William J. Kemble reports in The Daily Freeman that the Saugerties Board of Education met behind closed doors Sept. 15 in an illegal meeting the public was not allowed to attend. “We met in [a conference] room ... for about four hours on a Thursday night and had some cold pizza and warm soda and we discussed procedures, how we’re going to operate as a board, what we can do, what we can’t do, and looked at goal setting,” Board President Robert Thomann said. Superintendent Seth Turner said the retreat included district staff. He said the board will hold a second illegal meeting next month. “We’re going to get a facilitator in, and we’ll plan out a special meeting of the Board of Education with district administration and combine ... goals for district, which hasn’t been done in quite a while,” he said. Kristin O’Neill, assistant director of the state Committee on Open Government, said the board should not meet together out of the public’s view. “Using the term ‘retreat’ and allowing the school board or any public body to have a get-together outside the public meeting ... [for] team-building exercises, that type of thing — that doesn’t not have to be done in a public meeting,” O’Neill said. “But planning their goals for the year for the school district — clearly those are conversations that should be had in public.” Read the full story in The Daily Freeman.