Dewey Beach, DE (July 18, 2012)--In response to the recent Attorney General’s opinion the Mayor issued the following statement:

          “It is now and remains this Town Council’s intent to fully comply with the Freedom of Information Act and to operate in an open and public manner. To ensure this, all of our meeting agendas are prepared with the advice of legal counsel, and almost all of the meetings in question were prepared with the approval of our previous attorney, who represents several towns and has advised three Dewey mayors and five Dewey Town Councils on the necessary wording for meeting agendas, including the complainant.

          “We had numerous executive sessions to hire several people, some of whom would have not wanted their employers to know that they were looking for another job; we resolved at least three potential lawsuit threats in executive session; and we discussed current litigation facing the town which we could not have done in open public meetings.

          "At this point in time it is important to stress that there is no finding in the AG’s opinion that any executive session was held for an improper purpose. In the coming days we will study the AG's opinion with the goal of aligning our technical compliance to match our commitment to open government."  

                                                                                                               Mayor Diane Hanson