02-14-1994 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

The Trust Board recognized that defending an Open Meeting Law charge can cost a city official a lot of money. Defense costs are often the most significant financial consequence of these lawsuits. While the statutory penalty of $100 might be relatively minor/ defense costs can easily run to thousands of dollars. And those costs are incurred whether or not the official is ultimately found to have violated the law. The Board acted on the assumption that most violations of the law are inadvertent and may even be on the advice of an attorney. The Board also realized that is easy for somebody to make an accusation of an Open Meeting Law violation, forcing the city council member to expend significant sums to defend him/herself regardless of the merits of the allegation. The threat of that kind of litigation could even be used as a tactic to intimidate or coerce council members in some cases. Finally^ the Board assumed that most city councilmembers act in good faith and try to comply with the law. But sometimes even,these best faith efforts are not enough to head off an Open Meeting Law lawsuit. III.Why should public funds be used to pay for defending someone who actually did violate the Open Meeting Law? Doesn't this encourage city officials to violate the law? The legislature has spelled out in the statute what the penalties are for violating the law: a $100 civil penalty, potential loss of office for repeated violations, and possibly an award of the plaintiff's attorneys' fees in some cases. If the individual has to pay for his/her own defense costs as well, the real monetary penalty to the individual can be many times greater that the penalty the legislature provided in the statute. And how much those defense costs are may not have much relation to how serious the violation was. If more serious penalties are needed to deter violations, the legislature can change the statutes. That makes more sense than relying on defense costs as a kind of hidden penalty that might be wildly disproportionate to the seriousness of the offense, and are incurred even if there was no offense. IV, Why is the coverage optional? Why not simply provide it as a standard part of the liability coverage? The LMCIT Board recognized that there are good public policy reasons why a city might want to protect its officials from this risk. But the Board also recognized that some cities might consider it inappropriate, to use their taxpayers' funds for this purpose. Making the coverage optional lets each city make this call for itself.