MANSFIELD - Tempers flared again between members of the fiercely divided board of selectmen after one board member accused three others of violating the state's Open Meeting Law.

Sandra Levine, in a letter written to Assistant District Attorney James McKenna, claimed that fellow board members decided not to renew the contract of Town Manager John D'Agostino before the issue was discussed at a Nov. 25 board meeting.

"I am asserting that Ann Baldwin, George Dentino and Jess Aptowitz had engaged in discussions surrounding this important issue before bringing it to the table," she wrote.

The nonrenewal vote became controversial because it came six months earlier than it had to, according to D'Agostino's contract, and because those voting not to renew did not give explicit reasons for their decisions.

Levine said that after reviewing a video disc of the meeting, she believes that the three board members discussed the matter privately and did not offer any explanations for their decision. "I found that, if I analyzed their body language and the statements they made, my doubts have increased that these three Selectmen were discussing the issue ... for the first time," she wrote.

The body language Levine cited was nail and lip biting, chair squirming and twitching.

The issue erupted at Wednesday's meeting when Aptowitz announced publicly that members of the board had been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the vote. This most recent incident is at least the third time in recent months the board has been accused of violating the law.

"We have so many things to deal with in this town and answering these nonsense complaints is a total waste of time," Aptowitz said. "I'm sick of it, and I hope that we don't have to deal with it anymore."

Baldwin took the matter a step further, and named Levine as the accuser and, by majority wish of the board, read the letter aloud in its entirety.

"I just have to ask, what good does this do for the town and how does this move our town forward?" Baldwin asked Levine."We are already a divided board, as the public knows, how does this help us?"

"Hopefully it prevents us from conducting meetings that may not be open meetings," Levine replied.

The three accused board members said they had no previous discussions on the matter, and Baldwin reiterated a statement from November that the only person she contacted before bringing the matter public was Town Counsel Robert Mangiaratti.

In a written response to McKenna, Baldwin said she did not give a reason for her motion at the meeting or to reporters afterwards because D'Agostino had threatened to sue the town.

McKenna, who handles alleged violations of the Open Meeting Law for District Attorney Samuel Sutter's office, also is investigating the trio for allegedly speaking privately and through e-mail about removing Levine from her board chairmanship before the issue became public in December. The three have denied that any impropriety took place in the reorganization of the board.

The Sun Chronicle has also requested an opinion from Sutter's office regarding a board decision last month not to release D'Agostino's performance evaluation.

Throughout the tense exchanges Wednesday night, the accused selectmen said Levine acted because she disagreed with the way the board voted on the matter, while she countered that she was working on behalf of the townspeople.

"The townspeople are the only people to whom I have an obligation," she said. "I do not have an obligation to any one of the four of you."

Levine also said she would not hesitate to get the district attorney's office involved in future matters if she feels the situation calls for it.

"If I see something else that warrants or makes it look as though there's something else that's going on that is not following Open Meeting Law, I will ask somebody else to look at that again," she said.

MATT KAKLEY covers Mansfield for The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0333 or at mkakley@thesunchronicle.com.