Severson v. City of Burlington & Burlington Conservation Board

Appellant Jeffrey Severson appealed the trial court’s decision to grant appellees’ the City of Burlington (the City) and the Burlington Conservation Board (the Board) motion to dismiss pursuant to Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and (6). The Burlington Town Center Project (the Project) was a large real estate project that proposed to redevelop the downtown district of the City. The Board met several times to review various aspects of the Project’s permit application. In early October 2017, nearly ten months after the meeting, Severson emailed the Board’s chair and raised concerns over a January 9 meeting. He asserted that the meeting had violated the Open Meeting Law because it had occurred behind locked doors. Severson requested that the Board cure the violation by holding a meeting in compliance with the Open Meeting Law to conduct a review of the most current version of the Project’s plan and to ratify the other, non-Project related Board actions taken at the January 9 meeting. The Board met on November 13, during which it reviewed a memorandum prepared by the City’s legal counsel and the relevant facts of Severson’s allegations, including information on the staffing procedure of the library on nights when public meetings were scheduled there. The Board determined that no Open Meeting Law violation had occurred. Severson filed suit, and when his case was dismissed, he appealed, arguing the trial court erred when it determined he, as a member of the Board, did not have standing because he did not allege an injury that was actionable under Vermont’s Open Meeting Law. The Vermont Supreme Court found that dismissal of Severson’s claim was proper, and thus affirmed. View "Severson v. City of Burlington & Burlington Conservation Board" on Justia Law