (below) and provided quotes are; Council President Jeovanny Rodriguez, Wendy Luzon, Stephany Infante, Fidelina Santiago, and Vivian Marmol.
With a total of nine members of the Lawrence City Council, five members constitutes a quorum (or a majority) which according to state law may not communicate outside the confines of a legally posted, public city council meeting.
The letter by the council president was a response to a press release circulated the day before by councilors who were on the opposing side of the controversial budget transfer requests.
That letter was not a violation because only four of the nine councilors signed and provided quotes for that letter.
Duggan’s complaint reads:
During an ongoing budget battle on the Lawrence City Council, five of the nine elected members of the Lawrence City Council have conspired behind the scenes to discuss and determine the outcome of budget votes and budget transfer requests.
They have provided proof of these illegal, secret discussions outside of public view by drafting, authoring, circulating, and signing an open letter among a quorum of the council concerning their displeasure with a recent vote on the 2026 budget transfer requests which are still tabled for future discussion and votes.
While many of the concerns expressed in this letter may be valid, the fact that a quorum of the city council singed and circulated this letter without putting it on the council agenda, publicly discussing the issue and voting on it in public is a clear violation of the open meeting law MGL Ch30a ss. 18 which clearly states:
“As used in this section and sections 19 to 25, inclusive, the following words shall, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, have the following meanings:
“Deliberation”, an oral or written communication through any medium, including electronic mail, between or among a quorum of a public body on any public business within its jurisdiction; provided, however, that “deliberation” shall not include the distribution of a meeting agenda, scheduling information or distribution of other procedural meeting or the distribution of reports or documents that may be discussed at a meeting, provided that no opinion of a member is expressed.”
Of note: this letter was in response to four other members of the council expressing their concerns on the same issue but did not constitute a quorum.
The Council’s Open Letter
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According to state law, the city councilors in violation have 14 days to respond and take action to correct the open meeting law violation.
Generally, on a first offense there is no financial penalty for councilors guilty of holding an illegal meeting if the offending councilors answer the complaint in a public forum, and correct the violation by publicly taking action.
If they fail to do so, the Attorney General may impose financial penalties on each of the individual councilors, by which they will not be able to use their campaign funds to pay.
The Valley Patriot has filed dozens of Open Meeting Law complaints against governmental bodies over the past 21 years, most recently receiving rulings from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office finding the Methuen City Council guilty of violating the law in August of 2021, (STORY HERE) the Haverhill City Council in August of 2023 (SEE STORY) and the Haverhill School Committee (STORY HERE) in March of 2024.
“The complaint against the Haverhill City Council two years ago involved the exact same type of violation that Lawrence councilors have engaged in here,” Duggan said.
“It should be noted that if Lawrence officials paid attention to what was going in in other communities or simply read the Valley Patriot once in a while they could have avoided this complaint.”
In 2023, a majority of Haverhill City Councilors drafted, wrote, provided quotes for, and then circulated a letter outside of public view in an attempt to influence the Haverhill Mayor’s race at the time.
The Valley Patriot has never lost a public records or open meeting law complaint.
“It’s nothing personal,” Duggan said of his complaint.
“We don’t have many written policies here at The Valley Patriot but one of them is to immediately file complaints for open meeting law violations or violations of the state’s public records law the minute they occur.”
“These are the basic laws that keep elected officials honest and transparent. I personally endorsed each of the five councilors involved in this complaint and will most likely endorse some them again this year, but the law is that law and I have a job to do. My hope is that this will be a learning moment and will make each of these councilors more mindful of the transparency laws in the future. Nothing more.”