Gloucester mayor backs off plan to bar press at pregnancy forums
GLOUCESTER - Mayor Carolyn Kirk and the School Committee backed away from a proposal last night to ban the news media from city-sponsored meetings addressing Gloucester's recent surge in teenage pregnancies.
After consulting with legal counsel, the mayor recommended that the city play no part in the meetings but see whether a nonprofit group would spearhead them instead.
Kirk had proposed holding the meetings for residents to express their concerns about the pregnancy issue, which made international headlines in June after Time magazine reported that some of the 17 teenage girls who had become pregnant recently in the city had entered a pregnancy pact.
Kirk later rejected the existence of a pact. And since June, she and the School Committee have discussed reviewing the city's policy on contraception. The high school health clinic does not offer contraception to students.
Kirk had proposed barring the press from three meetings that had been tentatively set for September. Kirk had arranged the meetings to be run by a nonprofit, Public Conversations Project of Watertown. Since the nonprofit had volunteered its services and would not be paid and no policies would be established at the meetings, Kirk believed that the meetings would not violate the Open Meeting Law, which allows the press to be present at public meetings.
But yesterday, after consulting with Suzanne Egan, the city's acting general counsel, Kirk decided to recommend that the city play no part in the meetings. "If the meetings are held to inform the School Committee's decision-making process, then they are subject to the Open Meeting Law," Egan wrote in a memo to Kirk released yesterday.
"My intent is to have the conversation, and if we do not have to do that through the city, the Public Health Department, or the School Committee, that would be my preference," said Kirk, who hopes an area nonprofit volunteers to sponsor the meetings. Kirk did not say what would happen if a nonprofit did not volunteer to spearhead the meetings. She said without city involvement, the Open Meeting Law would not apply and the meetings could be held behind closed doors without media present.
School Committee members had mixed reactions to Kirk's recommendation. School Committee Chairman Greg Verga opposed banning the media from any meeting. But School Committee member Nancy Harrison supported the plan, and said residents needed to talk about the subject without the news media present.
Public Conversations Project proposed holding three, three-hour meetings. Two would be for adults and one would be for high school students. The meetings would be limited to 40 people.
Holding a meeting with just 40 residents, without the news media, seemed to irk at least one resident who attended last night's School Committee meeting. "We need transparency and leadership on this issue and not be in the dark," said Mark Nestor. 