Problems with open meetings compliance persist in an Ohio community.

This time the cost to taxpayers is $37,000 to settle a lawsuit involving secret meetings of the Milford City Council.

But the message to Kentucky's public officials, as well as its citizens, is an important one that we literally cannot afford to ignore.

"When city leaders [or any public agency officials] choose to hammer out backroom deals," the complainant declared after the settlement was reached, "the public is unable to see if government is spending tax dollars wisely. This is precisely why open meetings laws exist and why we should care when elected officials violate them."

Council members admit engaging in unannounced meetings to negotiate the details for the sale of property for a soccer training complex in Clermont County.

But they characterize the violations as unintentional, stipulating in the settlement to "technical violations."

The attorney for the complainant lamented the council's position, commenting that "Milford's 'technical violations' resulted in less transparency involving a few million dollars in taxpayer debt. When a government does not feel it owes its people the duty to provide them information, or when people who make laws don't follow laws our entire society is harmed."

"It is a shame," he continued, "that Milford lawmakers find the open meetings act to be a mere nuisance and think that carelessness is an excuse."

Clearly, Kentucky's courts and attorney general share the view that "carelessness is not an excuse."

In 2001, the attorney general rejected an agency's attempt to characterize an open meetings violation as merely technical. He declared that the open meetings act "does not recognize a class of violations of lesser gravity and therefore capable of being dismissed as merely 'technical.'"

The offense to the public's right to know is just as great regardless of the nature of the violation.

In 2017 the Kentucky Supreme Court rejected the Danville Board of Commissioners' claim that closed session discussions leading up to the purchase of property were justified by an exception to the law.

The Court characterized the board's post-purchase approval in open session as "window dressing."

Ohio isn't Kentucky, and Milford isn't Danville, but we can all learn from the Milford City Council's bad example.

Kentucky's officials should be guided by the goal of consistently maximizing notice of agency meetings and actions. Kentucky's citizens should demand notice of agency meetings and actions and thereby consistently assert their rights as advocates for open government.