Request By:
Honorable Laurence J. Zielke
Legal Assistant
Office of the Judge
of Jefferson County
County Court House
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
On behalf of the Jefferson County Fiscal Court you have requested an opinion of the Attorney General on the Kentucky Open Meetings Law, KRS 61.805 to 61.850. You want to know whether the fiscal court may hold a closed meeting for the sole purpose of receiving a briefing by staff members of the Jefferson County Planning Commission. You state:
". . . A quorum of the Fiscal Court will be present, however, the Fiscal Court will not be discussing public business. The Fiscal Court will only be listening to a summary of events which have occurred pertaining to a specific zoning request. The Fiscal Court must rule eventually on the request for rezoning; however, the proceedings have been long and the Fiscal Court needs an informative briefing to bring them up to date as to the Planning Commission's actions taken heretofore.
"Since the Fiscal Court will not be taking any final action nor will it be discussing the future action to be taken by the Fiscal Court, but will only receive information which is a matter of public record, the Fiscal Court would like to have this briefing without having to conduct a public meeting."
It is our opinion that to comply with the letter and the spirit of the Open Meetings Law, the briefing meeting you describe should be open to the public. KRS 61.805(1) gives the following information:
"'Meeting' means all gatherings of every kind, regardless of where the meeting is held, and whether regular or special and information or casual gatherings held in anticipation of or in conjunction with a regular or special meeting; "
In your letter you cite KRS 61.810 which begins:
"All meetings of a quorum of the members of any public agency at which any public business is discussed or at which any action is taken by such agency, are declared to be public meetings, open to the public at all times, except for the following;"
Following the above quoted introductory paragraph are listed eleven (11) exceptions to the requirement for open meetings. The briefing meeting you describe cannot be said to fall within any of the eleven exceptions. Since the meeting will be entirely one sided -- no questions asked, no discussion, only reports from staff members of the Jefferson County Planning Commission, we can see no reason why the Fiscal Court would in any way be inhibited by allowing members of the public to be present. Be that as it may, the open meetings statute requires all meetings to be open, and "meeting" includes information or casual gatherings held in anticipation of or in conjunction with a regular or special meeting. As we read the statute, it is not necessary that any discussion occur or any action be taken to bring a meeting under the open meetings requirement.