Board Members Violated Missouri Sunshine Law
From the St. Louis Business Journal comes a story of violations of Missouri’s open meetings law by “several current and past members” of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (aka MOHELA):
In the settlement, MOHELA and the other defendants agreed that “various procedures and communications” related to the meetings constituted violations of the Sunshine Law, but they deny that they “knowingly, purposefully or willfully” violated the law.
…MOHELA agreed to comply with the Sunshine Law and take steps to ensure its compliance, including establishing a written policy and providing annual training sessions for MOHELA’s board and employees.
Were talking about a board responsible for $6.5 billion in assets, per the Business Journal. Imagine some of the little local boards that get even less attention. Do the board members all “chat” beforehand and have a sense how they are going to vote? I wonder if St. Louis has any written policy for board members to follow? Any training they receive just to make sure they don’t accidently tread into waters they should not? This should be a wake up call that individuals serving on these board can end up making mistakes and paying fines for them.
Conveniently, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has a Sunshine Law Quiz for the public (11 questions) and a member of a public body (10 questions). I suggest taking both as they cover different areas of the law. Below is an example with the correct answer in bold and the followup explaination afterwards:
10) Your public body has formally established a three person committee to review bids for city trash service. The three person committee intends to report back its recommendations to the full body. After the committee meeting, two of the committee members continue to discuss the merits of the bids submitted. What best characterizes this development?
a)Â Â Â Discussions by committee members, even outside the meeting, are allowed because the committee cannot make any final decisions anyway.
b)Â Â Â Two committee members are not a quorum of the city council and so there is nothing illegal about this discussion.
c)Â Â Â While the two members of a committee do represent a quorum of a public body, there is no violation if they merely discuss the bids but do not make a decision about who to recommend.
d)Â Â Â This discussion is a violation of the Sunshine Law because a discussion of public business among a quorum of a committee is illegal if not posted.
By law, the discussion was a meeting because it was a discussion about public business and it took place among a quorum of a committee – see Section 610.010(4)(e) (a majority of the committee was present, 2 out of 3). The discussion was in violation of Sunshine Law because public business was discussed and there was no notice of the meeting posted in advance.Â
Gee, do you think a majority of say, the Preservation Board, end up emailing each other about a topic prior to the public meeting? They’d better hope not. Of course, a Sunshine Law request for email records might shed some light.
The intent and purpose of this law is admirable but who can afford to use it in a meaningful way? An elected official can use our tax dollars to finance an investigation (campaign issue?) since it doesn’t cost him a nickel. To force disclosure too often requires an expensive attorney, much personal time and a willingness to use courts.
My own experience with it is mixed. Local leadership is wise enough to find ways to circumvent the law’s intent. In addition, many entities, whether local municipalities or other quasi-govermental, are poor record keepers which works to their advantage.
No doubt this law describes what should be shown and displayed to the public. Years of “inner-sanctum” decision making is a long held tradition. Elected officials rarely debate in public and prefer to make decisions in “debate-free zones” for obvious reasons.
All documents/communications used by public offficials should be numbered and made readily available in a library or at the local town hall. Until leadership has this attitude, officials will be more concerned with being enlightened on the legalities instead of fulfilling the intent.
“Local leadership is wise enough to find ways to circumvent the law’s intent.” Huh? It appears that you support the intent of requiring open discussion, yet you give props to folks who circumvent it on a regular basis?!