LYNN — On Tuesday, the City Council held a License Committee meeting, a Ways and Means Committee meeting, and a regular council meeting, which contained a public hearing on the fiscal year 2024 budget. But the notices of these meetings never made it to the city’s public calendar online, which means the council will have to redo all three meetings, City Council President Jay Walsh told The Daily Item.
“It was brought to my attention this morning by one of the city solicitors that the meeting that we had on the 13th, which was including the budget, is no good because the contractor who operates the website never published the public-meeting notice appropriately,” Walsh said.
A digital message board on Johnson Street that displays meeting notices was also not working, he said.
“I’ve contacted the attorney general’s office to notify them that we had a meeting and apparently it wasn’t posted correctly. It wasn’t done intentionally, but it happened and they need to know,” Walsh said.
According to the Commonwealth’s website, public-meeting notices must be posted at least 48 hours in advance, except for emergency meetings.
The council is going to take the necessary steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again, Walsh said, and he is “embarrassed” that it happened at all.
“I want to make sure everybody knows that I believe in good government and making sure we do things appropriately and by the rules, and when we don’t, we have to make sure people know that,” Walsh said.
The new meetings have already been scheduled, he said.
The Ways and Means meeting and Licensing meeting will take place at the council’s regularly-scheduled meeting on June 27. The new budget hearing will be held on June 29 at 5:30 p.m.
“It’s only beneficial to everybody that everything is done correctly,” Walsh said.
