Request By:
Mr. Reginald Dale Sadler
News Director
WKAY
Heritage Communications, Inc.
P.O. Box 219
Glasgow, Kentucky 42141
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Carl T. Miller, Assistant Attorney General
In your letter of February 14, 1978 you present the question of whether the city attorney can hold a closed meeting with the city council prior to a regular meeting of the council. YOu state that before a meeting of the Glasgow City Council the City Attorney called the members into a room and closed the door and met for about ten minutes. After the meeting was over an informal state ment was made to a reporter that the meeting concerned some kind of personnel matter.
You sent a copy of your letter to the Attorney General to Mr. Henry Dickinson, City Attorney, and Mr. Dickinson has written a letter of explanation to this office. Mr. Dickinson confirms the fact that a brief closed meeting was held and stated that: "I asked the Council to meet with me briefly in closed session as I wanted to discuss with them 'proposed or pending litigation against or on behalf of the City of Glasgow . . . This was the only matter discussed at our brief closed session and nothing on the Council's agenda for that evening was discussed or even mentioned."
Under KRS 61.815 a closed meeting may be held by an agency for the purpose of discussion of proposed or pending litigation without going through the formality of passing a motion to hold the closed session. We therefore can see nothing illegal in holding the closed session described. We think however that in order to avoid suspicion that the Open Meetings Law may have been violated an announcement should be made to any member, of the public present as to the general purpose of the meeting. It is not necessary to give any names or details as to the subject of the closed session but only that the purpose of the session is to discuss litigation.
You also ask who can take action against a violation of the Open Meetings Law. You ask, "Does a private citizen have to file suit or can the district court act on its own?"
KRS 61.845 provides:
"The circuit courts of this state shall have jurisdiction to enforce the purposes of KRS 61.810 to 61.840 by injunction or other appropriate order upon application by any citizen of this state."
Any citizen of Kentucky can therefore bring an action in the circuit court to enforce the Open Meetings Law.
It is also provided in KRS 61.991 that:
"Any person who knowingly attends a meeting of any public agency covered by KRS 61.805 to 61.850 of which he is a member, not held in accordance with the provisions of KRS 61.805 to 61.850 shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars ($100)."
This penalty provision would have to be applied by the district court which has exclusive jurisdiction over misdemeanors. The case would normally be prosecuted by the county attorney. There are therefore two ways in which to enforce the Open Meetings Law: (1) by a petition of a citizen to the circuit court and (2) by the penal prosecution in the district court.