South Berwick council workshop moves to tighten email rules after counsel flags FOAA risk

The South Berwick Town Council held a public workshop to review how the Maine Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) applies to council email use and to consider amendments to its rules of order and agenda procedures.

John, chair of the Town Council, opened the session by reading guidance the council sought from its attorney and a Municipal Association article: "The bottom line is that to avoid running afoul of FOAA, the council should only use email for two purposes: receiving reports and documents from town staff (one-way) and scheduling meetings and other similar functions," he said, adding that substantive discussion by three or more councilors outside a noticed meeting can constitute a public proceeding.

Why it matters: Councilors acknowledged recent email exchanges that may have included deliberations and said they want a clear, written policy so future conduct is unambiguous. The council agreed to draft and vote on changes to its rules of order and to add a standing agenda item for "council reports" so committee and project work is reported in public.

Town attorney Ben joined the workshop by phone to answer council questions. He told the council it is acceptable as policy to have a brief automated or manual acknowledgement to a resident email — for example: "Thank you. We received your email and will bring this up at the next council meeting." "You shouldn't be having back-and-forth," Ben said, saying that if multiple councilors begin weighing in by email the activity should be conducted in a noticed meeting.

Councilors discussed practical options to reduce accidental deliberations, including: making the shared council inbox a no-reply address for public submissions, publishing public emails to a repository on the town website, or restricting internal replies to staff only. Ben cautioned that automatically mirroring every inbox message could surface confidential materials — for example, personnel or applicant information — and that imperfect automation risks exposing sensitive data.

On staff contact and information requests, the council agreed that policy should direct councilors to request information through department heads or the town manager so staff work is coordinated and the public record is clear. Several councilors suggested a standard response timeline (a commonly suggested target in the discussion was five to seven business days) and a simple agenda-request form so items proposed during council comments are captured and included in the packet for the next meeting.

The council also discussed how committee work differs from council deliberation. Members said committee members should be able to gather and report project updates, but substantive policy decisions should be voted on in open sessions. Councilors supported limiting committee size or its scope when perception of closed-door decision-making is a concern and agreed to codify rules so future councils and the public have a clearer record of how work is handled.

Next steps: The chair said the items discussed — an email-use policy, clarified staff-contact procedure, an agenda-request process, and a recurring "council reports" agenda section — will be drafted and placed on an upcoming council meeting agenda for formal consideration and a vote. No ordinance or charter changes were advanced at the workshop; participants noted rules-of-order amendments can be adopted more quickly than charter revisions.

The workshop closed with the chair thanking the town attorney and the public for joining. The council set a plan to put the proposals on the next agenda so the body can adopt firm conduct rules and remove ambiguity about email use going forward.