Request By:
Mr. Ron Gnagie
President, Local #345
Louisville Professional Fire Fighters Union
3915 Taylor Boulevard
Louisville, Kentucky 40215
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Cicely D. Jaracz, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested the Attorney General to issue an opinion pursuant to the Kentucky Open Meetings law, KRS 61.805 et seq. Specifically you indicate that on September 1, 1983 the City of Louisville Board of Aldermen refused to allow you to attend a Labor Relations Committee Meeting held in the Caucus Room on the Third Floor of City Hall at 4:00 p.m. The agenda released on August 26, 1983 indicated that the Committee was to discuss "An ordinance ratifying and approving the collective bargaining agreement between the City of Louisville and the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #6." You request an opinion as to whether the City violated the Open Meetings law by not allowing you to attend.
The City of Louisville Board of Aldermen is subject to the Open Meetings law pursuant to KRS 61.805(2) and all meetings are open to the public unless specifically closed. KRS 61.810(5) provides for closed sessions of:
Collective bargaining negotiations between public employers and their employees or representatives.
At first blush it would appear that the City properly denied you access to the meeting. However, Kentucky case law indicates otherwise. In
Jefferson County Board of Education v. The Courier-Journal, Ky.App., 551 S.W.2d 25 (1977)8 the Court of Appeals held that KRS 61.810(5) does not cover all aspects of collective bargaining. The closed session is limited to the settling of disputes by negotiation between employers and employees or representatives thereof. Therefore, the Court held that a status report on collective bargaining negotiations was not exempt from the open meetings requirement.
Similarly, discussion by the City of Louisville on "an ordinance ratifying and approving the collective bargaining agreement between the City of Louisville and the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #6" would not be exempt from the open meetings requirement. The topic indicates that the dispute had been settled and the collective bargaining negotiations completed. Since the meeting was held to discuss ratification and approval of the agreement instead of negotiations between employers and employees, it was not exempt from open meetings under KRS 61.810(5).
It is therefore the opinion of this office that you were improperly denied access to the City of Louisville Board of Aldermen Labor Relations Committee Meeting held on September 1, 1983, wherein an ordinance concerning the ratification and approval of a collective bargaining agreement between the City and the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #6, was discussed.