A pervasive problem at the federal, state, and local level—in Kentucky, agenda items for closed sessions to discuss "personnel" and/or "litigation" are a regular "preset:"

"There's nothing wrong with a city council or school board meeting in executive session. But the now near-universal practice of including such a session in agenda boilerplate should give us pause.

"Certainly, including it in the preset starting point of every agenda for a meeting of the people's representatives in government is simply a matter of clerical convenience for an employee of the executive branch, and it can be ignored if there is no need for a closed session.

"But secrecy by government should never be a matter of convenience. Establishing it as one in such a mundane way undermines the very spirit of open government that the Open Public Meetings Act established in no uncertain terms."