To the editor: Not intentionally I’m sure but the article “Common Sense 1, Conspiracy theories 0” (The Messenger, April 20) gave West Milford taxpayers another glimpse into how dysfunctional the township’s board of education can be. Near the end of his article about a recent Appellate court decision the writer, a member of West Milford’s board of education, concluded, “The concept of open government has been hijacked to accommodate senseless harassment...” Talking about the same case only a few weeks before, the board of education’s lawyer told a reporter for the Herald and News, “This case isn’t about just that one page of notes... the public policy issue is very significant.” Who should West Milford residents believe? The board member, who is chairman of a one-member committee, or his lawyer, who represents 26 boards of education throughout the state? The notes I have been denied access to are not just “doodled agendas and dog-eared post-it-notes” as the article’s writer would like your readers to believe. Rather what I am seeking is access to the only contemporaneous record of a board of education meeting that was closed to the public. When you add the fact that Vito Gagliardi, the board’s lawyer, once offered to give me the handwritten notes provided that I would not write about them, they take on even more significance. What could they contain that the board of education wants to keep from the public? It seems to me that Gagliardi would have explained the basics of the case to the board of education. Although it’s not all that complicated, I would bet that some board members might not have grasped the facts. It should have been as easy as a first grade primer, however, for the author of the article, who is, after all, a graduate of the Harvard Business School. Martin O’Shea Stockholm