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Decision No. 12,802

Appeal of WALTER F. GREENING from action of the Board of Education of the Valley Central School District regarding the posting of notice of school board meetings.

Decision No. 12,802

(September 15, 1992)

Scott and Hoyt, Esqs., attorneys for respondent, Julius Larkin Hoyt, Esq., of counsel

SOBOL, Commissioner.--Petitioner appeals from respondent's action in posting public notice of meetings of the board of education on a bulletin board behind a receptionist's desk in the district's Administration Building. The appeal must be dismissed.

Petitioner's sole claim in this appeal is that respondent has violated Public Officers Law '104, a portion of the Open Meetings Law, by failing to post conspicuously notice of board meetings in a designated public location. Respondent asserts that such posting complies with the requirements of the Open Meetings Law and that, in any event, for over three-quarters of the meetings of the board in the 1990-91 school year, notice was also posted on a sign along a public highway.

The appeal must be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. The Commissioner has repeatedly held that alleged violations of the Open Meetings Law must be pursued in a judicial action or proceeding in State Supreme Court and may not be the basis of an appeal to the Commissioner of Education under Education Law '310 (Public Officers Law '107; Appeal of Kushner, 31 Ed Dept Rep 351; Appeal of Strober, 30 id. 4; Appeal of Weaver, 28 id. 183; Appeal of Carre, Goldstein and Zahler, 27 id. 215).

THE APPEAL IS DISMISSED.

END OF FILE