On Monday, the Freedom of Information Commission will hear a case brought by former volunteer firefighter João Godoy against the volunteer fire department. In his complaint to the commission, Godoy, of Avon, alleges that the department — which is largely funded by district taxes — violated Connecticut's Freedom of Information laws when it revoked his membership at a meeting that was closed to the public without posting a notice of the meeting to the public.

Fire Chief Kenneth W. Richards Jr. said Tuesday that Godoy's complaint is the first challenge to a well-established firehouse policy of members-only meetings.

“It's been the practice of the Old Mystic Fire Department for the past 170 years that they are not public meetings,” said Richards. “... They're private meetings.”

Godoy was voted in by the membership as a regular unpaid member of the fire department in October 2002 and was voted out on April 9 following two meetings of the department's board and officers to discuss “various incidents” involving Godoy.

According to Godoy's complaint, the board — acting on the advice of New London attorney Brian K. Estep — did not permit Godoy to open the meetings to the public, as would be required under the FOI Act for a public meeting; would not allow him to tape the meetings; and asked Godoy to wait downstairs while the board and officers deliberated his dismissal in his absence.

In his complaint, he cited a 1999 decision in which the FOI Commission determined that a fire district in Bloomfield was a public agency, as well as a 1986 commission decision that declared a volunteer fire department in Portland to be a public agency.

“I believe they have to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, and I'm very confident that on Monday there will be a ruling in my favor,” Godoy said Tuesday.

Godoy is asking that the three meetings regarding his dismissal be declared null and void and that the commission impose civil penalties in addition to ordering that the fire department attend an educational workshop about the FOI Act.

Richards said that, to his knowledge, no one before Godoy has ever requested information from the fire department under the FOI Act. Richards said the department has complied with Godoy's frequent requests for documents under the act.

Richards, the district president, the president of the fire department board and their attorney plan to attend the hearing Monday.

“Our department's been in existence since 1837 and we've always done it this way,” Richards said, adding that the department would comply with whatever decision the commission makes. “... Depending which way the FOI Commission rules, it could affect a lot of fire departments in the state of Connecticut.”

An informal poll of some other local volunteer departments found that members-only meetings are not out of the ordinary, though usually departments have two styles of meetings: those for the board of directors and those for company members, which are exclusive.

David Steel, chief of the Noank Fire Company, a volunteer department in Groton, said the company's board of directors meetings are open to the public, but when the company members gather, the meetings are open to firefighters only.

In Salem, the Gardner Lake Volunteer Fire Department holds company meetings that only the department's members are allowed to attend, but the company's board of directors' meetings are open to the public, according to Donald Bourdeau, a retired chief there.

The same is true for the Salem Volunteer Fire Department, which is the town's other fire company, said Chief Eugene Maiorano.

“I think most of them are the same,” Maiorano said, referring to volunteer companies in general.

While the board meetings focus on budgetary processes, he said, company meetings are usually reserved for personnel operational items.

Day Staff Writer M. Matthew Clark contributed to this report.