Opinion ID: 2749038
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Use of Executive Session

Text: ¶ 22. The general public policy of the state, expressed in the Vermont open-meetings statute, is that meetings of public bodies should be open to the public. 1 V.S.A. §§ 310-312. “[D]eliberations . . . in connection with a quasi-judicial proceeding” are excluded from the open-meetings statute. 1 V.S.A. § 312(e). “ ‘Deliberations’ means weighing, examining and discussing the reasons for and against an act or decision, but expressly excludes the taking of evidence and the arguments of parties.” Id . § 310(1). Both parties acknowledge that real property tax-abatement proceedings are quasi-judicial. Id . § 310(5)(B); Garbitetti , 2011 VT 122, ¶ 9; Aiken v. Malloy , 132 Vt. 200, 215, 315 A.2d 488, 497 (1974). ¶ 23. Taxpayers argue that because the open-meetings law does not apply to deliberations in quasi-judicial proceedings in the first place, the board’s invocation of “executive session” was unnecessary and improper. Rather than voting to go into executive session, taxpayers say, the board could have, and should have, simply retired to deliberate privately. Taxpayers concede that the board’s entry into “executive session” was functionally the same as the private deliberations they were entitled to have, and that the board’s asserted deviation from state law is immaterial. They raise the argument to demonstrate what they perceive to be “the rough approach” that the board took to taxpayers’ claims. We agree with taxpayers that any technical non-conformity with state law associated with the label applied to their deliberation is immaterial.