MARLBOROUGH — Selectmen turned down an offer Monday night for the free installation of donated equipment that would allow Internet broadcasts and video archival of board meetings.

Resident Loretta Simonds said she attended the meeting to present the offer, but said the board unanimously voted against accepting the donations without discussion.

Simonds — who is taking the board to court Sept. 7 for alleged repeated right-to-know violations — frequently attends and video tapes board meetings.

She has been working for about a year to get the free offer before the board, she said.

Selectman John Northcott said this was not the first time Simonds has approached the board about the issue and that there are still unanswered questions about the technology, including who would operate it and appropriateness of storing public documents on a website the town has no control over.

Meeting minutes are emailed out to people on request, he said, adding that about 30 people are signed up for the minutes email list.

“As far as I’m concerned, it was pointless. It was a solution in search of a problem. I don’t know of anyone beside Ms. Simonds who believes there’s a need for it,” Northcott said Thursday. “I just see so many problems and questions and issues for what I perceive is of very little value. … Seems to me very cumbersome.”

Although the project would be free to the town, who would attend the meetings to operate it, Northcott asked, and would and could the equipment be moved from one room to the next? The board often meets in a small room, which has air-conditioning, but only four seats. Sometimes, the board moves into a larger room to accommodate well-attended meetings, he said.

Simonds said an anonymous donor/resident had offered to donate the wiring needed for the project and resident Jim Philopena had offered to donate and install the video equipment.

He also found a website, CitizenTube.com, at which the meetings could be broadcast live and then archived so people could watch meetings at their convenience.

He recommended the site because it has no advertising, which was a sticking point with the board when Simonds approached selectmen in the past about the project, she said.

Philopena said he has been working in the computer field since his first assignment as a data center computer operator in the U.S. Air Force in 1977.

He works for the UMASS president’s office and works on the team providing Internet service to the five UMASS campuses and many Massachusetts universities, colleges and community colleges, as well as the Massachusetts library system and some state agencies.

Because he commutes to the Bay State for work, he often returns home too late to attend the Monday board meetings which begin at 6:30 p.m.

“I’m someone who would directly benefit from it,” Philopena said Thursday.

Although he was unable to attend Monday’s meeting, he said, he was disappointed to hear it was “summarily dismissed.”

“I’m more than qualified to put that stuff in, and one of their big sticking points is they didn’t think there was someone qualified to do it,” he said.

Simonds said the refusal of the free project reflects the board’s lack of transparency in matters.

Northcott said the board plans to fight accusations in the Cheshire County Superior Court Sept. 7 that it is in contempt of a January court order to cease right-to-know violations.

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Meghan Pierce may be reached at mpierce@newstote.com.