Quartzsite town council broke Open Meeting Law, says AG Horne

Story by Ruth Castillo, Reporter
Phoenix, Arizona - July 29. 2011

- On Friday, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne took the rare move to release some information about its investigation of incidents in Quartzsite, saying it's a "matter of unusual public interest."

"There was a meeting July 10th, in which they called it an emergency meeting and they didn't notice it and the public wasn't present," says Horne. "And apparently, they were operating under the misconception that you don't have to do that in an emergency meeting. But actually, even in an emergency meeting, you need notice and you need to have it open to the public."

Horne believes the town council broke the law.

"We haven't determined whether it was a valid emergency meeting, but even if it was valid, it's still has to be open to the public," says Horne. "It's clear that they held an emergency meeting without having the public present and so we think there's reasonable cause to believe that's a violation."

The Attorney General says there are instances where it's legal for a town council to hold a closed-door meeting.

"The only time you can exclude the public is what's called an executive session where you move to go into an executive session for specific reasons such as advice from an attorney or employee personal records, that sort of thing," says Horne. "So there was a violation by not having an emergency meeting open to the public."

Besides the July 10th closed-door meeting, Horne's office is looking into other open meeting violations in Quartzsite.

"We have open meeting law allegations that we're looking on the civil side and there are some criminal allegations that's being made in both directions and there's a criminal investigation that I'm not allowed to comment on until it's over."

While Horne would not confirm nor deny if the criminal investigation concerns Police Chief Jeff Gilbert, he says the Attorney General's Office will complete its investigation and determine a course of action.

"A violation of a open meeting law could be, if it's not intentional and it's not serious, the sanction could be as small as making sure that they get training on the open meeting law," says Horne.

Town council members who participated in that closed-door meeting could face harsher sanctions if their actions were intentional.

"If it appears that there were meetings held deliberately to hide things from the public, then they could be disqualified from continuing to hold office," says Horne.

The Attorney General says the open meeting law keeps government clean and accountable with the public.

"When the legislature passed the open meeting law, I think the thought was that sunshine was the best disinfectant," says Horne. "And if things are done openly and the public has the ability to participate, you'll have better government decisions."

http://www.kswt.com/story/15178345/quar ... eeting-law