Retreating...from the public?

UPDATE: The council voted at its March 15 meeting to have the retreat. That doesn’t satisfy FOIA’s requirement to have at least 3 days' notice posted in three specific places and sent directly to anyone who has signed up for notices. That’s what I told the mayor when he called me after my post below appeared. He assured me there was no intent to keep out the public — there were plenty of chairs, but no one showed up, he said.

This article is about the city council of Suffolk having a two-day retreat earlier this month. It’s worth looking at the mayor’s statement, where he basically throws FOIA under the bus and raises questions about just what went on here.

“One of the challenges being on City Council is due to (the Freedom of Information Act-FOIA) requirements, you cannot talk to but one member at a time…. It’s very hard with those restrictions to be able to have a discussion with everyone at one time, to have a meeting of the minds, if you will, and being able to have an open discussion.” He said it takes something like a retreat to make it happen. “We can do it on a limited basis in a work session before council meetings,….[b]ut to really sit down and delve into some subjects to where we have ample time to discuss those topics, we have ample time for the staff to present them and respond to them and a lot of what comes out of the retreat is we’re able to provide the city manager and staff with some direction as to where we want to go on issues.”

Because FOIA doesn’t allow one-on-one meetings, they have to have a retreat so they can all talk together? So, if they could meet one-on-one they wouldn’t need retreats? How about regular public meetings? Would those still be needed?

That is the very essence of open meetings laws. Of course it would be easier to meet all together or to talk one-on-one or however you darn well please. But the point of these laws is to make sure the public can witness these meetings and observe the work of the people they have elected to represent them. Represent them, not hide from or dictate to them.

Since a retreat is supposed to be a public meeting, that’s got me thinking about whether there was public notice of the retreat and/or whether the public attended. If the retreat was open to the public, then why is he complaining about FOIA’s restrictions? Later in the article he is talking about how much they got done. 

However, if there was no notice of this public meeting, that’s a problem.

I’ve poked around a bit on the city’s website and don’t see a notice of the retreat, but I could have missed it. The article sounds like the reporter wasn’t there himself. (I’m not busting his chops. If there was notice, it’s still hard for small newsrooms to cover a two-day-long retreat. If there wasn’t notice, it means he couldn’t go because he didn’t know.)

There’s something else that bothers me here. The mayor says FOIA prevents deep discussion on issues. He admits that they do some of this on a limited basis in work sessions, but it’s not enough and that’s why the retreat was needed.

But FOIA doesn’t prevent you from delving into subjects with ample time for discussion! FOIA says there must be notice so the public can attend, but it doesn't tell you what you can and can’t talk about in the meeting (only things you may talk about behind closed doors) or how you go about conducting the meeting. Nothing in FOIA says you must follow Roberts Rules of Order or some other parliamentary procedure.

If you want to have a robust discussion then have a robust discussion. FOIA won’t stop you.

I’m not dinging on retreats. They are often excellent opportunities to have informal discussions among members, often in nice settings, often stocked with snacks and drinks, often including topics like team-building, trust and personal connection. Those are all good things.

But they are still public meetings. Yes, that’s FOIA’s fault. But if FOIA’s wrong for making public officials talk in front of the public, then I don’t ever want to be right!