Editorial: Commission skirts spirit of open meetings law

Prior to any meeting, the agency holding such meeting shall make available an agenda of all matters expected to come before the agency ... . The agenda shall be ... posted at the meeting site, as far in advance of the meeting as reasonably possible, but shall not be required to be available more than two weeks prior to the meeting and shall be posted, at a minimum, at some time during the two-week period immediately prior to the meeting. Failure to include on the agenda an item which becomes necessary to address during the course of a meeting shall not preclude considering and acting upon such item."

The paragraph above is the section of Georgia law detailing how governmental entities can publish information on the content of their meetings. It's also how Athens-Clarke County's mayor and commission were able, at their Tuesday meeting, to restrict how the owners of property along South Milledge Avenue, part of one of the community's major thoroughfares, can use their land and buildings for the next five months.

The pertinent section of state law governing meeting agendas is the requirement that those agendas be published "at some time during the two-week period prior to the meeting." So, inasmuch as the mayor and commission's discussion of establishing a moratorium was added to the agenda on Tuesday - never mind it was the day of the meeting - our local elected officials were within the law, since the day of a meeting is within two weeks of the meeting.

Sadly, that section of the law isn't targeted for changes in Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens' proposed revamping of the state's open meetings and open records statutes. Olens' rewrite is now moving through the Georgia legislature as House Bill 397.

What that means is that local governments will continue to be able - as Athens-Clarke County's mayor and commission was Tuesday - to, for all practical purposes, ke

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