A few years ago the legislature created the State Open Meetings Compliance Board. That board hears citizen complaints about meetings closed to the public. There are exceptions to the rule requiring openness, such as dealing with personnel issues or matters subject to litigation. The Open Meetings Compliance Board rules on whether the closing of the meeting was for a legal reason or not and issues and opinion. There also are reasons why access to information in the hands of government should be denied under law.
Personnel matters is one such reason.
That's why notes in a government employee's personnel file are not considered to be public information. That's also why correspondence between government agencies and their lawyer regarding a pending court case is considered to be privileged information. But unlike with the issue of open meetings, there is no forum for average citizens to pursue if they disagree with a decision to deny access to information in the hands of a government agency. A private citizen's only recourse is to use his or her own money to challenge the decision in court. I think there should be a place for citizens to go to get an unbiased answer in matters of disagreement over access to public information.