Opinion ID: 1713846
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Relevant Provisions of Chapter 21.

Text: Iowa's open meetings law seeks to assure, through a requirement of open meetings of governmental bodies, that the basis and rationale of governmental decisions, as well as those decisions themselves, are easily accessible to the people. Iowa Code § 21.1. To this end, [a]mbiguity in the construction or application of . . . chapter [21] should be resolved in favor of openness. Id.; accord Donahue v. State, 474 N.W.2d 537, 539 (Iowa 1991). The plaintiffs claim the defendants violated the following provision of chapter 21: Meetings of governmental bodies shall be preceded by public notice as provided in section 21.4 and shall be held in open session unless closed sessions are expressly permitted by law. Iowa Code § 21.3; see also id. § 21.5(1) (listing acceptable reasons for closed session, none of which are implicated here). Not all gatherings, however, are considered meetings under the statute. The law specifically defines a meeting as a gathering in person or by electronic means, formal or informal, of a majority of the members of a governmental body where there is deliberation or action upon any matter within the scope of the governmental body's policy-making duties. Id. § 21.2(2) (emphasis added). In addition to claiming the negotiating committee is not a governmental body, the defendants assert the committee had no policy-making duties, and therefore, the committee's meeting was not a gathering required to be held in open session. As noted earlier, we need not determine whether the committee is a governmental body because we agree with the district court that the committee's meetings did not fall within the statutory definition of a meeting subject to the open-meetings requirement of section 21.3.