I’ve got to find a way just to hear those little things you say

    Late last week, a city’s planning and zoning commission met for a regularly-scheduled, properly noticed meeting.
    The meeting ended and the commissioners began gathering up papers.  Members of the public attending the meeting also left, concluding the meeting was finished.
    Perhaps one of those citizens, in leaving the room, took along with him or her the brains of these commissioners.  Because these commissioners began talking among themselves about the meeting and suddenly realized they had failed to take up an issue that they wanted to discuss.  Yes, there was a quorum in the room while this “chatting” was going on.  No, they were not in a formal “meeting” setting when this “chatting” was going on.  Can you say “violation of the law”?
    So, someone on the commission decided they needed to fix this problem and so fix it they did.  At least, they got themselves into a further fix in the process.  Because the fix was to simply resume the meeting, now an illegal meeting without proper public notice, to further discuss this matter of public business after the public had gone. 
    Probably they thought this was just a “little thing.”   But it’s not such a little thing to someone who came to the meeting and wanted to hear that particular discussion, then missed it because it appeared to the public that the meeting was over.  In fact, an action like this just makes it appear someone is trying to hide something from the public.
    Someone needs to “fix” these commissioners’ lack of understanding about the law.  If they can read and understand the city’s planning and zoning rules, there’s no reason they can’t read and understand the sunshine law.  Each law is critical to the responsibilities they have undertaken.
    One of my favorite advocates of the sunshine law opined the other day, “The Sunshine Law is intended to turn the lights on public officials not knock the daylights out of [the public] when the switch was turned on.”  I laughed when I read that line, but the truth is that when I see situations like this, I think perhaps getting a giant club and using it to enlighten some of our public officials to the provisions in the sunshine law might not be a bad idea.  Beating a little common sense into their heads is one tactic we haven’t tried.  Attempting to legislate fines and penalties clearly isn’t working.

    MY FINAL THOUGHTS:  And I add these are MY thoughts and not the thoughts of any other person, statewide association or organization of any race, color or creed, or reader of this blog:  1)  The sunshine law already covers emails; and 2) Public bodies already have to sort the “spam” from the records relating to public business that comes into their U.S.Postal Service mailbox every day.  Why are we acting like what is going on statewide is so difficult?