Norwalk BET’s vague agendas on workforce cuts may have violated state FOI law, experts say

Norwalk’s Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) may have violated state law by failing to adequately inform the public about closed-door conversations regarding eliminating positions, according to legal experts and previous determinations by the state’s Freedom of Information Commission.

On June 17, Norwalk Mayor Barbara Smyth’s office confirmed that there had been a “limited number of workforce reductions and organizational changes” following conversations with the BET during the budget process.

The details of the layoff were ironed out in two executive sessions in April before the BET voted on the general fund operational budget on April 22.

The first meeting, which was on April 15, lists the executive session agenda item as “personnel/restructuring.” The April 22 agenda states the BET went into executive session “to discuss personnel matters.”

During that meeting, Chair Ed Abrams reiterated that the closed-door portion was for addressing “any personnel issues that require confidential conversation.”

Russell Blair, the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission’s director of education and communications, told NancyOnNorwalk that governmental bodies need to “fairly apprise the public” of what is discussed in executive session.

The commission has previously determined that a one- to two-word description doesn’t meet that threshold, Blair said, emphasizing that he could not make such a determination on his own. But he did say the first agenda isn’t a “very adequate description.”

Blair pointed to a recent case as a guide for how the law treats vague language: Hornish v. Moll. In that case, the commission fined a Suffield official for closing a meeting under the heading “Executive Session – Litigation.” The commission ruled that the label alone was too vague to legally justify shutting the public out.

Blair said Norwalk’s BET agendas use comparably thin language. Based on the standard set in the Suffield case, that wording likely falls short, too.

Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition, had a similar assessment, saying that there “needs to be a very specific reason articulated” for a body to go into executive session.

The public has to understand why the meeting is entering the executive session and be able to determine that it was established lawfully, Silverman said.

Whether the BET was within its rights to enter the executive session, even with proper public notice, is also murky. Typically, executive sessions are entered to discuss individuals, not larger layoffs, Silverman said.

Blair stated that if the executive sessions were genuinely about specific employees, as the personnel exemption requires, the city should have notified those employees in advance. If the sessions were not about specific employees, then the personnel exemption may not have applied in the first place. 

Corporation Counsel Mario Coppola said in a phone interview that the city did not know in advance which jobs or employees might come up in the executive sessions, and was concerned that board members might name specific employees rather than discuss roles in general.

“We didn’t know what position, we didn’t know what person, who the personnel members were that may come up in the discussion,” Coppola said. “That’s why it wasn’t reasonably known to us at the time.”

Both Silverman and Blair agree that if the city was not sure which jobs would be discussed, then that points towards an open conversation of departments and positions, not a closed one centered on individuals.

Blair said concerns that the BET might drift into talking about specific employees don’t justify using a vague agenda; ‘two wrongs don’t make a right,’ and the answer is better notice, not less detail. 

Coppola disputed that the agenda language violated the Freedom of Information Act.

“With all due respect to Russell, he’s not always right about everything,” Coppola said, noting that Blair’s position is not to issue legal opinions and that he is not a decision maker for the commission.

Coppola said the Hornish v. Moll case is not comparable to Norwalk’s situation. In that case, he said, the town knew exactly what litigation it was discussing and chose not to name it on the agenda. He said Norwalk’s executive sessions were different because the city did not know in advance which jobs or employees might come up.

Coppola said he was offering his own opinion, not a formal legal determination, and that people could disagree about these things. He said the city is open to improving how it words executive session notices going forward.

“To the extent that we could do better with notices and stuff, we’ll always try,” he said. “I think folks try their best to comply with FOIA, and sometimes we could do a better job.”

NancyOnNorwalk will continue to follow the story as it develops.

Editor’s note: This story was updated June 28, 2026, to include comments from Corporation Counsel Mario Coppola.