It appears that Louisville Metro Government is not content to abridge the public's right of access to public records in violation of the open records law.

Louisville Metro may also be determined to abridge the public's right of access to public meetings in contravention of the open meetings law.

On July 1, the Courier Journal filed an open meetings complaint with Metro Council's presiding officer, President David James.

This is the first step in an open meetings challenge.

In the complaint, the Courier alleged that a council member's comment at a Monday press conference raised a red flag.

The Courier reports:

"[A] Louisville Metro Council member said reporters would need to wrap up their questions soon because they had a '3 o'clock conference call with the mayor.'

"But that conference call does not appear to have been made available to the public, and The Courier Journal was unable to obtain access to it — despite some describing a series of similar briefings the mayor held as a way to keep city leaders informed about COVID-19 and civil unrest. "

"[A] way to keep city leaders informed" that may directly contravene the fundamental mandate of the open meetings law.

Reduced to its simplest terms, the open meetings law "prohibits a quorum from discussing public business in private or meeting in number less than a quorum for the express purpose of avoiding the open meeting requirement of the [law]."

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=48229

"For a meeting to take place within the meaning of the act, public business must be discussed or action must be taken by the agency.

"Public business is not simply any discussion between two officials of the agency. Public business is the discussion of the various alternatives to a given issue about which the board has the option to take action."

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ky-supreme-court/1092479.html

A nonpublic meeting, formal or informal, of a quorum of agency members (*or* a series of less than quorum meetings attended by members that, added together constitute a quorum) + discussion of public business (*or* taking action) = an open meetings violation.

All available facts point to a secret meeting of a quorum or a serial meeting of less than a quorum held to avoid the open meetings law.

The Courier's allegation, like those in so many other open meetings complaints, is not based on an eyewitness account of the conference call. Because open meetings violations most often occur behind closed doors, an eyewitness is rare.

The Courier's allegations are reasonably extrapolated from a member's declaration that council members would speak to the mayor by conference call when the press conference ended.

The topics to be discussed were not identified.

But is it likely that the mayor routinely discusses non-public business "about which the [council] has [no] option to take action" with council members by scheduled conference call?

Is it more likely they discussed COVID developments/recent unrest or the weather?

My money is on the former.

And a full quorum of the council need not have participated in the meetings. As noted, the law prohibits "meeting in number less than a quorum for the express purpose of avoiding the open meeting requirement of the [law]."

Is it likely that if members numbering less than a quorum of the council conducted a conference call with the mayor, they did not in turn pass along the information exchanged in the conference call to the remaining members?

Or is it more likely that the privileged few had exclusive access to the information.

My money is on the former.

In that case, the conference call was the first of a "series of less than quorum meetings, where the members attending one (1) or more of the meetings collectively constitute at least a quorum of the members of the public agency and where the meetings are held for the purpose of avoiding the [open meetings] requirement."

The article suggests that, in anticipation of a legal challenge, the council members sought legal guidance and were given the go ahead.

That advise, if in fact given, is almost certainly based on a cynical interpretation of a part of the same statutory prohibition on serial meetings of less than a quorum that *permits* discussion "between individual members where the purpose of the discussions is to educate the members."

It is the default position for agencies caught in a flagrant violation of the open meetings laws thru a series of nonpublic meetings or a "a rolling quorum."

Nothing, it seems, is off limits to a city whose actions directly conflict with its professed commitment to transparency.

Educate the members? Why not educate a public that is desperately seeking the truth about COVID developments and civil unrest by discussing the information at an open public meeting.

Unless they mayor and the council members were conferring about the weather, I am entitled to know.

Deepest appreciation to the Courier Journal for its tireless efforts to preserve the public's right to know.