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Even while simply declining to review the complaint, the letter has more to say than immediately meets the eye
The Massachusetts attorney general’s office has issued a declination in response to one of several Open Meeting Law (OML) complaints against the Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) School Committee that are pending review.
The complaint was filed by then-SPS School Committee member Nicole Burnard in November of 2025. According to the response, it was elevated to the attorney general’s Division of Open Government for a determination in January of 2026.
The response opens with a clear statement: “In the complaint, you allege that at its October 23, 2025, meeting, the Committee did not adequately discuss certain warrant articles in anticipation of an upcoming Special Town Meeting because the School Administration failed to provide the information the Committee required and because the Committee Chair failed to include the topics on the notice of the October 23, 2025, meeting. For the reasons stated below, we decline to review your complaint.”
The letter goes on to explain that two of the issues raised in Burnard’s complaint, even if true, wouldn’t constitute a violation of the OML. “Because the omission of an agenda item or the decision not to discuss a topic, even if true, would not constitute a violation of the Open Meeting Law, we decline to review it.”
The response also brought up the timeliness of the complaint. It was filed outside of the required 30-day window after the alleged violation. The letter explains that there are exceptions to 30-day requirement, such as when the alleged violation may not have been discoverable for a period of time after the date of the alleged violation. The author responding for the attorney general’s office has a bit of fun with this one, noting “When an alleged violation occurs during an open meeting, the alleged violation is reasonably discoverable at the time it occurs.”
The author then adds a footnote at the end of that line, and at the bottom of the page the footnote states “We also understand that you were a member of the Committee at all times relevant to the complaint.”
The response also declines to review the portion of Burnard’s complaint that raised issues with the minutes from the October 6, 2025 school committee meeting. It characterized the language in Burnard’s complaint as a concern with the “insufficiently detailed” nature of the minutes, but it then offered the same assessment in response to the complaint. “Complaints must allege violations with a degree of specificity, as our office will not conduct broad audits of public bodies based on generalized allegations.”
It goes on to quote the complaint just before declining to review the allegation:
“Your statement that “[t]he 10/6 minutes should accurately reflect what transpired during the meeting” does not specify what part of the minutes you allege are insufficiently detailed. Therefore, to the extent that you allege insufficiency of minutes, we decline to review that allegation.”
The full declination is below. There are four other complaints pending review in the attorney general’s office, including a second complaint from Burnard. You can review those here. SPS district counsel has already responded to those complaints to deny any violations, and you can find the responses to most of them here and here.
UPDATE 7/14/2026: This post was updated to remove a line that speculated about a possible typo in the complaint.