ESSEX - In addition to the lawsuit developer Frank Sciame has filed in Superior Court appealing the Planning Commission’s decision on his subdivision application for Foxboro Point, he has also filed a Freedom of Information request with the commission, seeking notes, drafts, proposed motions, minutes and all other materials from the commission’s Aug. 23 executive session—an executive session in which Sciame alleges “the commission prepared a motion to modify and approve Mr. Sciame’s application.”

Terrance Lomme, Sciame’s attorney, said he filed the FOI request “because I want to know and my client wants to know what happened in that executive session. The commission met for an hour and a half and came out with a motion all prepared.” The motion approved the subdivision application with a series of conditions that Sciame has characterized in his lawsuit as “arbitrary, illegal, and an abuse of the discretion invested in it.”

The Planning Commission had been discussing the controversial application in a series of meetings beginning in March. Finally, it called a special meeting for Aug. 23 with the stated intent of making a decision. One day prior to that meeting, Lomme wrote a letter to the commission indicating that, according to state statute, “Mr. Sciame is entitled to an automatic approval of the proposed subdivision, as more than 65 days had passed from the close of the public hearing…Aug. 23 [was] some 70 days after the close of the public hearing.”

The commission voted to go into executive session to discuss Lomme’s letter and Attorney David Royston’s response. Royston is the commission’s attorney. An executive session excludes the public. In this case, Lomme contends, it also excluded him and his client.

There is a second lawsuit brought against the Planning Commission—this one by five neighbors who are also objecting to the decision. In their suit, they allege the commission members “held their deliberations for their decision on the application in that closed executive session. Immediately resuming the regular meeting without public deliberations of any kind, the commission purported to vote to modify and approve the subdivision with a number of detailed conditions they had discussed and prepared in executive session outside the public view and without recording, all contrary to law.”

The suit also claims the commission’s actions “deprived the public of the opportunity to listen to its reasoning.” Sciame claims the same in his suit.

Lomme said last week after filing the FOI request, “A commission can’t fabricate a whole motion in executive session. My client has a right to know how the commission arrived at its decision.”