i'd like to call to order the special meeting of the for school committee for April 17 2025 deb would you please call the role mr a here mr bailey mr das here mr cory here miss Laravey here miss Perrera here mayor Cougan here salute to
the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all
uh no citizens input tonight De no ready no um we have a request to go into executive session make a motion to enter executive session second with a question what's the question Mr das
actually a statement um so I will not be voting to go into executive session tonight um the reasons are because one I believe we could be in violation of the open meeting law the topic listed is too vague i believe we could have given more information on the agenda without compromising the purpose of the
executive session two I believe that we could have used other purposes as well such as purpose four and purpose 10 and only using purpose five restrains what we can discuss if we are found in violation of the open meeting law relative to the executive session our
minutes automatically become open three I believe there is much discussion that should be held in open session we should have held an open session portion on this agenda the public deserves to know if their data was compromised what are the risks and what the public is going
to do with their money and four finally I do not trust that the executive session will be leaked by the mayor members of this committee were told not to confirm a ransomware attack because that there is a risk that could delay the amount of time that sensitive
information is in the hands of bad actors or increase the amount the taxpayers may have to pay for a ransom paul Kogan leaked classified information and the taxpayers may have to pay for it and the mayor placed the sensitive information of students staff and others
in jeopardy i have no confidence in the school committee leadership so I'm going to withdraw my second and I'd like to make a motion that this school committee formally censor Paul Kugan for violations to the school committee ethics policy by disclosing classified information placed in the district at
risk um okay what was the classified information you disclosed a ransomware attack on the district i disclosed it to NBC 10 yes that was 10 days after it was already out in the news it was released
on the 7th and there was nothing confidential in the email that Dr curley sent us it's right here i can read it there's nothing to say we were told about a cyber a cyber attack we I was I was instructed not to let the public know about a ransomware attack because
there's a risk that could increase the ransom on the district i I was never told that were you and Neither was she so I don't know what you're talking about i was told I I was told that who told you that superintendent did you tell him that i did speak to him yesterday i yesterday all members of the
committee to make sure everybody was aware i I would agree um I wasn't I had heard that there was some mis um information out there as to what we would be discussing discussing in open session in um executive session so I
contacted each member of the committee yesterday to make sure that um everybody understood that we were going to be talking about um the criminal misconduct um associated with cyber security event and at that time um when I spoke to Mr
um disas I did tell him that we would be discussing some information that should not be shared with the public and um yeah so I didn't share it yesterday because I wanted to share it in executive session that's why we're going into executive session to discuss it but I have the email you originally sent out
on the 7th and I did the show with channel 10 on the 17th and in that 10day interim no one told me anything was confidential super did they tell you that during that 10 days did they tell you it was confidential um to the through you chair to superintendent is there a risk of
announcing there is a ransomware attack could that increase the risk of the ransom going up i I do I think some of these questions are I did make a motion for a sensor on that topic second question
second with a question mr aio yeah so I think Mr d raises a valid point uh we've all been told over and over here that we need to speak through the superintendent with one voice when things come up but the mayor seems to think that he needs
to be the answer and to tell everyone what's happening and not most times and a lot of times it's something that the superintendent has not even told us the mayor has gone on record in public meetings in public interviews to talk about this particular situation with
things that are just quite frankly I have no reason to believe that they're true as to how this happened or any of that stuff so the purpose of us saying nothing which would include the mayor and should include the mayor should be to have what we're having now is an
executive session to discuss it so we can all be on the same page with what happens but when you want to go on interviews and say things that are not accurate like as if you're speaking for the superintendent of schools and the school district that is a problem mr mayor the superintendent told me the
same things that she told Mr das and I respect the superintendent for calling to say this is what's happening but we should not be saying things out in public until we can talk about this in executive session in the proper forum that's the message that I received from the superintendent after that you chose
to go on channel 10 and divulge various things that are not pro probably not even true because I don't even know where you get half the things that you say sometimes and we're going to find that out when we talk to the people that have been working on this but but the fact of the matter is Mr mayor is you
need to stop going out publicly speaking for the school department mr agar you do not tell me what to do i was not told what you said you were told i would tell you the same thing and I would tell the other gentlemen the same thing too for their preponderance of just letting stuff go whether it's on Facebook emails
or whatever i was told um that there that no one no one had a problem with what I said 10 days after we released the initial email i wasn't told not to talk to anybody or I would have uh definitely followed the instructions but my point is I didn't say anything
confidential or off the rails that wasn't already out in the public airways if that's what the case is I think we should vote on this censure right now and we can get on with the meeting i know these these events make you guys feel better and they help the district but at the same time I don't know what we're doing so let's vote let's I still
have the flow so on that same issue you said in a in radio interview that this came from emails you divulged that it was human resource data you dulged that you said that it was some sort of uh other information that we as a school
committee have not been told any of this so where did you get your information to to say to a media outlet that an it was based on an old email address or that it was HR files and personal social security numbers and old data where did you get this information from i did not
Mr aguar you really do always play fast and loose i did not say any of that stuff was out i said it could be it could have gone in through an old email i don't know for sure i said it could be personal stuff that people don't want out whether it's a social security number discipline whatever i didn't say
it was and I didn't you can listen to the way that the way that we can guarantee it doesn't is that you need to stop talking to them and let the superintendent do her job and she can speak for the district not you let's vote on the cens you ready for that
deb call the role mr oh I'm sorry i'm sorry what is the motion what is the motion to censor the mayor the vi the chair of our school committee from talking about the school motion yes Mr bailey mr das yes mr corey no miss
Laravey no miss Pereira no mayor Kugan no okay on with the meeting so there's a motion on the table to uh enter we need a second to enter into On the motion a second on the motion on the motion m mr drag here please mr das
mentioned three or four uh different areas that we could have actually gone into executive session for i'd like to ask our attorney what that if what his opinion is on that a issue the attorney couldn't make it tonight he was double booked so we'll go with what he put on
the agenda those questions I'm sure Mr das can forward on to him and we can tackle them for the next meeting so my other concern is that based on what's here says we are going to as a school committee go into executive session to investigate charges of criminal
misconduct or to consider the filing of criminal complaints the other problem I have is that we do not have our attorney here at this special meeting to to discuss this we have an attorney a paid full-time attorney for a reason so that the attorney can advise the school
committee how do we even schedule a meeting without the attorney did anyone call and say when we all got questioned on whether we could make it whether the attorney could make it and if not we should be having this meeting at another time why would we not have our attorney
here for this kind of content can anybody answer whether he was checked to see if he could make this meeting before if we go into executive session maybe we can discuss it a little further i would do it with that in that in mind my concern is we try to fix the issue
that's in front of us but can anyone ask answer the question was attorney Assad pled like the school committee to make sure he could be present that's a yes or no anyone we were all pled was attorney Assad pled as well because it's important that the attorney is here for
in a meeting especially with this topic can anyone verify that attorney Assad was pled whether he could make it or not anyone who is in charge of polling the members i just got I got a date and I was told to show up so I I'll go with
that but I don't know what Madam Superintendent do you know who was pled and how we were pulled because I got a call polling myself saying I'm got a call on behalf of the superintendent so I guess it's on you did attorney Assad get pulled yes we knew that he would not
be here and we still chose to have this meeting without an attorney yes it's important enough that we get the executive session so so we couldn't have a find a time when he could make it it wasn't as important I guess to everybody else to me that the attorney's
here for this kind of content i I'm not go It's not about disagreeing with you about having the attorney here it was time-sensitive we had to do it and this was an opportunity for the meeting um so that we could give 48 hours notice
tomorrow's a holiday then it becomes a weekend um holiday weekend and it was time sensitive and could not wait until next week and there's no other time and I guess it's I guess my opinion is just different that something this sensitive we should have our attorney
here i'll leave it at that i yield Mr chair on the motion oh I'm sorry Mr i believe Robert's rule says he has to let you all talk twice then he can say stop he chooses not to that's on him well it's a second motion you let it happen all the time that's on you you
can let him keep going that's on you i'm not the one with the gavl um what I will say is that my experience being in executive session over the last 3 years um the attorney gives us some advice but he does not vote right so we don't need him in there to actually give him
permission to do things or give the superintendent permission to do things such as maybe hire other entities and things that we have to do so although I do agree it would be better if he was here but he's not but I also want to
point out that it does upset me and bother me when questions like that are asked just for the camera when you can make a statement right my colleague could have made a statement and said "I'm upset that the the you know our attorney isn't here." Instead he says
"I'd like to take I'd like to ask the attorney a question is he here?" You know he wasn't here Kevin because when I walked in before the cameras were rolling you were screaming and yelling in a library hooting and hollering at the mayor why are we here why are we here you knew he wasn't here i have no
problem with you expecting and wanting him to be here that I don't have a problem with i have a problem with stupid questions that waste everybody's time you've made your point mr das has made his point neither of you think it's important we go into executive session
that's fine we're going to vote if my colleagues agree with you then I go home earlier if they don't then we get work done shocking work done i would like to get work done let's let the superintendent do her job i believe I heard my
colleague say that today right the mayor shouldn't tell her what to do i don't think either any of my colleagues should either did the mayor speak incorrectly in his interview i don't know i was working i didn't hear it from what I hear maybe not the best public speaker
but do I think that means I'm supposed to put tape over his mouth no he was the duly elected mayor of this community whether you like him or not and he's the chair of the school committee whether you like it or not so if you want to have a conversation with him and say "Hey be careful next time don't say this
don't say that." That's fine have that conversation we could have that conversation in executive session and it would actually make us look a lot better than it does right now everybody I've heard from my colleagues this shouldn't be an executive session we need to tell
everybody it could be that we need to tell we need to tell then the mayor goes on the radio answers questions why is he talking i'm very confused i don't know if you want people to have information not have information what I can tell you is I'm already aggravated and we've been
here for 15 minutes okay clearly you two have something against the mayor that's fine i don't care i don't care i'm not involved in it i don't want to be i'm here to do this job the superintendent told us we needed an emergency meeting i
lost two hours of overtime to come here to do my job because she told me it was important so I'm going to go with it's important i'm going to vote to go into executive session and then I'm going to find out there why we're here and if I was wrong to go in then I'll be happy to
say that but this right here is a lot of nonsense with that I yield and I don't have to say anything else cuz unlike my colleagues I don't have to be the last person to talk thank you thank you Mr mayor um my colleague to my right actually somewhat made my point my
colleague to my right wants to discuss uh Please don't swear Miss Per i said shoot sorry um shoot because my phone went off so my colleague to my right wants to have a conversation executive session about what the mayor said but specifically we have to talk about and I
and I figured and I figured attorney would be here so that's why didn't say that don't want to talk about executive session said you could if you wanted to i don't want to just point of clarification don't change my words they're very clear we we are tasked to only
specifically discuss to investigate criminal charges of misconduct or to consider the filing of criminal complaints so on that topic we are constrained to talking about one item which is something I wanted to ask attorney Assad about so questions on the
motion um do we have if anyone whoever can answer the question do we have an identified suspect who we are investigating come yeah can we please go into looking for a yes or no no that's not public information move move the question i have a motion to move the
question second motion and second now the next motion is called on the motion to move the question point upon me inquiry i did not I did not see the floor miss Laravey should have waited till she was called upon to make that motion that violating just you're violating the rules by asking questions
about um potential issues that are going to be discussed the only person who violated anything or disclosed anything was yourself we have Yeah go ahead mr mayor Mr mr das raised the point that
he has to finish before we have the motion that's the only thing I'm asking now I would say I would say no so then you could say that that particular part's out of order and he kept talking what I'm saying is you should say then that we're not going to discuss that type of stuff before he sees the floor otherwise you can't have other motions
go ahead Mr das thank you and if the question I can't ask for even though I believe I can just let me know can I ask what criminal statutes we're investigating does anyone have the answer the point I'm trying to make here is we are constrained to one topic and
if we mess up without our attorney here the minutes go public the minutes can possibly go public if there's a complaint if there's a request for the minutes because we have to be on top of these things when we go into executive session and what I was to my colleague to my right I don't believe there are
certain things I and again I trust the superintendent when she told us there are certain things in here that need to be discussed but there are also certain things I would love to have seen as I said before in an open session item for this so either superintendent can give a statement to the public or we can discuss some of these items in public
because the public doesn't have a right to know if their data is being leaked or or if anything like that or how much we're going we might have to use of our public money so I think those are very valid questions and we should be very careful when the superintendent says we
shouldn't disclose something we all have to follow that not just the chairman i'm ready to vote mr yeah stay here yeah so two things one is uh I found out at 5:10 that attorney
Assad was not going to be here so that did upset me absolutely because I did not know he wasn't going to be here i'll still stand by the fact that we should have our attorney here uh without question the other thing I think needs to be said publicly is that this particular executive session item agenda
is in order to get into discuss but I think we need to say for the edification of the public that this entire executive session is related to the cyber security attack period so that people don't start making their own uh judgments or wondering or you know make their own narrative this particular item has to do
with cyber attack and that's it so I don't want people to get out there and start to wonder and start questioning when they see this oh what's who's getting in involved criminally and all this other stuff this is the cyber attack for the public certification and that in my opinion is all that we should be saying that I yield thank you can we
get a vote to go into execut yes mr bailey mr das no mr cory yes miss Laravey yes miss Pereira yes mayor Kugan yes executive session back in regular session please call the RO mr hag here mr bailey mr d here mr
cory here miss Laravey here miss Pereira here mayor Kugan make a motion to adjourn second de call the motion mr chair D thank you i just wanted to ask if there's um any statement i know we
have to be careful but there's any statement we can give the public not at this time okay mr aam yes mr bailey mr das yes Mr cory yep miss Laravey yes Mr pereira yes
Maryan mayor Kogan yes ajourned