On the agenda for the May 27th Pittsfield School Committee meeting is the following item: “Discussion and approve a response to an Open Meeting Law violation filed on May 2, 2026, by Ciara Batory against the School Committee for an alleged violation at the Committee’s March 25, 2026, meeting”.

Below is the Open Meeting Law complaint filed by Member Batory as well as the City Solicitor’s response to the complaint, which the Mayor requested to provide a response.

I’m going to attach both screenshots of the complaint, the City Solicitor’s Letter, and the proposed response from the School Committee packet, as well as the text that I got from my PDF reader’s OCR scanner so its more readable in the blog post.

Batory’s Open Meeting Law Complaint

From: Batory, Clara <cbatory@pittsfield.net>

Sent: Saturday, May 2, 2026 8:25 AM

To: Marchetti, Peter <pmarchetti@PittsfieldMA.gov>; Sarah Muil <smitchmuil@gmaii.com>; Sarah Muil <smuil@pittsfield.net>

Subject: Open Meeting Law Complaint — Improper Agenda Attribution and Lack of Transparency

CAUTION: This email originated from outside your organization. Exercise caution when opening

attachments or clicking links, especially from unknown senders.

Open Meeting Law Complaint — Improper Agenda Attribution and Lack of Transparency

I am filing this formal complaint pursuant to the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law, M.G.L. c. 30A, §§ 18-25.

This complaint concerns the placement of an agenda item under my name without my knowledge, request, or consent, and the subsequent failure to provide any explanation when directly questioned.

Facts

• An agenda for a Pittsfield School Committee meeting included an item listed under my name.

• I did not submit, request, or authorize this item to be placed on the agenda.

• I was not consulted prior to its publication.

• During the public meeting, I sought clarification regarding why this item was attributed to me.

• No explanation was provided on the record.

Violation

The Open Meeting Law requires transparency and accuracy in the conduct of public business and in the creation of official records.

Attributing an agenda item to an elected member without their consent creates a misleading public record and misrepresents the source of a matter before the body. The failure to provide an explanation when asked on the record further undermines accountability.

Requested Remedies

I respectfully request that the Pittsfield School Committee:

1. Acknowledge that the agenda item was improperly attributed without my consent

2. Provide a formal explanation of how this occurred

3. Amend the official meeting record/minutes to reflect that I did not submit or authorize the item

4. Establish a clear policy ensuring that no agenda item is attributed to a member without their explicit approval

5. Take any necessary corrective action to ensure compliance with the Open Meeting Law

Conclusion

Accurate representation in public records is essential to transparent government. The public has a right to know who is responsible for items placed before a public body.

Additional Notice

Given that this complaint concerns actions taken by the Chair, I am copying the Clerk (or appropriate administrative office) to ensure accurate recordkeeping.

This communication is for informational purposes only and is not intended to solicit a response or engage in deliberation outside of a properly posted public meeting.

Sincerely,

Ciara E. Batory

Pittsfield School Committee Member

City Solicitors Response

Re: Open Meeting Law complaint of Ciara Batory dated May 2, 2026

Mayor Marchetti,

You have asked me to review Ms. Batory’s Open Meeting Law Complaint delivered to the City on May 2, 2026, and draft a proposed response based on the facts as I understand them.

Allegation: The School Committee violated the Open Meeting Law by “Attributing an agenda item to an elected member without their consent creates a misleading public record and misrepresents the source of a matter before the body”

Somewhat confusingly, Ms. Batory’s complaint states in part: “This communication is for informational purposes only and is not intended to solicit a response… ” I will disregard this statement solely for the purposes of this opinion and proposed response.

The date of the alleged violation is not stated in the Complaint. However, based on a review of School Committee Agendas, the meeting at which the alleged violation occurred was March 25, 2026. The agenda item was Section VI. G. and read: “Request by Ciara Batory to Release the May 2025 Pittsfield High Investigative Report with Required Redactions.”

Ms. Batory was present and participated in the March 25, 2026, School Committee meeting.

M.G.L.c. 30A, §23 of the Open Meeting Law requires complaints to be filed within thirty days of the alleged violation.

Ms. Batory submitted her complaint on May 2, 2026: more than thirty days past the date of the violation, so her complaint is time barred. Accordingly, the School Committee need only respond that it is not required to address her complaint as it was not filed within the time frame required by applicable law.

It is worth noting that the regulations pertaining to the Open Meeting Law require the use of a specific complaint form (available on-line or from the City Clerk) which must be filed with the Chair of the School Committee AND the City Clerk. Ms. Batory did not use the prescribed form and there is no indication the complaint was filed with the Clerk. These filing defects cannot be corrected because the complaint is time barred.

Prescinding from the fact that the complaint is time barred and solely for purposes of considering whether the School Committee adhered to the Open Meeting Law in this instance, I will address the substance of Ms. Batory’s Complaint.

In my opinion the notice for agenda item Section VI. G. for the March 25, 2026, School Committee meeting complied with the requirements of the Open Meeting Law.

At its essence, Ms. Batory’s complaint is about improper notice because attributing an agenda item to a particular member tended to mislead the public. The OML statutes provides: “Notice shall be printed in a legible, easily understandable format and shall contain the date, time and place of the meeting and a listing of topics that the chair reasonably anticipates will be discussed at the meeting.” C. 30A, §30(b). The OML regulations state: “The list of topics shall have sufficient specificity to reasonably advise the public of the issues to be discussed at the meeting.” 940 CMR 29.03(b)

The March 25, 2026, Meeting Notice notified the public that, among other matters, the School Committee would address “Request by Ciara Batory to Release the May 2025 Pittsfield High Investigative Report with Required Redactions.”

In my opinion this agenda item notice satisfies the OML requirements because the public could clearly understand the topic pertained to the Release of the May 2025 Pittsfield High Investigative Report with Required Redactions.

Ms. Batory objected to her name being associated with this item. Disregarding that the March 25, 2026 agenda item topic related to an agenda item of the School Committee’s January 28, 2026 meeting of the same name, any potential confusion was not about the topic, rather to whom the topic should be attributed, and, thus, would not detract from the appropriateness of the notice in reasonably advising the public of the issue to be discussed at the meeting. In short, Ms. Batory’s name being associated with the agenda item in question is, in my opinion, irrelevant to the OML question. 

In summary, in my opinion, even if Ms. Batory timely and properly filed a complaint, the School Committee’s notice for agenda item Section VI. G. would not have been found to have violated the OML. 

My proposed response is attached.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Jeffry P. Grandchamp, Esquire

City Solicitor, City of Pittsfield

Proposed Response

Proposed response:

Ms. Batory,

By email dated May 2, 2026, you alleged the Pittsfield School Committee violated the Open

Meeting Law by “Attributing an agenda item to an elected member without their consent creates a misleading public record and misrepresents the source of a matter before the body.”

The date of the alleged violation is not stated in the Complaint. However, based on a review of School Committee Agendas, the meeting at which the alleged violation occurred was March 25, 2026. The agenda item was Section VI. G. and read: “Request by Ciara Batory to Release the May 2025 Pittsfield High Investigative Report with Required Redactions.”

You were present and participated in the March 25, 2026 School Committee.

M.G.L. 30A, §23 of the Open Meeting Law requires complaints to be filed within 30 days of the alleged violation.

The alleged violation occurred no later than March 25, 2026, which was more than 30 days prior to the date you filed your complaint. For that reason, your complaint was not filed timely and therefore is time barred. Accordingly, no further response is required.

In addition to being time barred, you did not file the complaint using the form prescribed by the Attorney General, nor is it clear that you filed it with the Clerk for the City of Pittsfield as required. In any event those defects cannot be corrected because you failed to file within 30 days from the date of the alleged violation.

Prescinding from the fact that your complaint is time barred and procedurally defective, the School Committee requested the City Solicitor review the facts and provide an opinion as to whether there was an Open Meeting Law violation in this instance regarding the agenda item you identified.

At its essence your complaint is about improper notice because attributing an agenda item to a particular member tended to mislead the public. The OML statutes provide “Notice shall be printed in a legible, easily understandable format and shall contain the date, time and place of the meeting and a listing of topics that the chair reasonably anticipates will be discussed at the meeting.” C. 30A, §30(b). The OML regulations state: “The list of topics shall have sufficient specificity to reasonably advise the public of the issues to be discussed at the meeting.”. 940 CMR 29.03(b)

The March 25, 2026, Meeting Notice notified the public that, among other matters, the School Committee would address: “Request by Ciara Batory to Release the May 2025 Pittsfield High Investigative Report with Required Redactions.”The City Solicitor’s opinion is that this agenda item notice satisfies the OML requirements because the public could clearly understand the topic pertained to the Release the May 2025 Pittsfield High Investigative Report with Required Redactions.

Further, while associating your name, or any other member’s name, to an agenda item is not necessary, it does not make the notice defective. This is because the notice had sufficient specificity to reasonably advise the public of the issues to be discussed at the meeting.

For the foregoing, your complaint was filed late and improperly. Regardless, the School Committee agenda Item was Section VI. G did not violate the open meeting law

My Thoughts

I don’t really think there is much to add here as the City Solicitor covered most of the issues of Batory’s Open Meeting Law complaint.

While the agenda item from the March 25th meeting could be seen as poorly worded, the item as written didn’t violate the Open Meeting Law and certainly isn’t a violation of the State Ethics Law as I mentioned in my prior post.

The Open Meeting Law Regulations are clear that any complaint has to be submitted on the proper form (which is easily accessible on the Attorney General’s website) has to be sent to the Committee Chair and the City Clerk, and must be filed within 30 days of the violation occurring. All of which she did not do.

29.05: Complaints
(1) All complaints shall be in writing, using the form approved by the Attorney General and available on the Attorney General’s website. A public body need not, and the Attorney General will not, investigate or address anonymous complaints. A public body need not address a complaint that is not signed by the complainant. A public body need not address a complaint that is not filed using the Attorney General’s complaint form.

(2) Public bodies, or the municipal clerk in the case of a local public body, should provide any person, on request, with an Open Meeting Law Complaint Form. If a paper copy is unavailable, then the public body should direct the requesting party to the Attorney General’s website, where an electronic copy of the form will be available for downloading and printing.

(3) For local public bodies, the complainant shall file the complaint with the chair of the public body, who shall disseminate copies of the complaint to the members of the public body. The complainant shall also file a copy of the complaint with the municipal clerk, who shall keep such filings in an orderly fashion for public review on request during regular business hours. For all other public bodies, the complainant shall file the complaint with the chair of the relevant public body, or if there is no chair, then with the public body.

(4) The complaint shall be filed within 30 days of the alleged violation of M.G.L. c. 30A, §§ 18 through 25, or if the alleged violation of M.G.L. c. 30A, §§ 18 through 25, could not reasonably have been known at the time it occurred, then within 30 days of the date it should reasonably have been discovered.

This complaint is pretty much going nowhere. Batory could appeal this to the Attorney General’s office, but they will most certainly dismiss it given she filed it 30 days after the supposed violation occurred. I am sure the discussion at the School Committee meeting will be interesting.

I honestly feel this isn’t an attempt at promoting transparency but to rile people up by claiming that the School Committee is “violating the law”, when there is no real basis for that claim. A better way would be to promote changes to how items appear on the agenda so it is clearer which item belongs to which individual (like the City Council does) which would address unclear agenda items like this one. However, filing an Open Meeting Law complaint (and I’m using “filing” very loosely here) is more flashy and riles people up instead of actually accomplishing anything.

I continue to be very concerned by how Batory promotes herself as being very knowledgeable on topics such as the Open Meeting Law, parliamentary procedure, and school finance, when on a closer examination she makes false statements on these topics. There were very basic procedural things she missed in trying to file this complaint that she could have easily known by searching the Open Meeting Law into Google and looking at the Attorney General’s website.

Sidenote, while I’m not 100% certain her complaint was AI written as I don’t have the original email to go off of instead of a printed then scanned copy of it, in my opinion I feel this complaint is giving off some AI writing vibes to me. The headers and bullet points that are used throughout the email and being vague about what meeting the issue occurred at and what exact part of the law was violated feels AI-like to me. The language in the “additional notice” section also seems weird, such as the phrase “copying the Clerk (or appropriate administrative office) to ensure accurate recordkeeping” which doesn’t explicitly say who the complaint is being sent to. As mentioned by the City Solicitor, the phrase “this communication is for informational purposes only and is not intended to solicit a response or engage in deliberation outside of a properly posted public meeting” does contradict how a complaint should be handled. This would track with her past uses of AI which were more discernible, though this is just how I feel.

It’s fine to say that you don’t know or are unsure about something as an elected official when trying to explain things. But when you say “I know this” which such confidence, and then are wrong about it, it becomes a problem. People become misled and small problems and mistakes become bigger issues that distract from the real issues facing the Pittsfield Public Schools such as the budget, the transition that will need to take place with closing Morningside, and addressing racism and homophobia in our schools and in our community.

I’ll end with this, people have reached out to me asking what is the best way to share their voice about their similar concerns regarding the dysfunction of the current School Committee. The best way to do that is at the public comment portion of the Committee meetings. This not only provides the opportunity to address the Committee directly, but also shows the press and the public watching that people are seeing through these false claims and want a functional School Committee again that is addressing the issues that actually affect for our students.

If you feel the same way I do, I encourage you to speak at the next School Committee meeting on Wednesday, May 27th at 6pm in City Hall Council Chambers. Make sure to get there early so you can sign up to speak.