In my Letter to the Editor regarding the Open Meetings Act (OMA), and in my letter to voters, I discussed two “secret” email discussions as well as the OMA lawsuit. The first secret email discussion concerned a letter that Curt Catallo wrote to the city regarding his contract with the city. This email discussion was started by Sharron Catallo. The second secret discussion concerned the city’s suggested response to a letter sent to Clarkston residents regarding a proposed DPW expansion and was started by Joseph Luginski.
I use the word “secret” to describe these discussions because they were intended to be kept away from the public’s view. After all, if you as a member of the public don’t know that something happened, how would you ever know to make a request to learn more about it? I only accidentally learned that the email discussion regarding the DPW expansion occurred because these email records were produced in connection with a more general FOIA request that I made to the city regarding the DPW expansion.
Here is why I think these discussions were inappropriate. MCL 15.263 (2) and (3) of the OMA state:
(2) All decisions of a public body shall be made at a meeting open to the public.
(3) All deliberations of a public body constituting a quorum of its members shall take place at a meeting open to the public except as provided in this section and sections 7 and 8.
When the city council has secret email discussions within which they are debating how to handle matters relating to the city, no matter how large or small the issue, it raises significant concerns of improper conduct under the OMA. City employees and officials aren’t our overlords; they are our servants. If city council members have city business to discuss, it should be discussed in an open and forthright manner within the public’s view. The OMA requires it, and we are entitled to expect it.
A copy of my Letter to the Editor is attached below.
Here is the first set of emails. In these emails, Sharron Catallo objects to the public disclosure of her son’s letter regarding a contract dispute with the city. One might fairly ask – why did Mrs. Catallo think it was appropriate to be involved in any issue relating to her son?
City-council-emails-Catallo-letter
Here is the second set of “secret” emails. I would note that this email discussion took place while the Open Meetings Act lawsuit was pending, even though the first secret email discussion was a subject of that lawsuit.
City-council-emails-DPW-expansion
There are seven council members, but the records that I received came from only one of them. Does that mean that there were other discussions that occurred among a different set of council members that weren’t provided in response to my DPW Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request? And how would I ever know or be able to prove that? Obviously, I can’t (and you can’t either).
Only two of the email addresses used in this email discussion were official city email addresses. Official email is generally stored on the public body’s server and is accessible for searching in the event of a public record request. In my FOIA lawsuit, the city has taken the position that officials and employees can keep records pertaining to city business in offsite files and not produce them in response to a FOIA request. The court of appeals has agreed. A personal email is most certainly an offsite record, and this means that you will never know what deliberations might be taking place in secret because the city has won the right to keep these discussions from you.
In my Letter to the Editor about the Open Meetings Act lawsuit, I encouraged the reader to ask for a copy of the complaints that were filed so they could learn for themselves what the lawsuit was about. Since my purpose is to inform you, I’ve uploaded the complaint here (and the amended complaint just below).
Here is the amended Open Meetings Act complaint.
Here is the Consent Judgment entered in the Open Meetings Act (OMA) lawsuit.
Note that the City clearly admitted that it had violated the OMA and “consented” (agreed) to the attached judgment. The City also admitted that the document presented by the city attorney as the basis to close the session “was and is” a public document. This document was a letter from the city’s engineer discussing water runoff options at Curt Catallo’s property at 148 N. Main. There has been a claim from a member of the public that it was “illegal” for Richard to post the engineer’s letter on his Facebook page, but it is obviously not illegal to post public documents (and the city formally admitted that this document was never anything but a public document).
I’m attaching a copy of a letter sent to Clarkston by the Oakland County Prosecutor. I would note that this letter would never have seen the light of day but for a FOIA request sent to Oakland County because no one from the city revealed that it had been received.
While some have tried to soften the meaning of the letter, it says what it says. The city council members who voted “yes” were not prosecuted because they may have been confused about the law’s requirements. (One might ask how the city council could be confused about the law’s requirements with their lawyer present, but in any event, the letter speaks for itself.)