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On our front page this week

  • Mona City Council discusses setting policy to protect city employee's jobs from a newly elected mayor

By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent


The council may agree to a policy that assures that a newly elected mayor cannot just come in and fire employees of the city because she/he has others they would like to hire in the place of that employee.
Eric Johnson, Mona City Attorney, met with the council to discuss items the council may need to consider to prevent problems in the future. Johnson is with Smith/Hartvigsen, PLLC, Salt Lake City, and his areas of expertise are municipal and local government law and municipal bonds.
"No, you cannot strip the powers of the mayor," said Johnson.
However, the council can make it policy to require the mayor and a council member to review an employee dismissal.
The 2011 Utah Legislature has now required all cities and towns to adopt rules of procedure and order for its council meetings and planning commission meetings. Prior to this the state law established some minimum rules of procedure and required cities to follow the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act.
"It is a public meeting anytime there are three of you meeting together," said Johnson.
There are some exceptions. A social meeting held for the purpose of having dinner together and where city business is not discussed, is exempted from public notice requirements.
The Act defines a meeting as being a convening of a public body when a quorum is present. Meetings include workshops and executive sessions. It does not matter if the meeting is held in person or by means of electronic communications.
Convening is also defined to mean any meeting called by a person authorized to do so for the purpose of either discussing or acting upon a matter over which the body has jurisdiction or advisory power.
"The exceptions to what a meeting is are very narrow," he said.
They include a chance meeting, a social meeting; a convening of a public body that has both legislative and executive responsibilities where no public funds are appropriated and where the meeting is convened just to implement administrative matters.
All other meetings must be noticed as open meetings and should be posted in the newspaper, in a pubic place and on the state's public website.
"Is it possible to publish one notice for a public hearing that would consider two different ordinances?" asked Lyla Spencer, city recorder.
That would be possible to do if the public hearings were held on the same night, said Johnson, as long as each public hearing was held at a different time and was noticed for a different time. One, for example, could be held 15-minutes before the next but each would need to be opened and concluded separately.
The council of each municipality must, by ordinance, prescribe the time and place for holding its regular meeting and hold a regular meeting at least once each month.
"A list of those meetings should be published in the newspaper annually," said Johnson. "That is done at the first of each calendar year."
The mayor of a municipality or two council members may order the convening of a special meeting of the council. Each such order needs to be entered in the minutes of the council and must provide at least three hours' notice of the special meeting.
The municipal recorder or clerk is to serve notice of the special meeting on each council member who did not sign the order by delivering the notice personally or by leaving it at the member's home.
While matters not on the agenda may at times come up for discussion, no final action can be taken on any matter not on the agenda.
The mayor, as chair, will see that all items on the agenda are addressed and either concluded or continued, will ensure that the time limits on the public comment portion of the meeting are complied with and will use his best efforts to see that the meetings are orderly. He may participate in discussion of all matters but will vote only in case of a tie.
The Open and Public Meetings Act applies to more than just the governing body of a city. It also applies to Planning Commissions and the Boards of Adjustment and other advisory committees of the city or town.
"Your planning commission should adopt a meeting schedule," said Johnson. "Each meeting agenda should be sent to the newspaper."
The agenda did not need to be published but the press should be alerted. It should also be posted.
If any official municipal group consists of two or more persons, has the power to expend, disburse, or is supported in whole or part by tax revenue and has authority to do the public's business it is governed by the Act.
The intent of this is to include all committees, commissions, or other groups that may be carrying out anything that looks like the public's business if they are supported by public funds.
It is important to remember, however, that a quorum of the body is necessary for it to be a meeting subject to the Act. For example, any two council members could get together to discuss any matter without it being a meeting but three council members could not get together to discuss a public matter without it constituting a meeting.
"All meetings are to be open to the public with limited exceptions," said Johnson.
Any special meeting such as a workshop or executive session that is held the same day as a regular meeting of the city must be held at the same location where the regularly scheduled meeting is being held.
The purpose of this is to keep a city council from holding work meeting at a place like a mayor's home or a café prior to the regularly scheduled council meeting.
The exceptions to having a meeting open to the public are meetings for discussion of the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual; strategy sessions to discuss collective bargaining; strategy sessions to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation.
"This is not the Las Vegas whiff of litigation," said Johnson. "It needs to be a real and imminent threat."
Also exempt are strategy sessions to discuss the purchase, exchange, lease or sale of real property if public discussion of the transaction would disclose the appraisal or estimated value of the property under consideration or prevent the council from completing the transaction on the best possible terms.
Discussion regarding deployment of security personnel, devices, or systems or investigative proceedings regarding allegations of criminal misconduct can be closed to the public.
Before a meeting may be closed for one of these valid reasons, the public body must be called together in an open meeting. At least two-thirds of the members of the public body present must vote to close the meeting before it can be closed. The reasons for holding the closed meeting and the vote either for or against the proposition to hold the meeting are to be entered into the minutes of the public portion of the meeting.
"That is the basic feel for the Open and Public Meetings Act," said Johnson.