The Northfield Grand Juror, Chris Bradley, has filed a Presentment with the State of Vermont Attorney General’s Office regarding alleged potential criminal malfeasance in the Northfield 2010- 2011 budget process.

The Presentment alleges that there were violations of Vermont’s Open Meeting Law; specifically the misuse of Executive Sessions, in addition to a concerted “secret” effort to conceal Material Fact from the Public, with this Material Fact being the elimination of both the position of Superintendent of Public Works as well as the position of Highway Superintendent (the Bill Lyon Positions).

According to the facts set forth in the presentment, the problems began with the Select Board’s budget meeting of December 3, 2009 where an Executive Session was called to discuss a “personal matter”. The minutes of that meeting show that the 40-minute Executive Session resulted in “No Action Taken”.

Mr. Bradley said that he later discovered that several actions were taken in that Executive Session, with the primary action taken being the elimination of the positions in question from the budget.

The presentment states that because the Trustees would have a say in the elimination decision, the Selectboard and town manager apparently agreed that the budget change should be kept quiet until the Trustees could have input, which would not occur until the next budget meeting of December 21 when both the selectboard and the trustees could be present.

The minutes of the meeting of December 21 men- tioned nothing about the elimination of the Bill Lyon Positions, and, in fact, none of the minutes of any budget meeting mention this critical fact at all, with all of these minutes being written by the town manager the presentment states.

Even after the meeting of December 21 and across two additional regular meetings of both boards on January 11 and 12, the budget change continued to be kept secret according to Mr. Bradley.

The actions of the boards only became public knowledge when the Northfield News became aware of the board’s actions and reported them in its January 21 edition.

As a result of having the matter finally brought to the public’s attention, a public outcry was raised at the last budget meeting held on January 24, at which time the boards reversed their action and put the two positions back in the budget.

As duly elected Grand Juror, Mr. Bradley is tasked with looking into issues of wrongdoing that come to his attention according to state law. If, in his opinion, the issues should be prosecuted, he is then tasked to present them to the proper authority, he stated.

“Because I was asked to look into this by a number of Northfield Citizens and because the violations were, in my opinion, not accidental but were instead purposeful, I determined that I must perform the duty I was duly elected to do”, stated Mr. Bradley.

The presentment was formally turned over to Assistant Attorney General Mike McShane on March 11, after first being reviewed by the Washington County State’s Attorney Thomas Kelly.

Mr. McShane is in the process of preparing a letter to the Northfield Selectboard informing them of the allegations, outlining the violations and requesting a written response within 20 days.

Because the allegations refer to “legal matters,” it is expected that the Select Board will meet in executive session to discuss its response.

Had the budget gone through without the reversal, the move would have effectively forced the retirement of Mr. Lyon, who has been with the village and town since 1971.