At first I was disappointed, then disgusted with the goings on in the houses of Congress on the recent attempt to ram through a health care bill behind closed doors and without any public input or transparency.

If Congress can do it, some of the local Selects and village trustees must have decided it would work here too.

The meeting last Monday night proved them wrong.

A sizeable crowd turned out in the Community Room at the library to protest the back room deal which the town fathers had attempted and to their credit, most of them felt the pain and did the right thing.

How did it ever happen?

With the help of some friends who are pretty good amateur sleuths, I think we have discovered how it came to be that the selectboard, trustees and the town manager decided that it was all right to attempt to do away with Bill Lyon’s supervisory positions without telling Mr. Lyon about it and without any public input.

When the 2010 budget was first proposed by the town and village manager, Bill Lyon’s jobs were in the budget.

The budget then went through a metamorphosis, as it always does, with many changes suggested and made along the way before it was to be finalized. There were as many as ten versions, so far as we can discover along the way until the December 21 joint meeting of the selectboard and trustees when the budget was apparently voted upon.

Now, I say it was apparently voted upon because the minutes of that meeting are quite vague and do not say who voted, what their vote was and makes absolutely no mention of any positions being eliminated from either town or village government.

The real start of the talk of elimination of Bill Lyon’s job started, at least officially, with a budget meeting held on December 3 where the selectboard was present along with Kathleen Lott from the Northfield News and the town manager. The town manager took notes.

At that meeting, Ken Goslant, the newest of the selectboard members, asked Nanci Allard whether any positions could be eliminated in order to reduce costs with particular interest in the roads superintendent. Nanci Allard appeared reticent to discuss this in open session and therefore, Mr. Goslant made a motion to go into executive session. Though this move was opposed by two of the members, they did go into executive session, coming out of it later with no decision.

During that executive session the elimination of the position of road superintendent was discussed.

This executive session discussion made it possible for that position and the position of public works superintendent to be eliminated from the budget without any discussion at the subsequent meeting or at the meeting on December 21.

The News believes that the board went into executive session on December 3 because our reporter was present at the meeting and didn’t want her to hear that they were discussing the elimination of Bill Lyon’s position.

Though personnel matters are a proper forum for executive sessions, the elimination of a position is not. That is public information which must be disclosed to the press and should not have been hidden from us or you as the public at large.

Then, at the December 21 meeting, there was no discussion, at least, in the notes kept by the town manager of the elimination of any positions. The notes simply state that the recommended budget was passed. No mention is made in the minutes of who voted and how they voted.

Ken Johnson told me during a telephone interview that the vote was unanimous, nine voting of the ten since one was absent and that they eliminated three positions in the budget. This was reported in last week’s News.

But still, contrary to municipal personnel policy guidelines, no one told Bill Lyon anything about it. Ken Johnson said that a trustee and a selectman were appointed to tell him.

This is completely contrary to the law and the personnel policy of the town. When the town manager decides to eliminate a position, she is required to first inform the employee whose position is being eliminated by letter that this is being contemplated and the employee must have an opportunity to respond before any action is taken.

This was not done. Due process was completely scuttled by everyone who was a part of this process.

One would hope that the trustees, selectboard and the town manager have learned a lesson from this fiasco that transparency is not only the best policy, it is required by law and public policy.

Back door deals do not work in small towns once the public finds out. That’s why community newspapers are important. They remain the guardian of the people’s right to know.

By the vote in Massachusetts last week, hopefully the Congress and the White House have learned the same lesson.