Open Meeting Reform Bill

A bill backed by the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association has been filed by Rep. Stephen Kulik. The bill would allow courts to impose civil fines on governing bodies and on individual members of governing bodies if the court determines they have violated the Open Meeting Law. It also allows for recovery of attorney's fees from the governing bodies. You can read more about the bill on the MNPA website.

Rep. Kulik's bill is an important piece of legislation. The Open Meeting Law needs to be strengthened. Imposing fines and allowing attorney's fees against a governing body that has been found to violate the law is necessary.

In my personal opinion, however, fining individual members of the governing bodies would be a mistake. Many of the people who serve on local governing bodies do so with little or no compensation and in some communities it is becoming more difficult to encourage more people to run for local office. The individual civil fine provision of the proposed changes to the Open Meeting Law will act as a further deterrent for people to serve in local offices. For this reason, it could hurt democracy at the local level more than it would benefit it. It is overkill and unneccesary.

Rep. Kulik's bill would be vastly improved if, instead of allowing the court to fine individual members, it included a requirement that local officials receive training in the Open Meeting Law or pay a fine.