The Huntington West Virginia Herald Dispatch assails "public" meetings that exclude the public when officials conduct private discussions of public business during those meetings using cellphones and text messages.

"As detailed in an article by The Herald-Dispatch reporter McKenna Horsley in Sunday's edition, some [Huntington City] Council members conducted private text conversations with outsiders and each other during a series of votes last month to select a replacement for a member who had resigned. People at the meeting or watching it online had no idea what council members were saying to each other or to outsiders — in this case, including a resident of another state — who were trying to influence the outcome while the meeting was going on.

"The result was two meetings occurring simultaneously. One was the open, public meeting. The other was one with discussion held in secret. That may not be a violation of the letter of the West Virginia open meetings law, which was written before texting was common, but it certainly violates the spirit of the law.

"Meetings of the City Council and other public bodies are supposed to be open to the public. Thus, conversations during those meetings must be open and public. A record is kept of discussions and votes. To be a truly open meeting, the public must be able to listen to conversations going on during those meetings, but that's not possible if council members are talking to each other or to other people through text messages or online conversations."

Under existing legal authority, this conduct is impermissible in Kentucky. But this is rarely a deterrent to determined public officials.

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