By MAUREEN DOHERTY
NORTH READING — By a 2-2 vote with one recusal, a motion to remove Select Board member Nick Masse as liaison to two advisory committees failed at a special meeting held July 24 to discuss the matter.
Because the vote was tied, the motion failed and Masse’s appointments to both the Fire Station Building Committee and the Facilities Master Plan Committee remain in effect. Both committees were established by the Select Board and it was stated at the meeting that the Select Board member appointed as the board’s liaison to these committees is also a voting member of those committees.
Following a discussion lasting less than an hour in open session, Select Board Chairman Vincenzo Stuto and member Liane Gonzalez voted against the motion removing Masse from the committees and members Stephen O’Leary and Rich Wallner voted for removal. Masse recused himself from the vote. The motion sought to “rescind for cause Select Board Masse’s appointments to the Facilities Master Plan Committee and the Fire Station Building Committee based upon charges set forth in the June 27, 2024 Notice of Executive Session being substantiated.”
Masse was appointed to represent the Select Board on both committees by a vote of the Select Board shortly after he was elected to his first three-year term on the board in the annual Town Election last May.
The matter of the potential removal from the two committees originated in an executive session meeting held June 27 after which the board members voted in open session, 4-0 with one recusal (Masse), to call the July 24 hearing.
The hearing room at Town Hall was filled with Masse’s supporters July 24. Under the Select Board’s policies, as the subject of the hearing, Masse is given the option to have the hearing held in open session or executive session. In the interest of transparency, Masse said he wanted the hearing held in open session. His supporters were disappointed that they were required to leave the room during a brief executive session, which Stuto explained was necessary from a procedural standpoint, but he emphasized that nothing else would be discussed other than taking the vote on where to convene the meeting. Town Counsel Darren Klein was also present for both the open and executive session portions of the meeting.
Less than five minutes later the meeting resumed in open session. Stuto then set tight ground rules. “We are not here to talk about the merits of the committee… We’re not here to talk about any other Select Board policy that exists towards committees and how they’re formed and whatnot,” he said, stating those are matters to be discussed at a regular business meeting of the board.
Select Board members Stephen O’Leary and Rich Wallner initiated the call to remove Masse from the liaison appointments after the second session of the June Town Meeting, held on June 11, when Masse spoke at the meeting from the citizens side of the microphone as a resident of the town rather than as a Select Board member and questioned whether it was appropriate for members of the town’s Finance Committee to serve on the Fire Station Building Committee (FSBC) and the Facilities Master Plan Committee (FMPC).
O’Leary, who stated he had recommended Masse for the appointments to these two committees based on his professional background, said, “like most people in the audience that evening at Town Meeting we were all caught off guard and caught by surprise by your comments in relation to the participation by certain members of the Facilities Master Plan and Fire Station Building Committee because of their roles on the Finance Committee.” The comment was made during a discussion on one of the last articles of the night regarding the appropriations of funds for the continued study of plans to expand and renovate the Fire Station in the town center.
O’Leary said it was “inappropriate” and he was “shocked and disappointed” that a member of their board — especially one who is the liaison to those committees whose responsibilities include bringing back any concerns he has to the full board for discussion — “unbeknownst to the board members, unannounced to the board members, and questioning the validity of people who were serving on that committee have been long-serving members of this community for some of them 20-plus years.” O’Leary added that although Masse has “every right” to raise those concerns and questions, “a public venue at an open Town Meeting when it isn’t pertinent to the Article was totally inappropriate, unprofessional and irresponsible.”
Because the role as board liaison comes with voting privileges on those committees, O’Leary said the action was more inappropriate because the Select Board’s appointee is supposed to be representative of all of the board members’ opinions, not just his own.
Select Board member Rich Wallner agreed when they were discussing Masse’s appointment to both committees the role was discussed. “You had some hesitations, you discussed those with us. At the end you promised this board that if you had any concerns…you would come to the Select Board…We all agreed unanimously to assign you to that position,” Wallner said, adding, “When you went to the Town Meeting you actually brought forth an issue without discussing it with any of us… That was a direct conflict in what you promised. That to me was an egregious error.”
Select Board Member Liane Gonzalez said she had discussed what occurred with Masse after Town Meeting that night when he spoke as a private citizen “and in hindsight I believe that he wouldn’t have done it again. I will give that he’s brand new, there’s a lot to know and a lot to learn when you come on to this board, and yes, you should take it upon yourself to learn that, but sometimes you learn the hard way, and that was a lesson learned,” she said.
“It should have been discussed with the board not just thrown at us that way and I think Mr. Masse understood that after we had a conversation but I will give him (the benefit of the doubt) that he was new and not understanding the process,” Gonzalez said, adding, “The only reason that I was agreeing to remove him from committees is because he was saying he was not comfortable serving on the committees as they were, so in my position the committee has to go forward. If he’s going to say I’m not going to serve on the Committees then somebody else needs to. That’s all, it’s not personal, so if Mr. Masse chooses to want to continue to serve on the committees I will support that,” Gonzalez said.
In his defense, Select Board member Nick Masse said, “I would certainly like to apologize for the forum in which I brought this up. I can improve on my approach. It is hard as a new board member to figure out how to converse individually with each member outside of this meeting while not crossing over Open Meeting Law boundaries. When I got elected there was no orientation… I’m learning on the fly, but luckily I’m a quick learner.”
Masse also questioned the validity on the time spent on this matter that could be spent doing more beneficial work on behalf of the town.
“I’m brand new to this but I’m being brought in as a Select Board member for a question I asked standing on the other side of the podium — Nick Masse, Rogers Circle, wanting to inquire into the bylaws that you were all sworn into uphold. As we’ve learned thus far the Select Board does not have authority over individual residents. Now imagine how much more we can get done as a board if we met this often over the summer and did this much offline work to progress items that are more important to our town than this.
“We can focus on life after a no vote of the 2 1/2 override; we can focus on what direction to switch to for the fire station project; we can focus on how to create revenue in this town; and we can focus on the future of this town. I’d like to build trust with my board members but with the understanding that I’m one of five elected officials with equal responsibilities, all having different angles on issues that come before us. I am of open mind and always available to discuss our differences with the intent of finding our common ground and respecting opinions of one another,” he said.
Chairman Vincenzo Stuto said, that while he “did not like the approach that Mr. Masse took at Town Meeting” and he “could have gone about it better” he did not feel that his actions rose to the level to warrant removal.
He also understands the difficulty of navigating where the private citizen ends and public Select Board member begins as he had learned during two years of sewer discussions. “You might as well change my driver’s license to ‘Select Board Member Stuto,’ so I get that; however, I do not feel that a moment of an ill advised approach warrants removal from these committees.”
Editor’s note: This version of the story has been updated from the print edition to remove a paragraph of notes not intended to be part of the final copy.
