An open meetings travesty

Deseret Morning News editorial
Published: Sunday, July 17, 2005 10:36 p.m. MDT
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Utah's legislative auditor general has confirmed what many in the media have known for decades. The state's open meetings law is toothless, and many public bodies treat it as a nuisance that can be ignored with few consequences.

In an audit released last week, the auditor general's office said it found that some local school boards close meetings for reasons not allowed in law, and they fail to keep adequate records of what is said in those meetings. Auditors also found that the folks in the State Office of Education and the Utah School Boards Association who train school board members sometimes give them erroneous information. They have told them, for example, to include as little information as possible in the minutes of closed meetings.

That may be convenient for public officials who want to avoid scrutiny, but it is contrary to the law's intent.

We agree with House Speaker Greg Curtis, who said public bodies all should record closed meetings, much as they do open ones. That makes great sense. Then, if a dispute arises over whether a meeting was closed properly, a judge could listen to the tape privately to determine the truth beyond a doubt.

Unfortunately, this has been opposed in the past by people who argue that a requirement to record meetings would be an undue expense. In this age of cheap technology, that's quickly becoming a lame excuse.

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Unfortunately, even if a judge determines something was done incorrectly, the law includes no real penalties. The worst that can happen is that the body that took an action privately would have to do it again in public, and then suffer public ridicule for a day or two. Utah's media have reported on many individual cases of violations through the years, with little consequence.

Many of the state's larger public bodies, such as city and county councils, are careful about following the law. But too many others view it as something that stands in the way of their ability to talk openly without the danger of being quoted or, worse, to cut deals or trade votes.

The audit looked at 10 school boards, including the state's largest, Granite and Jordan. The only ones who emerged relatively clean were Tooele and Carbon. Four of the others didn't keep any records at all of their closed meetings during the time period auditors studied.

This is a sobering report. The state's Open Meetings Act is not on the books to protect reporters. It is there to protect the public. In governing, convenience always must take a back seat to accountability.

State lawmakers need to revise the Open Meetings Act to include some meaningful, and painful, penalties. And the state's public education leaders need to make their training of school boards more meaningful and accurate in order to better serve the people who elected them.

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