Well, it is the free state of Bossier, which means that many elected/public officials consider themselves to be exempt from state or federal law.
Seemingly, one of the primary responsibilities of the Bossier City Attorney’s Office is to ensure that the mayor, the city council and the Bossier City employees not only know the public laws governing their actions but also to ensure compliance with the same.
But then new City Attorney Charles “Zamboni” Jacobs has not been a bright light in the legal opinions he has rendered while in his new gig.
Jacobs represents both the administration and the city council and attends council meetings to render advice and rulings on questions posed by the council. The Open Meetings Law has been the subject of one of his opinions at the council.
Contrary to the belief of some at Bossier City Hall, the Louisiana Open Meetings Law does apply to the actions of the Bossier City Council.
The purpose of open meetings is to allow individuals to observe and participate in the deliberations of public bodies. As a part of this process, public bodies must provide an opportunity for public comment prior to action on any agenda items upon which a vote is taken.
The agenda for the Dec. 7 meeting of the Bossier City Council had five items that required a council vote.
At the beginning of the meeting, Council President Don “Bubba” Williams announced that the council had decided not to allow citizen comments. He did not say when this decision was made or where -- it was not put to a public vote at that meeting or at the previous council meeting.
The agenda for the Tuesday meeting had five action items for council consideration. All five passed unanimously without comment or question by council members.
Citizens were not allowed to comment on any of the action items before the council votes were taken.
Clearly, this failure to allow public comments violated the Open Meetings Law.
One can only wonder what other violations of this important statute have occurred under Mayor Tommy Chandler’s administration, such as decisions being made by a “walking quorum,” which must have been the case in the decision announced by Williams that no public comments would be allowed.
A “walking quorum” is a meeting of a public body in which some members leave the meeting and different members enter the proceedings, precluding the physical presence of an actual quorum, but resulting in an actual quorum over the course of the discussion. A “walking quorum” can also occur via email or other electronic means where there are conversations with a quorum of the public body through multiple smaller conversations of less than a quorum.
If the council did, in fact, decide to eliminate the public comments from the meeting, then this decision must have been made in the ante room, where they all gather before walking out to their council horseshoe penguin-style or by an electronic communications that, in effect, constituted a “walking quorum.”
Hopefully, the council will not violate the Open Meetings Law in future meetings if litigation is to be avoided and/or complaints being filed with the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office.