Thanks to some vigorous argumentation by Mark Acciard in my comments section, I now believe there is no issue of confidentiality with respect to publishing the Timberlane School District’s letter of legal opinion on the incompatibility of offices. Here is Diane Gorrow’s opinion:Incompatibility of Officers 2010
Also, I have learned that the deadline for responding to federal lawsuits is more than 30 days. This means that the district’s response to Mrs. Morse’s federal First Amendment suit is sometime in mid-August.
It appears that Atty. Garrow’s fallacy is in applying statute, as well as case law that applies to conflicting offices WITHIN THE SAME POLITICAL SUBDIVISION(ie: school district, town, etc) and stretching it to imagine a conflict between an office in one subdivision and an office in another.
For example, being a selectman in Plaistow and a Budget COmmittee member in Atkinson(were such a thing possible) does not create a conflict.
Further, The inquiry was improper coming from Ms. Belcher, as the School Board and Superintendent have NO LEGAL AUTHORITY OVER THE BUDGET COMMITTEE!!!
By law, the Budcom is an independent body not answerable to the governing body. The Budcom is responsible for PREPARING the budget, which after ratification by the legislative body becomes the purview of the governing body to spend. PRIOR to the vote by the people the school boards only legal input is to provide whatever the budcom requests of it in their efforts to prepare the budget.
The Budcom AND ONLY THE BUDCOM can create line items, delete line items, and place amounts in those line items. and a ZERO dollar amount in a line item BY LAW, prohibits any money form being spent for that purpose.
Perhaps someone can explain that to Mr. Metzler