Court Finds Boston City Council Violated Open Meeting Law

A disturbing story is in today’s Boston Globe. A superior court judge ruled yesterday that the Boston City Council violated the Open Meeting Law 11 times over a period of about two years. Significantly, the judge is quoted as writing, “the meetings were conducted in a manner which was calculated to thwart the presumptive rights of the public…” According to the story, in meetings between the Boston Redevelopment Authority and Boston City Council members, a BRA staffer counted the number of councilors in the room at any one time to make sure there were no more than six councilors present at any one time. The City Council then argued that without a quorum, the Open Meeting Law did not apply.

The actions of the Boston City Council, as reported in this case, are unacceptable. Governing bodies should not be trying to find ways around the Open Meeting Law. To comply with the spirit of the law, if not the language of the law, all meetings should be open to the public, unless there is an extremely good reason for closing a meeting and that reason fits within one of the very narrow exceptions to the Open Meeting Law. (Even when a situation fits one of the exceptions to the Open Meeting Law, the language of the statute is that a governing body may close a meeting to the public under certain specific circumstances, not that it must close a meeting.) As Councilor Felix Arroyo states in the Globe article, “It’s important the council not only comply with, but defend the open meeting law.”