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What resulted in the miracle contract is the fact that the Arbitration decision was in. It wasn't locking both sides in a room. Also the fact is that only 2 members of the school committee were present during the negotiation session. I know of at least one member who wanted to be there but was told he could not participate because it would violation the open meeting laws.

I also know someone, Mayor, Superintendent, Mediator Ragosta intentional setup the process this way. Was it because the excluded school committee member would have asked for more concessions or asked that the arbitration report be released before any further negotiations occur?

The fact is as a former school committee member during the 4 years impasse from 2003 through 2006, the WSC always had 5 members invited to every negotiation sessions. This could legally be accomplished by simply advertising the session as part of a formal filed school committee meeting with the secretary of state and by law go into executive session to negotiate.

The fact an attorney told that school committee he/she could not be there, was a pure manipulation of he/she not fully understanding the procedure that would have enabled he/she to be there.

I believe this matter needs to be fully investigated and each member of the WSC needs to state whether they were present or not for the session.

The entire 5 body committee was elected to represent the voters in negotiating a contract and if any one of them did not want to be in attendance they should resign their seat ASAP.

One last question. How does the school committee send out a release to the media claiming a tentative agreement when a majority of the committee didn't vote to accept the terms from the session as a tentative agreement and when as of this Monday a member of the committee still had not been provided with the details of the so called agreement?