BRTA Board OKs Contract for Administrator, Reviews Open Meeting Complaint

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Regional Transit Authority Board finalized the new administrator's contract on Thursday.

Kathleen Lambert accepted the position in September pending contract negotiations. The negotiations were halted at the board's meeting on Oct. 14 as they failed to have a quorum.

On Thursday, the board revised the language for the termination clause for performance reviews so they can be done as needed.

The BRTA also spoke about language for a response to an Open Meeting Law complaint made by board member Rene Wood.

Wood said the board violated Open Meeting at its meeting on Sept. 25, when they were speaking about the contract negotiations because it wasn't listed on the agenda. The agenda item was listed as "Administrator Search Update."

Executive Director Roobert Malnati was asked to respond to Wood and the violation. One of the requests was for legal counsel to offer an Open Meeting Law class to the board . 

"Legal counsel presented in person or Zoom class or Open Meeting Law, including this section that was offered back at our previous meeting in August, it will be offered again that we invite KP Law to provide an Open Meeting Law class if that is so desired," Malnati said.

Another note Wood added was for the board to remove a sentence from the Sept. 9 minutes regarding Pittsfield Mayor Peter Marchetti's statement that Wood asking in the meeting for the advisory board to vote on Malnati writing a letter of support for Rep. Leigh Davis' microtransit bill was in violation of Open Meeting law.

"The minutes are the minutes. And so you want clarity on that. We can certainly give clarity to who made that statement, but it was part of that meeting. It was part of that discussion, and it should stand, and it's an opinion that was stated," Malnati said.

Marchetti clarified that he should not have stated it in that way but that it was still discouraged from being discussed.

"The frequently asked questions is pretty clear that you should not be bringing up a topic, and the Attorney General's Office strongly encourages that you postpone any discussion or action on an item," Marchetti said. "What if it's controversial or maybe of particular interest to the public? And I think the issue that we were going to discuss with Rep. Davis is microtransit bill, which I think is highly something that the folks in the public want to know more about.

"So going forward, I would have been against the recommendation of the thing. My misspeaking and saying it's a violation of Open Meeting Law, it's not a violation, but it's strongly encouraged not to do it." 

The board motioned to for Malnati's response.

Malnati also brought up that the ridership number for September is 29 percent higher than the former September where it was not fare free. "Fare free is helping our ridership" he stated.

BVNA Nurses Raise Funds for Berkshire Bounty