Why Closed Meeting / Response to Reader

By Pauline Masson –

This post is in response to reader Ron Suerig’s request that I write a blog on closed meetings.

Here is my take on closed meetings. I am not a lawyer and am not giving legal advice. I am a old reporter who has reported on municipal government in 30 cities over 50 years. And I knowa thing or two about how elected official try to hide their actions from the citizens.

I want to start with the Missouri closed meeting statutes 610.010 to 610.028:

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Clause 4.  Nothing in sections 610.010 to 610.028 shall be construed as to require a public governmental body to hold a closed meeting, record or vote to discuss or act upon any matter.

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So to begin with, the board of aldermen is not required to close any meeting to discuss or act on any matter. They are authorized to, or allowed, to under very strict rules.

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Except to the extent disclosure is otherwise required by law, a public government body is authorized to close meetings, records and votes, to the extent they relate to the following:

(1) Legal Action / Litigation

 (2)  Leasing, purchase or sale of real estate by a public governmental body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration therefor.

(3)  Hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting of particular employees

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Let me start with (3) hiring, firing. It would never be in the public interest for aldermen to discuss action against a city employee for purposes of discipline or firing, which would affect the reputation of the individual. City employees are our friends and neighbors. We would not want to see any one of them pilloried in a public meeting. In this reporter’s it is appropriate to close meetings where personnel is discussed.

Let me skip to (1) Litigation.  If the City is threatened with a law suit, aldermen should be able to discuss the threat and try to determine whether or not the city is at fault, outside the view of the public. If the city is actually sued, or if the city sues another entity or person, public discussion of the strategy of the city’s defense or its case would aid the opponent and harm the city – which is the citizens. Aldermen should be able to discuss evidence for or against a legal claim outside of the view of the public. Again it seems appropriate for all litigation to be discussed by aldermen in closed meetings.

Now to our current issue (2) Leasing, purchase or sale of real estate.

In this case it was not whether or not to approve the sale of city owned land adjacent to a city park, but whether citizens had a right to know of the planned action ahead of the sale that citizens challenged.

The reason to keep property sale or purchase private is to avoid interest in the property and possibly affetcing the affect the cost of the land.

But, let me be clear here, while it’s okay for the negotiation on price to be done privately, the citizens had a right to know and a need to know that decision had been made to sell the city property. In the instance of selling city property, it would be in the city’s and the citizens’ interest to get the highest amount possible or practical for the property.

This is not the first public property that the city bought and sold.

In October 2005 the City bought former Wolf Residence at 206 West Union. That was kept quiet until the purchase was complete. Then Mayor Jeff Titter made a strong – and pretty well received – case that he hoped to relocate City Hall back downtown.

The city first talked about buying the Red Cedar Inn in 2008. We had a huge public meeting – filling city hall to standing room only – to discuss whether ot not it was in the citzens’ interest to buy the iconic building. There was a consensus that the citizens wanted the city to own it. Officials made an offer but it wasn’t high enough for the owners and the issue went on the back burner.

The city eventually gave up on the idea of relocating city hall, and as a last act before leaving office, Jeff Titter persuaded aldermen to use the Wolf property as a history museum. The collection was moved in and the museum had a grand opening the following year.

In 2013 the city was approached by St. Bridget parish to buy the museum building. Then Mayor Herb Adams said in a public meeting that the city wanted to sell the city’s history museum to St. Bridget School.  It turned out that the building was sold to the Knights of Columbus in December 2013 for. But it was discussed publicly for months before the sale was finalized.

When the city decided to buy the Hoven House at 115 East Osage to reloate the history museum collection, it was discussed publicly. Negotiations on price were probably done privately, but the fact that the city wanted the building, and was negotiating to buy it, was public. The city bought the former home for $195.000. As an aside the city neglected this beautiful Queen Anne style building and when water pipes broke and the city announced, publicly that there were no intentions to repair the building. After being listed with a real estate agent for months, it was sold in December 2015 for $150,000.

When talks resumed about buying the Red Cedar Inn building and relocating the musuem to that location, there was a public discussion. Jeannie Bandermann, one of the original supporters of the history museum, pleaded with aldermen – in public – not to move the museum to the edge of town. She wasn’t successful, but she got to make her case.

In September 2017, nine years after the first public discussions about the City buying the Red Cedar, the bought the historic structure.

In respose to Mr. Suerig’s request for my take on closed meetings, I’m including all the purchase and sale of the museum building because there is a parallel here.

The museum was a local cultural institution, owned by the citizens, and it’s future was in their interest Officials made the right decision to include citizens in these decisions.

Liberty Field is also a local cultural amenity. It was selling this vital piece of public property without prior public notice that citizens challenged. This was possible future park land that was being disposed of. Citizens thought, and I agree, that they had a right to know before a closed door decision was made.

Officials said they were persuaded to complete the deal out of a desire to help a generous local business that had been a great friend to the city. They said Klance Staging has been a great help in the equestrian arena. I don’t dispute any of that. Is only the secrecy of the deal that I felt obliged to share with citizens.

These officials lacked the courage to face a debate about the transaction with the citizen owners of both the property for sale and the park that will be impacted by an outdoor storage lot at its entrance.

I spent several hours scouring State of Missouri statutes to try to find regulations involving the sale of public land. What I found seemed to give credence to the views of citizens who said they would have wanted to know that the city planned to sell the property.

In the instance of selling land for a land clearance, the statute mandates public disclosure state statures say a political subdivision must give notice to the general public of the offer of the land for sale or exchange, which must be published in a newspaper of general circulation in either the county in which the land is located.

In the instance of selling land under execution, notice of a sale of land under execution shall be published in each county in which any of the land to be sold is located. . . .The notice shall be published by advertisement in some newspaper printed in the county.

I did ask aldermen to try to find for me any state regulation that authorized the city to sell public property without giving prior notice of the intent to sale.

And in response to Jeff Filley’s complaint that I did not call the current administration on this issue, I think it is obvious that it was in the administration’s interest to assure citizens that their closed meeting actions were legal by publicizing the statute that permitted it.

But in disclosure of my own bias, even if such a statute is tucked away in the city’s miles of statutes, it was not the right thing to do.