Believing his fellow board members are conducting too much town business away from the public eye, a Raymond selectman recently announced he would no longer communicate with fellow town leaders via e-mail.

Dana Desjardins, a selectman for eight of the last nine years, announced in early December that he no longer would use his town-issued or private account to send or receive e-mails, citing his own propensity to “speak my mind” as well as his growing belief that too much policy is discussed via e-mail.

“They’re making too many decisions on e-mail, and I’ve been outspoken against it,” Desjardins said. “There’s a secret society in the e-mail world, and I’d just as soon not be part of it.”

Desjardins said he discovered only this fall from Raymond’s technology director that what he wrote in e-mail was public information, a topic covered by the Maine Right to Know law.

“Lori Forbes (technology director) told us to be careful what we communicate, so once I was told my e-mail was public information, I figured that’s the end of that. I don’t want anybody setting me up, or scrutinizing what I have said on e-mail,” Desjardins said.

Instead, Desjardins will go back to what some say are the dark ages of communication before “e” became a hip prefix.

“If someone wants to contact me they can use the telephone, come to my home, or put it in writing in my mailbox,” Desjardins said.

Desjardins said the current board of selectmen as well as town employees converse regularly via e-mail. And in his opinion, “when you CC two selectmen or more, that’s a quorum. And that never set right with me.”

Chairman Mike Reynolds, who has been on the board for five years and believes e-mail can be beneficial if used within the bounds of the right-to-know law, said Desjardins isn’t too far off the mark in his criticism of the board for their use of e-mail. But he said once the board was made aware of the law regarding elected officials’ use of e-mail correspondence, members have changed their e-mailing behavior and have refrained from giving their opinions on issues, saving discussion of that sort for public board meetings.

“For a while, until we talked about it, we were probably crossing the line,” Reynolds said. “Our discussion was more along the lines of ‘this is the way I feel about it,’ or ‘this is my opinion,’ versus now where we ask for information about something. That’s different. When more than one person is giving their opinion on an issue, you’re starting to build consensus, and that’s going over the line.”

Reynolds also said Desjardins is “very passionate” and has let that plainspoken passion show through in some of his e-mails regarding town matters, a fact Desjardins doesn’t deny. And while Reynolds said he understands Desjardins’ motives for ceasing his use of e-mail, he said Desjardins should reconsider since he is shutting himself off from what has become a quick and cost-effective mode of communication for public servants.

“The stuff he’s missing is the notification stuff,” Reynolds said. “As a select board member, he would receive all sorts of information from the town, the county and the state. And in the case of an emergency, that can be vital information. Everything is conducted through e-mail now. That is the accepted norm. No one is going to mail it to him, so he’s not going to get it.”

When asked if he’d miss out on notification, Desjardins said fellow selectman Charles Leavitt will “let me know anything I need to know.”

The law

While Maine’s Right to Know law can be complicated, as evidenced by the Gray Town Council’s recent travails regarding a vote made in executive session, Michael Starn, communications director at the Maine Municipal Association, said the law regarding officials’ use of e-mail is clear.

“The law has a notice requirement for holding a public meeting. The trap that municipal officials unknowingly fall into is what actually constitutes a meeting. But the law makes no exemption for any particular type of communication, such as e-mail,” Starn said.

Starn further explained that “it’s no problem” when a town manager sends out a notice of an upcoming meeting and CCs the entire board. “It’s when they have back and forth policy discussion that the problem occurs,” Starn said.

Concerning the number of board members allowed to discuss policy outside of a public meeting, Starn said two members of a seven-member board could legally discuss policy via e-mail or in person, but in the case of Raymond’s five-member board of selectmen, “two members discussing something, there’s a gray area there.”

“The more important aspect of the law is to try to keep your public policy discussion to the official meeting,” Starn said.

Raymond Selectman Dana Desjardins announced recently he will no longer use e-mail to communicate with officials. (File photo)

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