City Found In Violation Of Open Meetings Act
May 6, 2009 12:30 - 1 Comment
>According to the Gazette, the state’s Open Meeting Compliance Board has ruled that the when, at the end of its January 26 executive session, the Mayor and Council directed City staff to explore a lease agreement for Red Gate golf course, it “extended beyond the permissible bounds for a closed meeting under the act.”
The ruling was in response to a complaint brought by Rockville resident (and Rockville Central contributor) Joseph Jordan. “I didn’t have a problem with them discussing personnel matters or getting legal advice, but when they took a vote on what they were going to do I thought that was out of bounds,” he told the Gazette.
Mayor Susan R. Hoffmann told the Gazette she disagreed with the finding: “We were dealing with legal advice and legal advice was perfectly appropriate under [state law] to be in executive session.”
The compliance board decided that the Mayor and Council were OK getting legal advice from the city attorney, and that “much of the discussion involved matters properly considered under the personnel exception as authorized by the act.” However, the board said the they crossed the line when they told City staff to begin negotiations over a possible lease of Red Gate.
According to the Gazette, there “is not punishment for violating the Open Meetings Act.”
With all due respect to Mayor Hoffmann, no one questioned the appropriateness of obtaining legal advice in executive session. However, the Open Meetings Act is very explicit in stating that once that advice is given, the body needs to end the closed session, or at least that part of it, if there are other items on the agenda. The discussion focusing on the financial status of the course and instructing staff to further explore the option of a lease were actions that should have been done in open session.>
We place a great deal of trust in our elected officials, and expect them to respect that trust. It is possible the Council, City Manager and City Attorney all thought they were within the guidelines, but why should it take a resident to alert them to the fact they were in fact out of bounds? If anything, there should be error on the side of more openness and transparency, not less.