1999-06-16 Charter Commission Minutes

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Page 4 of 11 PRANKE: Yes, it’s titled Records and Meetings Open to the Public and it’s Section (b) and it says ‘All meetings of the council, boards and commissions shall be held in the council room, etc. Where personal matters affecting the privacy of an individual are to be considered, the council, board or commission may, at the request of the individual involved, consider such matters in closed session.’ Now if you’ll look at the handout I gave you. Let me find my -. The first page under Section 92-4 of the Sunshine Law says ‘A board may hold an executive meeting closed to the public upon an affirmative vote, taken at an open meeting, of two-thirds of the members present; provided the affirmative vote, etc. A meeting closed to the public shall be limited to matters exempted by section 92-5. The reason for holding such a meeting shall be publicly announced and the vote of each member recorded.’ When you Exceptions go down here to the , you’ll find no place does it allow for the person who is coming before the board or commission to say I want to have an executive meeting and then they hold an executive meeting. And yet - I’m sorry, that’s on the second page. On the first page that I’ve given you, it’s a copy EXECUTIVE SESSION, of the latest Police Commission Meeting and under essentially all a police officer has to do is write a letter to the Police Commission at this point and say I want to go into executive session. There’s no vote taken other than a voice vote. There’s no discussion. There’s no reason is given for going into the executive session except that the police officer asks for it. That’s not in compliance with the Sunshine Law. Nowhere in Section 92-5 will you find that a person can say I want to go into executive session. It says that a person can say, if the board or commission says we’re going into executive session, the person has the right to say I would rather this be held in open session but the board or commission must make its determination that one of these matters under Section 92-5 in the Sunshine Law allows for them to go into executive session and that must be put into the minutes and a record of the vote made. Taking a voice vote and ayes and ayes is one thing and I guess that meets the requirement of the law but they really should be required to take a vote member by member on these choices of going into executive session. This is an important thing. The very beginning of the Sunshine Law is very specific about the purpose of this is to make sure that the folks in this state are privy to all the information that they are allowed to have or should have to make their informed decisions. Now I’d like to go to the last page of what I handed you and under, it’s actually Section 92-5 and that’s (b) and it says ‘In no instance shall the board make a decision or deliberate toward a decision in executive meeting on matters not directly related’. A lot of boards are doing that. They’re going into executive session. This is the minutes of the regular meeting for the October 11, 1995 Board of Ethics. This is the Executive Board minutes. They covered stuff in here that wasn’t even on the agenda. And here’s the January 10th meeting. These are two that I happened to be able to get a hold of solely because they were subpoenaed in a judicial case which made them public records but there’s acres and acres of notes, of stuff in there that has nothing to do with executive session. We need to get the County Charter into compliance with the state law so that we’re not at some risk, I guess, of being sued perhaps. I’m sorry, Minutes the last page, that was the third page. The last page I have for you is the Section 92-9 . And this is the reason that those reasons must be specific in the minutes when a board or commission goes into executive session. ‘The minutes shall be public records and shall be available within thirty days after the meeting except where disclosure would be inconsistent with 92-5; provided that minutes of executive meetings may be withheld so long as their publication would defeat the lawful purpose of the executive meeting, and no longer.’ We have acres and acres of minutes that have not been vented partly because we have no money and that’s sort of understandable but the other reason is that acres and acres of those minutes should never have been held in executive session in my opinion, and I think somebody should take a look at that but we need to bring this County Charter back into compliance with the Sunshine Law. That’s what I would have to say about that. I have one other thing. I have several other things but I’ve been told that you’ll be back at a later date and I will bring those others up at a later date. But the second thing - RAY: Well, I would encourage you, Del, to bring them up now. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 6-16-99.html7/1/2011