Town Attorney Jeff D'Onofrio provided the council with an extended orientation on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the town charter’s responsibilities, and the town’s code of ethics during the council’s organizational meeting on Dec. 1.

D'Onofrio summarized FOIA’s three core concepts: that it covers public meetings, public records, and nothing else. “FOIA applies to meetings of public agencies. It applies to public records, and it does not apply to anything else,” he told the council. He explained the FOIC complaint process and the typical timelines for resolution and cautioned that recent case law and enforcement trends mean municipalities must be careful about virtual communications that could be construed as conducting public business outside a noticed meeting.

He walked members through distinctions among non-meetings, legal meetings, caucuses, and executive sessions, and clarified procedural requirements for executive sessions, which must be included on an agenda and explicitly state the reason for going into executive session. “Executive sessions are completely confidential as a matter of state law,” D'Onofrio said, and he summarized the limited grounds commonly relied on (personnel matters, pending litigation/strategy, security, site selection and real-estate negotiations, and records exemptions under §1-210(b) of the Connecticut General Statutes). He also explained that votes on matters discussed in executive session must occur in public and that convening an executive session requires a two-thirds vote of members present.

On public records, D'Onofrio reviewed the practical steps for handling FOI requests: the four-business-day window for issuing a denial on exemption grounds, the town manager’s role in routing requests, and the use of rolling production for large document sets to demonstrate a good-faith effort at compliance. He also noted record-retention norms and redaction procedures and warned that electronic messages (personal or official accounts), text messages and attachments can be public records if they concern public business.

The attorney briefly reviewed charter provisions relevant to the council’s fiscal responsibilities (adopting budgets, special appropriations and public-hearing thresholds for expenditures), procurement rules tied to state and federal grant requirements, and the town ordinance that functions as the local code of ethics. He advised members to disclose private conversations that relate to matters they later vote on and to consider recusal when appearances of impropriety exist.

Following the presentation, councilors asked brief clarifying questions and the meeting proceeded to procedural final items and adjournment.