This version includes a clarification at the end of the story
From local resident Myra Lupton’s perspective, staying involved in local government is sometimes no easy task.
Getting to the 25th floor of the Symetra Financial Building in Bellevue — a possible School Board retreat location scheduled for July 8 and 9 this year — seems a bridge too far for this concerned citizen.
“In the interest of transparency, I should be able to drop in on these meetings whenever I wish,” she said. “You can’t do that at these clubs.”
The club she is referring to is the Harbor Club of Seattle and Bellevue, which bills itself as a “premier private dining club offering venues and catering for corporate and special events, weddings, special occasions.” And, apparently, school boards.
As the law does allow meetings outside of town, the Mercer Island School Board chose to meet at the Harbor Club’s Seattle location last year for their biannual retreat meeting. Earlier this year, it settled on Ponti’s, a seafood grill restaurant on the Lake Washington Ship Canal.
The public’s right to know
According to Lupton, these locations are violating the spirit of the state’s Open Meetings Act (OPMA) of 1971. The law guides most public bodies on when and how they may conduct their business.
Written as Chapter 42.30 of the Washington Revised Code (RCW), the law requires all meetings of state and municipal governing bodies — with minor exceptions — to be open and public. Only the courts and the state legislature are excluded. On Mercer Island and elsewhere in the state, OPMA rules are intended to let the public see how decisions are made in their name as voting citizens. In particular, the Island’s city and school district have both taken advantage of modern information technology to virtually broadcast information about regular meetings on their Web sites or the Island’s cable channel beginning last year.
Mercer Island City Manager Rich Conrad said the broadcast and use of Internet technology to involve citizens represented the city’s efforts to take OPMA rules seriously.
“The city is absolutely committed to transparency and open government,” he said.
But on occasion, “closed” or “executive session” meetings are allowed when the public’s right to know is, in their judgment, outweighed by an action made for the public good. The 13 special exemptions — enumerated by the law — deal with five specific areas: possible litigation, labor negotiations, performance review, real estate acquisition and disciplinary action against a fellow council member.But some of the law is a legal grey area, leaving much of the interpretation up to those the law is intended to scrutinize.
Working out of the state attorney general’s office, Open Government Ombudsman Tim Ford is responsible for advising citizens and agencies on how to comply with OPMA regulations. He said while the school district meetings in Seattle or Bellevue was somewhat inconvenient, the arrangements as proposed are consistent with the law.
“I can why some people would complain, though,” he said. “If no one shows up it’s tough to show how the meeting is open to the public.”
In recent years, actions in various councils and boards have come under scrutiny after they appeared to skirt OPMA laws. In 2001, the Battle Ground School District, outside Tacoma, ran afoul of the law after a majority of the board used e-mail to reach a consensus on firing an employee. Earlier this year, Seattle City Council members were urged to stop meeting privately with Mayor Greg Nickels for budget discussions that should have been taking place in public.
Meeting notice standards a weakness
But getting to the meetings isn’t the only problem; OPMA regulations also allow a third type of meeting to take place with little advance notice.
“Special” meetings can be called at anytime outside of a public holiday with only 24 hours of advance notice to its own members and to local media who specifically requested such notification on a yearly basis.
The minimal notice is a weakness in the law, which Washington Coalition for Open Government President Toby Nixon said can preclude regular citizens from staying involved.
“There’s no requirement that citizens are required to be notified,” he said.
According to the Citizen Media Law Project, a legal guide funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Washington state’s requirements for public bodies to give notice of meetings are “unusual and relatively weak.”
While the average residents pay their bills, receive news updates and send e-mail from their computers each day, Nixon said that public agencies seem resistant to embrace technology. Each time a bill is introduced in Olympia to require electronic notification for individuals who request it, the legislature has balked at passing any reform.
“I hate to get to be cynical or conspiratorial, but I think they prefer the public not to know,” he said.
Excessive secrecy or working overtime?
Over the past year, the City of Mercer Island has called a handful of closed and special meetings.
Mercer Island City Clerk Ali Spietz said the City Council tries to give the public as much notice as possible for unscheduled meetings, usually around two weeks. On the other hand, the School Board — dealing with a large deficit and the process to install MISD Superintendent Gary Plano — scheduled nearly 20 special meetings and 24 closed sessions in 2008.
School Board President Janet Frohnmayer said the high tally was simply a reflection of how engaged they were with the community and tried to give the public at least a month of notice ahead of time for special meetings.
“Our interest has been on having as much input as we can get,” she said. “One of the things I love … is the integrity of the board.”
The MISD School Board also routinely schedules executive sessions as a placeholder and often adjourns without meeting behind closed doors.
Ombudsman Ford criticized that practice and said closed or executive sessions should be used sparingly, giving a detailed reason for why it is held each time.
A recent MISD board meeting, scheduled for May 14, was shifted to two days earlier and ended early as it adjourned for an executive session on teacher’s union negotiations. It is part of a pattern that Lupton and others looking for more transparency are not happy about as the July retreat and a decision on cutting $2 million approaches.
“These meetings outside our district are in effect, not in intent, hours of executive sessions,” she said.
Business appropriate for Executive Session:
1) Reviewing a real estate lease or purchase that may increase in price.
2) Reviewing a real estate sale that may depreciate.
3) Reviewing negotiations on contracted municipal work.
4) Reviewing complaints against a public officer or employee.
5) Evaluating the performance of a public officer or employee, or applicant for employment.
6) Evaluating the qualifications of a candidate for appointment to elective office.
7) Discussing legal matters relating to: agency enforcement actions; or litigation or potential litigation matters to which they are a party and public discussion is likely to result in adverse legal or financial consequence to the agency.
8) Matters affecting national security.
9) Reviewing financial information supplied by private persons to an export trading company.
10) Discussions involving the state investment board, financial or commercial information relating to the investment of the public trust.
11) Reviewing unpublished information on state-purchased health care services.
12) Discussing library network pricing, products, equipment and services.
13) Reviewing grant applications and awards relating to life sciences fund authority.
These exceptions grant the governing body the right to meet privately, but they do not require it.
There are also other types of meetings that are allowed to be closed to the public because they are declared to be outside the scope of OPMA. These include labor negotiations and planning for labor negotiations, “quasi-judicial” meetings including making a decision on a license or permit and rulemaking proceedings.
Clarification:
A June 3 story, “Open Meetings Act: your right to know” incorrectly stated the positions of Mercer Island School District Superintendent Gary Plano and Coalition of Open Government President Toby Nixon as “Executive Director”. Regarding information cited about the MISD, the Reporter wishes to clarify the following: The MISD provided free transportation in the past to retreat meeting sites; Special Meeting dates and times and regular meeting changes are posted on the District’s Web site; and Special and closed meetings called in 2008 were held for several reasons, not just budget concerns and selecting a new superintendent. Further, the Reporter wishes to clarify the number of Special Meetings convened in 2008. The scheduled number was 19, but the board actually held 28. Scheduled meetings were tallied from agenda records available on the MISD Web site.
