Ronan executive session raises questions
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Questions about whether or not Ronan City Council is following the letter of the law swirled last week after the city clerk was left out of executive session in a May 19 council meeting, one week after she told the council that she believes state statute requires her to be present to take minutes.
Past and present employees left to wait outside of executive session have grumbled for the past year about the inconsistencies in the nature of the city’s executive sessions, which have become a semi-regular occurrence as town officials work to bring the police department into compliance with state law. At the crux of the matter are questions about who is allowed in the meetings, if minutes have to be kept, and how the public should be informed of executive session.
“The clerk has to stay during executive session and take minutes,” City Clerk Kaylene Melton told the council in a May 12 meeting. “We are required by law to do minutes during executive session.”
The records are still supposed to be kept secret and are sealed away under lock and key after minutes are typed and signed by council members; minutes are kept primarily in case a lawsuit arises, Melton said.
Mayor Kim Aipperspach has a different opinion.
“The law is not black and white,” Aipperspach said. “It doesn’t say ‘Yes, there should be a clerk,’ or ‘No, there shouldn’t be a clerk.’ It depends upon what the subject material of executive session is. There are times we have the clerk there and there are times when we do not.”
Aipperspach would not say whether or not the city council has kept minutes of those meetings. He argued that the existence or nonexistence of the documents resulted from executive session, of which the outside public is to have no knowledge of.
“What happens in executive session stays in executive session,” Aipperspach said. “It’s not supposed to leave that room.”
Cities across Montana take different approaches regarding a city clerk in executive session, said Dan Clark, director of the Montana State University Local Government Center. The center provides technical assistance and training to local government workers and officials across the state.
Some towns include the clerk in executive session, but others exclude them.
“There’s no hard and fast answer,” Clark said. “It’s been our recommendation that the clerk should be there taking minutes.”
Clerk or no clerk, minutes of the executive session should exist, Clark said.
“If the council is in executive session discussing matters of city business then I would say yes, they need to have a record of that,” Clark said. “Now, it’s not open to public scrutiny. It is executive session. It should be put in a special filing cabinet, probably under lock and key, but it’s helpful to have that record especially if a lawsuit (arises).”
Clark said the city also has to publish notice on its agenda of what the council intends to discuss in executive session. It has not been custom for the City of Ronan to do this until recently.
“It all has to be very transparent,” Clark said. “The actual discussion that they have is behind closed doors in executive session. But the public should be noticed on what they will discuss and all action taken should be done in open meetings.”
