Request By:
Mr. Tom Clinton
Editor,
The Messenger
221 South Main Street
P.O. Box 529
Madisonville, Kentucky 42431
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Cicely D. Jaracz, Assistant Attorney General
This office is in receipt of your request for an opinion pertaining to the Kentucky Open Meetings law, KRS 61.805 et seq. Specifically, you inquire as to whether a city council can act as a quasi-judicial body and be thus exempt from the Open Meetings law. It appears that the Madisonville city council has twice conducted open meetings under the provisions of Chapter 100 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes pertaining to rezoning proposals. After the open meeting wherein testimony, arguments, and rebuttal were heard, the mayor, city council and city attorney went into closed session to deliberate. Messenger reporter Lisa Engelhardt objected, but the council contended that it was acting as a quasi-judicial body under KRS 61.805(2) and was thus exempt from the Open Meetings requirements.
KRS 61.810 provides that:
"All meetings of a quorum of the members of any public agency at which any public business is discussed or at which any action is taken by such agency are declared to be public meetings, open to the public at all times . . ."
The Madisonville city council is a public agency as defined by KRS 61.805(2), and thus subject to the Open Meetings law.
However, KRS 61.805(2) exempts judicial or quasi-judicial bodies from the provisions of the Open Meetings law. As stated in OAG 83-259, while judicial bodies are the courts of the Court of Justice, quasi-judicial bodies make determinations which affect substantial rights, exercise discretion, and require notice and hearing. Presence of all three of these elements is necessary to create a quasi-judicial body.
When a public agency, after giving notice to the parties, is conducting a fact-finding hearing which will affect the substantial rights of an individual and will render a decision based on its discretion, the agency is performing a quasi-judicial function. Hearings are open to the public, as mandated in rezoning amendments by KRS 100.211. However, once arguments are heard and evidence received, the agency can then retire into closed session to deliberate and reach a decision.
The Madisonville city council public meeting wherein testimony, arguments, and rebuttal were heard pertained to
"An ordinance amending the general zoning ordinance and accompanying map thereto known as Appendix B to the Code of Ordinances, City of Madisonville, passed December 28, 1970, by changing the classification of the zone district for certain parcels of land on Buntin Avenue from R-2 to C-1."
Although the Madisonville city council is a legislative branch as defined by KRS 86.030, when the council discussed this zoning change it was not making rules of general application or "legislating" but was making a decision affecting the property right of an individual property owner or "adjudicating." A similar result was obtained in City of Louisville v. McDonald, Ky., 470 S.W.2d 173 (1971), wherein the former Kentucky Court of Appeals stated that the principles of procedural due process were applicable to rezoning procedures and the local authority (herein the city council) could satisfy statutory due process by holding a complete adjudicatory hearing to determine whether to rezone a particular piece of property.
This office reached a similar result in OAG 83-259 and OAG 83-20. OAG 83-259 stated that the Kentucky Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (KOSHRC) was an exclusive quasi-judicial body whose hearings are public but deliberations upon receiving evidence are private. The Kentucky Human Rights Commission and Health Certificate of Need and Licensure Board were held to be administrative with the capacity to become quasi-judicial depending on the function at the time. OAG 83-20 stated that the Kentucky Personnel Board is performing a quasi-judicial function when deliberating an individual complaint of an applicant or employee. Otherwise it is a public agency subject to the Open Meetings law.
Therefore, whether the city council is mandated to follow the Open Meetings law depends on its function at the time. Herein, the council properly held a public hearing on the rezoning proposal. However, deliberations of the council are allowed to be closed as the council takes on a quasi-judicial "adjudicatory" role.