AG: Bardstown City Council safety committee violated Open Meetings Act
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette
Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, 12:30 a.m. (UPDATED 4:20 p.m.) — The Kentucky Attorney General has ruled that a Bardstown City Council committee has violated the Open Meetings Act in a Feb. 20, 2012 meeting to discuss candidates for the position of city fire chief.
The ruling came after Bardstown resident Kevin Brumley filed a complaint for Safety Committee chairman Bobby Simpson on July 2, 2012, alleging the committee violated the Open Meetings Act at its Feb. 20 meeting with the fire chief selection committee.
The complaint’s alleged the violations of the Act include:
- failing to conduct a vote to conduct a closed session;
- failing to identify which of the three permissible closed session topics were to be discussed;
- failing to state the reason for the closed session;
- failing to state the general nature of the business to be discussed in closed session;
- discussion of an unauthorized topic in closed session, as state law allows discussion of “an individual employee” and 12 candidates for fire chief were discussed, and;
- discussion of an unauthorized topic since the committee did not have the power to appoint or dismissed an employee.
In an answer on behalf of Councilman Simpson, City Attorney Tom Donan admitted the committee violated the Open Meetings Act by failing to properly state the premises under which the committee was entering a closed session and failing to state the general nature of the business to be discussed. The AG’s office upheld these portions of Brumley’s complaint.
Donan also defended the safety committee’s right to review the qualifications for fire chief in a closed meeting — a right the Attorney General’s ruling also supported.
“The Act has long recognized that a search committee, screening committee or selection committee my properly discuss the various qualifications of competing applicants for employment in public service in closed session … even if they are only tasked with making recommendations or advising the appointing authority,” Assistant AG Amye L. Bensenhaver wrote in the decision.
In this instance, a selection committee was formed to review the applicants for the position of city fire chief, with the committee tasked with providing Mayor Bill Sheckles with recommendations for three candidates. After its closed session on Feb. 20, the committee forwarded the names of three candidates to the mayor’s office.
This latest AG order comes on the heels of the Attorney General’s order issued on June 28th that upheld Brumley’s Open Meetings complaint related to the city council’s closed session that discussed changes to city ordinances related to the fire chief position.
WHAT CONSTITUTES A VIOLATION? The Attorney General’s recent ruling on the City of Bardstown’s violations of the Open Meetings Act are based largely on the errors the council (and committees) committed in regard to the stated reasons for going into a session closed to the public.
The Open Meetings Act allows public agencies to go into a closed meeting to discuss “the appointment, discipline or dismissal of an individual employee.” In order to properly invoke this exception to the Open Meetings Act, the agency must announce which one of the three — appointment, discipline or dismissal — is being considered. The Bardstown City Council has routinely stated all three when entering closed sessions — a violation of the Open Meetings Act.
Naming the individual or individuals to be discussed is not a requirement to enter into a closed meeting; however the general nature of the closed session must be announced — another portion of the Open Meetings Act the AG’s office has noted was violated by the council (and committtees).
For more information on the Open Meetings and Open Records acts, the Attorney General has published a guide for public officials titled “Your Duty Under the Law” which also includes sample open records requests and explains the Attorney General’s role in upholding the acts.
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