Minutes 02-05-2019 Regular Meeting

Browse Search

7 NCGS 143-318.10(c) specifically excludes staff only meetings from the definition of what constitutes public body. For the final example I will use a hybrid meeting that is not an official meeting of a public body. In this example several department directors and multiple staff of several local governments attend a meeting to discuss details of an intergovernmental agreement. In addition to the staff, several elected officials from various local governments also attend the meeting, although no quorum of any one elected body is present. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss changes to the intergovernmental agreement. Assuming this is an ad hoc group that met to discuss the changes and will then present the results of the discussion to the various governmental boards for action this would not be an official meeting required to be opened to the public. Some of the reasons include; the attendees were not appointed by any governmental entity to attend and the group itself was not created by any governmental entity. If the attendees were appointed by the various governmental entities to attend then it could rise to the level of a public body and the meeting would then rise to the level of an official meeting but those are not the facts of this example. Even though this was not an official meeting of a public body the public could be invited, but this is not required and whether or not to do so would be up to the host entity. This final example is analogous to the recent meeting at GoTriangle that consisted primarily of staff but also involved some elected officials. That meeting, similar to others in the past, did not involve a quorum of any governmental entity and did not result in any official action taking place at the meeting. Also, to the best of my knowledge, the attendees were not appointed to participate by any of the involved governmental entities. This meeting would not constitute a meeting of a public body. Since it was not an official meeting of a public body it was not required to be open to the public and the decision of whether to do so rests entirely with the host of the meeting. Certainly some members of the public could want access to the meeting to see the proverbial sausage being made, however, the open meetings law does not require that access and it was entirely lawful to exclude the public from the meeting if the host entity elected to do so. Chair Rich read the following: Response: I will note this response addresses only Orange County hosted meetings. Meetings hosted by other governmental organizations are the responsibility of those organizations. In formulating this response I consulted with the County Attorney to determine what is required by law to be open to the public. The County Attorney's response was that most meetings of elected officials are required by law to be open to the public, meetings comprised entirely of staff are not required to be open to the public, and meetings of informal groups comprised of staff and elected officials are also usually not required to be open to the public so long as there is no quorum of an elected body present. Small groups of elected officials meet often to discuss items that may come up for discussion on their respective governing boards. These small groups such as the Mayors of the towns, the Chair, and some number of staff should be able to meet regularly or as needed to discuss important business without having to schedule those meetings and provide for public attendance. This freedom to meet and exchange ideas is crucial to a thorough understanding of issues. These types of informal meetings do not involve final decisions on any issue. Final decisions are the sole purview of the governing boards of each jurisdiction.