Court Opinion

ID: 9732231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:12:19.711522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:13.474689
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, Justice,
with whom GLASSMAN, J., joins, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The boards, commissions, agencies or authorities made subject to the Freedom of Access Act by section 402(2)(C) are terms of art and not interchangeably used. They are created by statute, charter or ordinance, are permanent in nature, and nearly always have authority to do more than recommend. Examples would be municipal boards of appeal, 30 M.R.S.A. § 2411, planning boards, 30 M.R.S.A. § 4956, boards of assessment review, 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 2060(6), 5351(2), charter commissions, 30 M.R.S.A. § 1913, Auburn Civil Service Commission, City of Auburn Charter, art. VI, § 3, conservation commissions, 30 M.R.S.A. § 3851, energy commissions, 30 M.R.S.A. § 3861, urban renewal authorities, 30 M.R.S.A. § 4802, and municipal housing authorities, 30 M.R.S.A. § 4601. 5 M.R.S.A. § 8002 defines agency as any body authorized by law to adopt rules, to issue licenses or to take final action in adjudicatory proceedings.
In marked contrast is this ad hoc, temporary committee made up of citizens with no connection to city government. The may- or’s committee is limited to an advisory role and is unfunded, its members serving without compensation. Any recommendations that it may make are advisory only, and cannot become effective without affirmative city council action, action fully subject to the Freedom of Access Law. Although the city council itself could have investigated the civil service commission, by no means is it the only entity capable of performing that task. The city manager or a professional investigator could have performed the investigation. I see nothing here suggesting that the committee was formed or that the name “committee” was chosen to avoid the provisions of the Freedom of Access Act.1
Most courts addressing the issue facing us have held that such temporary, advisory committees are not subject to freedom of access laws unless specifically included within their provisions. See, e.g., Washington School Dist. v. Martin, 112 Ariz. 335, 541 P.2d 1137 (1975) (school district’s textbook selection committee, established by school board to act in advisory capacity); Wilson v. Freedom of Information Comm’n, 181 Conn. 324, 435 A.2d 353 (1980) (state university’s program review committee, appointed to review academic departments and make recommendations for improving efficiency); Sanders v. Benton, 579 P.2d 815 (Okl.1978) (citizen’s advisory committee impaneled to provide information and make recommendations to board of corrections concerning proposed locations for community treatment center, but without decision-making authority); Fraternal Order of Police v. City of Philadelphia, 92 Pa.Cmwlth. 340, 500 A.2d 900 (1985) (advisory board established for temporary, limited purpose of investigating violent encounter between radical MOVE organization and city agencies).
In enacting the Freedom of Access Act, and including its own committees and subcommittees and committees and subcommittees of the Board of Trustees of the University of Maine and the Maine Maritime Academy, the legislature was obviously aware of the distinction between a board, commission, agency or authority and this type of ad hoc committee. Its omission of “committee” from section 402(2)(C) was deliberate and not inconsistent with *340the purposes of the statute. Because section 402(2)(C) plainly excluded on its face the kind of ad hoc advisory committee involved here, the court’s resort to legislative history in order to fashion an inconsistent interpretation is inappropriate. See Stone v. Board of Registration in Medicine, 503 A.2d 222, 227-28 (Me.1986). I would not rewrite the statute as the court does, but rather, would remand to the Superior Court to dismiss plaintiffs complaint.

. An entity is not necessarily immune from the Freedom of Access Law solely because it has been labeled a "committee." For example, 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 1451-1457 (Supp.1987), creating the Androscoggin County Budget Committee, provides by its own terms that meetings of that body be in public. However, unlike the ad hoc committee in the instant case, that statutorily created committee is permanent and has the power to decide the county budget submitted to the legislature.