{"id":1124,"date":"2012-02-07T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/quartzite-council-cited-by-arizona-attorney-general.html"},"modified":"2012-02-07T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T13:00:00","slug":"quartzite-council-cited-by-arizona-attorney-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/quartzite-council-cited-by-arizona-attorney-general.html","title":{"rendered":"Quartzite Council cited by Arizona Attorney General"},"content":{"rendered":"

We haven’t looked in on the little town of 3,000 odd people of
\nQuartzsite, Arizona, lately.
\n
\n<\/a>
\nIts goings-on continue to seem eerily applicable to our own county
\nof 100,000 odd people.<\/p>\n

\nOn 9 December 2011, the Attorney General of Arizona,
\nTom Horne,
\nissued a statement
\n
\nRe: Open Meeting Law Complaint against Town of Quartzsite Common Council (the “Council”)<\/a>,
\nsaying that the town Council had violated the state Open Meetings Law (OML)
\nfour times:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
    \n<\/a>
    \nby not warning Jennifer Jones before removing her on 28 June 2011;<\/p>\n
  2. \nby holding a Council meeting on 10 July 2011
    \nin which they excluded the public by actually locking the doors of their
    \nmeeting room;<\/p>\n
  3. \nby failing to post minutes of the emergency meeting on
    \n
    \nits website<\/a>
    \nas required by Arizona Law (yes, Arizona law,
    \n
    \nlike Texas law,<\/a> requires
    \nposting minutes on the web)
    \nand by not including a required statement of the emergency requiring
    \nthe meeting;<\/p>\n
  4. \nand by failing to post withing the required three working days
    \nminutes for the 10 July 2011 emergency meeting,
    \nnor for seven of its work sessions, nor for its 14 June 2011 regular session.\n<\/ol>\n

    This one wasn’t a violation, but may be at least as important:<\/p>\n

    \nThe purpose of the OML is to require public bodies to meet publicly
    \nand openly so that al persons so desiring may attend and listen to the
    \ndeliberations and proceedings.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Why, I believe that’s
    \n
    \nthe same in Georgia!<\/a><\/p>\n

    \nIt seems back-room meetings are bad:<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    \nHowever, this Office has significant concerns that such pre-meeting
    \ndiscussions are occuring with the Town Manager,
    \neven if official business is not discussed.
    \nThe video recording of the June 14, 2011, meeting shows a quorum
    \nof the Council leaving the meeting room together into
    \na back room.
    \nIt is not unreasonable to believe that a quorum of the Council
    \ngathers prior to meetings, even if it is not to discuss agenda items or offical
    \nbusiness.
    \nThus, although a violation was not substantiated, the meetings of
    \na quorum of the Council members are troubling because
    \nthe ensuing conversations between Council members
    \ncreate a significant risk of violating the OML.
    \nEven if they do not result in violations, such gatherings can undermine
    \npublic confidence that the public body is fulfilling its obligation
    \nto deliberate and make decisions in properly noticed public meetings.
    \nAccordingly, this Office registers its concern that a quorum of the
    \nCouncil gathers before and during meetings and advises the Council to
    \nminimize such gatherings to avoid any appearance of impropriety.
    \nIn any such gathering, Council members must scrupulously avoid any
    \ndiscussion of official business.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Has anyone seen that sort of behavior hereabouts?<\/p>\n

    \nThe Arizona Attorney General didn’t just express an opinion,
    \nhe recommended actions, including:<\/p>\n

    \nThe Council will discuss the concerns listed in this letter with its
    \ncounsel in open session during a properly noticed public meeting.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    and each Council member and staff will participate in a training session
    \nabout the OML within three months of the letter.
    \nAs
    \n
    \nJennifer Jones recommended to the Council 7 July 2011,<\/a>
    \nthe Council must<\/p>\n

    \n“get up to speed on the laws of this state.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Plus:<\/p>\n

    \nThe Council will be subject to oversight by this Office for a period of twelve
    \nmonths.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    He included detail as to what that means.<\/p>\n

    \nThe Attorney General’s letter was addressed to Martin Brannan,
    \nthe Town Attorney of Quartzsite.
    \nMore on that in a later post.<\/p>\n

    \n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We haven’t looked in on the little town of 3,000 odd people of Quartzsite, Arizona, lately. Its goings-on continue to seem eerily applicable to our own county of 100,000 odd people. On 9 December 2011, the Attorney General of Arizona, Tom Horne, issued a statement Re: Open Meeting Law Complaint against Town of Quartzsite Common […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,40,2,20,88,3091,3],"tags":[1124,3098,1097,8701,8791,3099,3097,8710,7,1683,3096,2333,8865,782,3095,6],"class_list":["post-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-government","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-quartzsite","category-transparency","tag-arizona","tag-arrest","tag-attorney-general","tag-georgia","tag-hahira","tag-impropriety","tag-jennifer-jones","tag-law","tag-lowndes-county","tag-open-meetings","tag-oversight","tag-public-meeting","tag-quartzsite","tag-quorum","tag-tom-horne","tag-valdosta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}