Agenda - 02-19-2019 8-a - Minutes

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8 1 staff and elected officials are also usually not required to be open to the public so long as there 2 is no quorum of an elected body present. 3 4 Small groups of elected officials meet often to discuss items that may come up for discussion 5 on their respective governing boards. These small groups such as the Mayors of the towns, the 6 Chair, and some number of staff should be able to meet regularly or as needed to discuss 7 important business without having to schedule those meetings and provide for public 8 attendance. This freedom to meet and exchange ideas is crucial to a thorough understanding 9 of issues. These types of informal meetings do not involve final decisions on any issue. Final 10 decisions are the sole purview of the governing boards of each jurisdiction. 11 12 Opening all meetings, whether those meetings are comprised exclusively of staff or are 13 comprised of a group that may include staff and a limited numbers of elected officials, would not 14 be productive and would likely have a disquieting effect on what would be discussed at those 15 staff or predominantly staff meetings. Also, opening staff or predominantly staff meetings for all 16 transit or light rail meetings would likely lead to opening staff meetings on other topics as well. 17 Meetings of the Orange County Board of Commissioners regarding transit issues and 18 particularly the light rail have been open and have had high levels of public engagement for a 19 number of years. Quarterly transit and light rail reports are provided at regular Board of County 20 Commissioners meetings, which are always open to the public. Similarly, decisions on transit 21 and light rail issues are only made at regular board meetings. This is a level of openness and 22 transparency that is in excess of state open meetings laws, thoroughly engages the public, and 23 will not change. (We have had 17 meetings from 1-1-17 — 1-30-19 where we discussed or took 24 action on the LRT.) 25 26 In conclusion, the BOCC does not have the legal authority to direct GoTriangle to open their 27 meetings to the public. 28 29 Commissioner McKee said the meeting on January 10t" was not a meeting of friends 30 over coffee for discussion. He said this group has a name and the lack of minutes is irrelevant, 31 as there was a PowerPoint presentation at that meeting. He said the only way he got this 32 presentation was through a public records request to GoTriangle. He said the night he made 33 these petitions, he distinctly agreed that the open meeting law did not apply to this meeting, but 34 morally, and because this is a divisive issue in this community, no one should be excluded from 35 sitting in the back of a meeting and quietly listening. 36 Commissioner Marcoplos said to Commissioner Bedford that she is welcome to contact 37 him at any time to find out what happens at any GoTriangle meetings. 38 Commissioner Marcoplos said one cannot say that any particular issue is deserving of 39 changing the basic way of governing to make all meetings open. He referred to other items 40 (detention center, ag center, etc.) and said meetings occurred in recent weeks that discussed 41 preliminary numbers, which are no longer accurate. He said things change from day to day, 42 and this is the type of meeting that was held at GoTriangle on January 10t", and so much was 43 discussed that is not reflected in the basic PowerPoint, and so many things have changed since 44 that meeting. He questions if it is good governance to make every single work session between 45 staff and elected officials open. He said the numbers at the January 101" meeting, were not 46 actual factual numbers, and there has to be a happy medium. He said Orange County 47 government has always been transparent, and he finds it interesting that this concern is only 48 being raised about LRT. He said there has to be a balance between transparency, and getting 49 day to day work done in order to present current, factual information to the public for discussion 50 and vote.