Background

The Complainant, a member of the Committee, takes issue with an executive session that occurred during the Committee’s November 4, 2025 meeting. Specifically, the Complainant takes issue with the discussion of three letters addressed to herself that were discussed during this executive session by the Committee. The Complainant alleges that the Committee improperly met in executive session “to distribute and discuss personal correspondence addressed solely to a committee member, obtained from an undisclosed source, without any identified District purpose, investigation, or litigation, and without legal advice being rendered.” She further alleges that the Committee’s meeting notice was deficient as it “contained only generic descriptions of executive session business, such as ‘Legal Advice/Pending Litigation’ and ‘Update/Investigation of allegations of misconduct,’ with no reference to the distribution or discussion of specific personal correspondence or related demands.” Finally, she alleges that the Committee violated the OMA because its approved executive session meeting minutes are inaccurate as they “omit material information regarding the distribution and discussion” of the three letters sent to her.

The Committee submitted a substantive response through its legal counsel Gregory P. Piccirilli, Esq. The Committee asserts that it “did not convene to ‘discuss personal pieces of correspondence.’” Instead, it asserts that it met in executive to discuss an active criminal investigation involving the Foster-Glocester Regional School District. It asserts that the three letters at issue, which were addressed to the Complainant, “directly implicate the ongoing investigation.” It asserts that after a criminal investigation was initiated into a former teacher, all Committee members were asked not to make any public comments about the investigation, however the Complainant did so. Attorneys representing various school administrators then sent the letters at issue to the Complainant in response to her public comments pertaining to the investigation.

The Committee further asserts that the Complainant “did not ask during the executive session on November 4 to have the letters included in the minutes” and instead she “waited until after the meeting concluded and sought to add the letters to the minutes at a subsequent meeting.” Attorney Piccirilli states that he advised the Complainant to make her request to amend the meeting minutes in executive session, however she had not made any attempt to do so.

We acknowledge the Complainant’s Rebuttal.

Relevant Law and Findings

When we examine an OMA complaint, our authority is to determine whether a violation of the OMA has occurred. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-8. In doing so, we must begin with the plain language of the OMA and relevant caselaw interpreting this statute.

·         Executive session pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4)

The OMA requires that “[e]very meeting of all public bodies shall be open to the public unless closed pursuant to §§ 42-46-4 and 42-46-5.” R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-3. A public body may hold a meeting closed to the public for one of the ten (10) purposes enumerated under R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a). Among these enumerated exemptions, a public body may convene into executive session for “[a]ny investigative proceedings regarding allegations of misconduct, either civil or criminal.” See R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4).

The Committee convened an executive session at its November 4, 2025 meeting pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4) for “Legal Advice/Pending Litigation … Update/Investigation of allegations of misconduct, either civil or criminal.”

The Complainant asserts that this executive session pertained to the distribution and discussion of personal correspondence addressed to her and thus did fall under the ambit of R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4). Meanwhile, the Committee asserts that the letters at issue were directly related to an ongoing criminal investigation as they pertained to public comments the Complainant made about the investigation.

The Complainant does not dispute in her Complaint or Rebuttal that there was an ongoing criminal investigation regarding a school teacher and that the letters in question related to that investigation. Instead, she argues that R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4) is inapplicable because the Committee’s discussion in executive session “focused on [her] speech and was not lawful.” However, the Complainant does not dispute that the letters at issue were related to her comments pertaining to the underlying criminal investigation. Instead, she argues that the Committee’s assertion that her comments were related to the underlying investigation “does not justify executive session” because it “does not explain distribution of my personal correspondence, does not substitute for legal advice, and instead reinforces that the discussion focused on me personally.”

However, the plain text of R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4) does not exclude from its ambit discussions of personal correspondence or discussion of a Committee member, nor does it include a requirement that legal advice be provided during the executive session. We conclude based on the record before us that the letters at issue pertained to the underlying criminal investigation and thus were permissibly discussed during an executive session held pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4). The language of R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4) evinces a clear recognition that investigations regarding allegations of misconduct include discussion of sensitive information and that permitting discussions related to the same to occur in executive session promotes the investigatory and privacy interests that typically accompany such an investigation. As such, we conclude that discussion of the letters that related to an investigation falls within the ambit of the investigative proceedings included within the exemption. The instant Complaint appears to also be concerned with how the Committee obtained such letters, but that is beyond the purview of this Office. See Jenkins v. Bonnet Shores Fire District Council, OM 25-02 (“This Office’s purview under the OMA is to investigate alleged violations of that statute and as such this finding is limited to addressing potential violations of the OMA.”) (citing R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-8). Accordingly, we do not find that the Committee violated the OMA by holding an executive session to discuss the correspondence at issue.

·         Supplemental notice

The OMA requires that a public body’s meeting agenda provide “a statement specifying the nature of the business to be discussed.” R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-6(b). In Anolik v. Zoning Board of Review of the City of Newport, the Rhode Island Supreme Court held that R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-6(b) requires the “public body to provide fair notice to the public under the circumstances, or such notice based on the totality of the circumstances as would fairly inform the public of the nature of the business to be discussed or acted upon.” 64 A.3d 1171, 1173 (R.I. 2013); see also Tanner v. Town of East Greenwich, 880 A.2d 784, 797 (R.I. 2005).

This Office has previously recognized that with respect to executive session notice:

“[i]f the matter to be discussed is one of public record, such as a pending court case or the well publicized negotiation of a principal or executive director’s contract, the public body should cite the name of the case or reference that it will discuss the contract. However, where the matter to be discussed in executive session is not yet public, the public body may limit its open call to the nature of the matter, such as ‘litigation’ or ‘personnel.”

Graziano v. Lottery Commission, OM 99-06; see Banfield v. Narragansett Town Council, OM 26-08 (finding an executive session agenda item that stated “litigation” to be permissible where the “Council discussed potential litigation, not litigation that was already a matter of public record … [w]e recognize that even revealing that the Council was discussing potential litigation about a specific ordinance could reveal non-public information and legal strategy”).

The executive session agenda item at issue stated that the Council would convene into executive session “[p]er RI Gen. Laws § 42-46-5(a)(4) Legal Advice/Pending Litigation” for an “Update/Investigation of allegations of misconduct, either civil or criminal.” The Complainant contends that this agenda item was insufficient as it made no reference to the fact that her “private correspondence would be distributed or addressed.”

As this Office has noted, in situations where a public body is discussing non-public or sensitive matters in executive session, it may be appropriate for a public body to provide a less-detailed and more generic description of the agenda item. Here, it appears that the Committee limited its description of the agenda item to be discussed in executive session as it pertained to an ongoing investigation and letters sent to an individual, which implicate both investigatory and privacy interests. We find the Complainant’s argument somewhat contradictory. She simultaneously takes issue with the fact that her “personal correspondence” was discussed, yet also argues that additional information should have been given to the public about the agenda item. If there were privacy concerns about the naming of the Complainant or that her “personal correspondence” was to be discussed in connection with an investigation, then that is all the more reason why a less descriptive agenda item would have been permissible. And although we have the authority to investigate allegations in the public interest and have done so here, we additionally fail to see how the Complainant was aggrieved in that she was admittedly present during the executive session. See Dean v. Cumberland School Committee, OM 25-36 (finding that the complainant was not aggrieved where “it is undisputed that he is a member of the Committee, he was present for the executive session in question, and he participated in the very discussion he now alleges violated the OMA”). Accordingly, we do find that the Committee’s supplemental notice for its executive session did not violate the OMA.

·         Executive session meeting minutes

The OMA requires that all public bodies keep written minutes of all meetings, which shall include, but are not limited to: “(1) The date, time, and place of the meeting; (2) The members of the public body recorded as either present or absent; (3) A record by individual members of any vote taken; and (4) Any other information relevant to the business of the public body that any member of the public body requests be included or reflected in the minutes.” R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-7(a) (emphasis added).

The Complainant alleges that the Committee’s meeting minutes fail to “accurately reflect what occurred in Executive Session” because they “do not reflect the distribution or discussion of these letters.” She further asserts that after the drafting of the meeting minutes, at the December 2025 Committee meeting she “requested that the Executive Session minutes be corrected to include this information” but “[t]he Chair declined to allow a vote on the correction” and the “Executive Session minutes were subsequently approved uncorrected.”

The Committee asserts that the Complainant “did not ask during the executive session on November 4 to have the letters included in the minutes.” Instead, she “waited until after the meeting concluded and sought to add the letters to the minutes at a subsequent meeting.” Attorney Piccirilli states that he “advised her to direct her request to change the minutes in closed session” but “[s]he has made no attempt to do so” and “[i]n any event, the Committee approved the minutes over [the Complainant’s] objection.”

The first three sections of R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-7(a) are clear that they do not require the inclusion of information about letters that are distributed at an executive session as they only require the inclusion of (1) the date, time, and place of the meeting, (2) the members present, and (3) the votes that took place.

However, section four states that meeting minutes shall include “[a]ny other information relevant to the business of the public body that any member of the public body requests be included or reflected in the minutes.” Id. It is undisputed that the Complainant did not request, during the November 2025 meeting, for the meeting minutes to include any specific information about the distribution of letters sent to her. The Complainant did not realize that information about the distribution of the letters was not in the meeting minutes until the draft minutes were circulated. She raised this issue with Attorney Piccirilli at the Committee’s December 2025 meeting and was advised by Attorney Piccirilli to raise the issue during executive session as discussion of the content of executive session minutes was not appropriate in an open session. The Complainant does not dispute the Council’s assertion that she could have raised this issue in an executive session but that she never raised the issue of adding this information to the meeting minutes during any subsequent executive session. Instead, the Complainant attempted to amend the motion to approve the meeting minutes during the Committee’s December 2025 meeting. Despite the Complainant’s objection, the Committee voted to approve the November 2025 meeting minutes.

It is not clear from the record before us that the Complainant specifically requested that the letters discussed or information about their distribution be included in the meeting minutes of the November 2025 executive session in accordance with R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-7(a)(4). It is undisputed that the Complainant made no such request during the executive session and did not make any such request at a subsequent executive session as advised by Attorney Piccirilli. The Complainant disputes that such a request should be made in executive session and questions Attorney Piccirilli’s guidance. We find no reason to doubt Attorney Piccirilli’s guidance that discussing the content of executive session meeting minutes in open rather than closed session would risk divulging sealed information. Regardless, the Complainant does not dispute that she never attempted to make a request for the inclusion of certain information in the meeting minutes in any subsequent executive sessions, even if she disagreed with Attorney Piccirilli’s guidance.

Conclusion

Although the Office of the Attorney General will not file suit in this matter, nothing within the OMA prohibits an individual from instituting an action for injunctive or declaratory relief in Superior Court. See R.I. Gen Laws § 42-46-8(c). The OMA allows the Complainant to file a complaint within ninety (90) days from the date of the Attorney General’s closing of the complaint or within one hundred eighty (180) days of the alleged violation, whichever occurs later. See id. Please be advised that we are closing this file as of the date of this letter.

We thank you for your interest in keeping government open and accountable to the public.

Sincerely,

PETER F. NERONHA

ATTORNEY GENERAL

By: /s/ Patrick Reynolds

Patrick Reynolds

Special Assistant Attorney General