Following two public hearings April 18 that employed closed executive session deliberations and secret balloting to register member's decisions, local Board of Ethics Chair Jacqueline Villa told The Newtown Bee she was just following a 2013 directive established under previous chairman Ronald Wilcox, and a provision, not in the state Freedom of Information laws, but in Robert's Rules of Order which appears to be primarily reserved for "secret societies" as justification for the closed process.The Bee that failure to conduct a public vote, in which each board member indicates his or her vote publicly, is likely a violation of state FOI statutes, and he could find no evidence to support secret balloting in state law.Robert's Rules passage that Ms Villa provided. That passage, from Article VIII, Section 46, paragraph 11 reads as follows:The Bee that once probable cause is found to conduct an ethics hearing at the local level, all subsequent meetings and hearings are bound to be held in public.

The secret ballot voting was conducted during separate public hearings resulting in a current and a past Board of Education member being found in violation of several aspects of Newtown's ethics code. The findings were then referred to the Board of Selectmen, which makes the final decision on whether to accept them in part or in total.

The matter involves separate complaints or "referrals" filed by Board of Education members Keith Alexander, John Vouros, Debbie Leidlein, Michelle Ku, and Laura Roche alleging violations of the Code of Ethics by respondent and former board member David Freedman and current board member Kathryn Hamilton.

In the matter of Mr Freedman, the ethics panel referred violations of sections 27-2a, 27-2b, 27-6a, and 27-6b of the local ethics code to selectmen. In the matter of Ms Hamilton, the ethics panel referred violations of sections 27-2a and 27-2b to selectmen.

Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission spokesperson Tom Hennick told

During the hearings and under questioning by the school district's legal counsel after she announced the intent to vote by anonymous ballot, Ethics Chairman Jacqueline Villa assured the attorney that such secret balloting was appropriate. Her follow-up response to the newspaper referenced an October 2013 ethics board meeting, during which Mr Wilcox engaged members in a discussion about hearing procedures.

While minutes to that meeting do not source Mr Wilcox's basis for supporting the practice, they state: "The board also agreed that voting shall be done by ballot. The ballots will be collected by the clerk and turned over to the first selectman and town clerk."

Justification for conducting the secret balloting during the April 18 hearing, is in the

"Voting by Ballot. The main object of this form of voting is secrecy, and it is resorted to when the question is of such a nature that some members might hesitate to vote publicly their true sentiments. Its special use is in the reception of members, elections, and trials of members and officers, as well as in the preliminary steps in both cases, and the by-laws should require the vote to be by ballot in such cases. Where the by-laws do not require the vote to be by ballot, it can be so ordered by a majority vote, or by general consent. Such motions are un-debatable. Voting by ballot is rarely, if ever, used in legislative bodies, but in ordinary societies, especially secret ones, it is habitually used in connection with elections and trials, and sometimes for the selection of the next place for the meeting of a convention."

The Newtown Charter, which governs the conduct of local boards and commission states, "It shall be the duty of every member present at a Legislative Council, Board or Commission meeting to vote affirmatively or negatively on each question raised unless a member feels there is a conflict of interest, which would prevent him/her from voting. The reason for the conflict of interest need not be stated or made part of the record."

During the October 2013 ethics meeting according to the minutes, Mr Wilcox also stated that the Board of Ethics may hold a private meeting prior to a public hearing in order to discuss process and procedures for the public hearing. However, the FOI spokesman informed

Probable cause notifications sent to the respondents were dated February 15, 2016.

According to ethics board minutes from March 14 of this year, and during the April 18 hearing, members conducted at least three closed or executive sessions on these cases, after notifying both Ms Hamilton and Mr Freedman of probable cause to investigate violations against them.

The ethics board may have also violated state General Statutes because both respondents said they were never given the opportunity by ethics officials to have all deliberations involving them conducted in public.

Connecticut Gen Stats 1-18a(e)(1), states that a public agency may convene in executive session for discussion concerning the appointment, employment, performance, evaluation, health or dismissal of a public officer or employee, provided that such individual may require that discussion be held at an open meeting.

Both Mr Freedman and Ms Hamilton maintained after the ethics rulings that the sole reasoning behind releasing what they believed were public documents was to evidence that the Newtown Board of Education was conducting illegal meetings via text messages and e-mails.

During the early stage of the hearing, attorney Mark Sommaruga, who represented both respondents, coincidentally noted a preliminary ruling that was handed down from a state FOI Commission hearing officer several days earlier, confirming documents serving as the foundation of local ethics complaints were public records.

The full FOI Commission is set to make a final ruling in that case, which resulted from an appeal by former school board member Laura Roche, on May 11.

However, Ms Villa indicated at the hearing that the FOI ruling would not be considered in the scope of her board's deliberations. Whether that issue did come up in either party's case is not known since those discussions convened in a separate room away from the respondents, press, and attendees to the hearings.

Mr Freedman did not appear at the final ethics hearing April 18.

Ms Hamilton was in attendance, along with Mr Sommaruga. The school board complainants were represented by attorney Richard Mills.

In her response to questions about the practices used by her board addressing the complaints against Mr Freedman and Ms Hamilton, ethics chair Ms Villa said via e-mail that, "If during my comprehensive research, I find these directives are not adequate, or do not fall within FOIA regulations, the board will be forthcoming with information on how each individual member voted on each individual count and have them recorded in the Town Clerk's office as soon as it is practicable."

This matter represents the second time a local board or commission may have illegally discussed a matter involving Ms Hamilton in a secret executive session.

In October 2010, the Freedom of Information Commission official determined that Ms Hamilton's rights under state law were violated by her own board, and, by extension, its former chairman Lillian Bittman, on three out of three contended counts. In her appeal, Ms Hamilton stated that the board and Ms Bittman permitted part of a closed executive session to transpire during which an evaluation and criticism of her performance and actions as a board member was the sole matter of business.

When she appealed to Ms Bittman that her rights were being violated because Ms Hamilton was neither warned of an evaluation of her performance, nor given the opportunity under the law for that evaluation to occur in public, the chairman permitted the closed session to continue. The FOIC official also found that since Ms Hamilton, then under her married name Fetchick, qualified as a "public officer" under the law, she was entitled to notice of the closed session, and was entitled to have any criticism of her performance held in public, "but the chair refused."