EDITORIAL: Ensuring public meetings are public

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Oregon’s Public Meetings Law, which has been in place since 1973, is pretty straightforward as laws go.

And its purpose could hardly be more clear.

Groups of elected or appointed officials who conduct the public’s business, and spend the public’s money, should do so in venues that are open to the public. The law applies to meetings when a quorum of the body is present.

Public bodies subject to the law include those most people would probably expect — city councils, county commissions, school boards. But the law also applies to many that don’t generally get as much attention, or publicity, such as the various boards and commissions, some elected and some appointed, that most cities and counties have.

The law, as laws so often are, is littered with exceptions.

Public bodies can legally meet in private (although journalists, in most instances, can attend) to discuss certain topics such as real estate negotiations or to consult with an attorney.

But during these “executive sessions,” public bodies are not allowed to make final decisions.

For instance, a city council could meet in an executive session to discuss buying property. But councilors couldn’t actually decide to purchase the parcel until they reconvene in a public session that has been announced so that people who wish to attend can do so.

To reiterate — the law isn’t complicated.

Most discussions by a quorum of a public body — and all final decisions — must take place in public.

But inevitably, some public bodies violate the law, some intentionally, some inadvertently.

The problem is that people who believe such violations have happened are on their own in most cases — in terms of money as well as time — in filing a legal challenge. Citizens’ main recourse is to file a complaint in circuit court. The exception is in the case of a public official who might have violated the executive session provisions of the public meetings law. In that case a resident can file a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, the agency that enforces ethics laws which, among other things, deal with conflicts of interest and instances of public officials using their office for personal gain.

House Bill 4140 would make it much easier for the public to enforce the public meetings law, and create a much more effective deterrent for officials who might violate it.

The bill, which appears unlikely to pass during the current legislative session, would allow the Government Ethics Commission to investigate alleged violations of the law, and to fine each public official involved in a violation up to $1,000. Importantly, the law would prohibit officials from passing off fines to the agency — a city or school board, for instance — that the officials represent.

The fines are the stick in the law. Its carrot is a requirement that the Government Ethics Commission offer training to public bodies affected by the public meetings law. This training need not be complex, given how easy it is to understand the requirements of the public meetings law, and how easy it is to comply with them.

If House Bill 4140 doesn’t make it out of the current session, legislators need to bring it back in 2023.

It’s vital that the public’s business be conducted, and its money spent, transparently. That’s why Oregon has had a law defining public meetings for almost half a century. But without a reasonable method for ensuring that the law is enforced, its well-intentioned provisions ring hollow.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor