Opinion ID: 3006469
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Meeting

Text: OPMA also specifies when meetings are subject to the OPMA-when action is taken at a meeting. RCW 42.30.020(4). Our case law also establishes that the OPMA applies only to meetings where a majority of the governing body is present. In re Recall of Beasley, 128 Wn.2d 419, 427, 908 P.2d 878 (1996) (citing In re Recall of Roberts, 115 Wn.2d 551, 554, 799 P.2d 734 (1990)); Wood v. Battle Ground Sch. Dist., 107 Wn. App. 550, 564, 27 P.3d 1208 (2001). Gatherings that do not include a majority of the governing body's members are not considered meetings for the purposes of the OPMA. Unfortunately, the OPMA does not actually define what a meeting itself is, and neither this court nor the AGO has construed meeting in an opinion. To construe this term, we start by examining its plain and ordinary meaning. State v. Kintz, 169 Wn.2d 537, 547, 238 P.3d 470 (2010). While we typically ascertain plain meaning from standard English dictionaries, it is helpful to examine legal dictionaries when words are used in a legal context. Lynott v. Nat'! Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, 123 Wn.2d 678, 691-92, 871 P.2d 146 (1994 ). Here, Black's Law Dictionary provides a useful definition of meeting in the context of legislative and deliberative bodies: meeting, n. (14c) Parliamentary law. A single official gathering of people to discuss or act on matters in which they have a common interest; esp., the convening of a deliberative assembly to transact business. • A deliberative assembly's meeting begins with a call to order and continues (aside from recesses) until the assembly adjourns. BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 1131 (10th ed. 2014). 13 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 For a gathering to be considered a meeting, then, the purpose of the gathering must be to discuss or act on matters in which the attendees have a common interest. /d. It follows that for a gathering of a governing body's members to be considered a meeting of the governing body itself, the common interest must relate to the official business of the governing body. Consequently, and as our courts have held, members of a governing body must collectively intend to meet to transact the governing body's official business for their communications to constitute a meeting. Wood, 107 Wn. App. at 565 (emphasis added) (citing 1971 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 33, at 19). As the Court of Appeals correctly held, the passive receipt of e-mails and other one-way forms of communication does not, by itself, amount to participation in a meeting because such passive receipt of information does not demonstrate the necessary intent to meet. See Citizens All., 181 Wn. App. at 545 (citing Wood, 107 Wn. App. at 564). If communications do not reflect the requisite collective intent to meet, no meeting has occurred and the OPMA does not apply. Thus, within the context of the OPMA, we adopt the following definitions: (1) a meeting of a governing body occurs when a majority of its members gathers with the collective intent of transacting the governing body's business, (2) a committee thereof with respect to a given governing body is an entity that the governing body created or specifically authorized, and (3) a committee acts on behalf of a governing body when the committee exercises actual or de facto decision-making authority on behalf of the governing body. Thus, to establish that the CAO Team violated the OPMA, CAPR must establish that an issue of fact exists 14 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 regarding whether (A) a majority of council members participated in a CAO team meeting with the collective intent of transacting the Council's business, or (B) the CAO Team was created by the Council and (C) that it exercised decision-making authority on behalf of the Council. 2 II. The CAO team meetings were not subject to the OPMA Here, the CAO team meetings did not violate the OPMA because (A) none of the CAO team meetings included a majority of council members, (B) the team was not a committee of the Council, and (C) the team did not act on behalf of the Council. A. No majority of the Council CAPR argues that the CAO team meetings constituted meetings of the Council itself because they included a quorum of the Council's members. In support of this argument, CAPR asserts that the OPMA applies to meetings in which a 'negative quorum' of the Council's members participate-i.e., a number of Council members sufficient to block legislation being considered by the Council, even if that number is not sufficient to enact legislation. Am. Pet. for Review at 8. CAPR further alleges that one series of e-mails and telephone conversations constituted a meeting of the Council that included an actual majority of the 2 CAPR attempts to argue that these requirements are disjunctive-i.e., that a committee is a governing body under the OPMA if it was created by the council or if it acted on behalf of the council. But the committee thereof and acts on behalf of requirements are clearly separate under the plain language of the statute, which makes a committee thereof subject to the OPMA only when the committee acts on behalf of the governing body ....  RCW 42.30.020(2) (emphasis added). An entity thus must meet both requirements to be subject to the OPMA. 15 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 Council's members. We reject the former argument because it runs contrary to our · long-standing precedent requiring the presence of a majority of a governing body's members for a gathering to trigger the requirements of the OPMA. We also reject the latter argument because the record does not indicate that a majority of council members had a collective intent to meet during the e-mail and telephone exchange that CAPR cites. The Council had six members during the relevant period. The CAO Team initially included two members of the Council (Fralick and Pratt), and a third member (Miller) began attending the meetings later. While formal attendance records do not appear to have been kept for the team's meetings, we assume arguendo that all three of these council members attended all CAO team meetings that occurred after Miller joined the Council. Under Washington Law, the OPMA applies to a gathering of a governing body's members only if a majority of members are present. See In re Recall of Beasley, 128 Wn.2d at 427. Applying this standard, the CAO team meetings did not trigger the OPMA because three members of the Council is one less than a majority. CAPR argues, however, that we should depart from this precedent and hold that the presence of a negative quorum of a governing body's members suffices to trigger the OPMA. A negative quorum refers to the situation where the number of members present would be sufficient to block the passage of legislation. CAPR 16 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan. County, No. 90500-2 cites no Washington case that utilizes the negative quorum principle, instead relying on a single out-of-state opinion published nearly three decades ago. 3 We see no reason to depart from our long-standing rule requiring the presence of a simple majority of a governing body's members-a rule that provides clear guidance to public agencies regarding the application of the OPMA. It is easy to determine whether a majority of a governing body's members are present at a meeting. On the other hand, it might be difficult to apply a negative quorum rule because different measures being discussed by a governing body might require the approval of different numbers of members (e.g., some measures might require a simple majority and others a two-thirds supermajority) for passage. 4 We decline to overturn our prior precedent and instead reaffirm that the OPMA applies to meetings of a governing body when a majority of the governing body's members are present. CAPR does not dispute that all of the CAO Team's in-person meetings included at most three members of the Council. Consequently, none of the inperson CAO team meetings constituted a meeting of the Council itself for the purposes of the OPMA. But CAPR asserts that a serialized e-mail and telephone exchange involving members of the Council constituted a meeting of the Council 3 See State ex ref. Newspapers Inc. v. Showers, 135 Wis. 2d 77, 80, 398 N.W.2d 154 ( 1987) (Wisconsin open meeting law applied to a gathering of 4 members of an 11-member body to discuss a budget measure that required a two-thirds supermajority to pass). 4 In fact, if a measure required unanimous approval for passage, then the presence of a single member of the governing body would technically constitute a negative quorum with respect to that measure. 17 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 because four council members were present during the communications. See Sup pl. Br. of Appellant at 7-8. The communications that CAPR describes as a meeting consisted of two e-mails and a telephone call that occurred over the course of a 14-hour period. Council member Peterson, who did not attend any of the CAO Team's in~person meetings, sent the first e-mail on which CAPR relies; the recipients were Fralick and Miller, who were on the CAO Team. Fralick responded to Peterson later the same day, copying Miller. In his e-mail, Fralick alluded to a telephone call between himself and Pratt (another CAO team member) that apparently had occurred earlier in the same day. Both thee-mails and Fralick's summary of the telephone call reference the CAO update. These communications did not constitute a meeting of the Council because they contain no indication that the participants had the requisite collective intent to meet. See Wood, 107 Wn. App. at 565 (the participants must collectively intend to meet to transact the governing body's official business for the OPMA to apply (citing 1971 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 33)). The text of the e-mails do not indicate that Miller or Peterson were aware of Fralick's call to Pratt before Fralick sent his e-mail summarizing it; certainly, the e-mails do not suggest that Miller or Peterson actually intended for a telephone call to Pratt to be part of an otherwise e-mail-based meeting of the Council. Likewise, there is no indication that Pratt was aware of the e-mails sent by Peterson or Fralick. Consequently, the communications cited by CAPR do not evidence a collective intent for the four council members to meet to transact council business. 18 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 Moreover, the record does not contain any e-mails sent by Miller in this exchange, nor does it reference any telephone calls in which Miller participated. Instead, Miller passively received one e-mail each from Fralick and Peterson. Because passive receipt of e-mail does not constitute participation in a meeting, Wood, 107 Wn. App. at 564, Miller could not have been part of the ostensible meeting for OPMA purposes. Without Miller, the communications at issue involve only three council members-the same number that participated on the CAO Team and less than a majority of the full Council. For these reasons, the e-mail/telephone exchange did not constitute a meeting of the Council. 5 Because CAPR cites to no meetings or communications of the CAO Team involving more than three council members and because we reject CAPR's negative quorum argument, CAPR has failed to establish that the CAO team meetings constituted meetings of the Council. B. Not a committee of the Council and no action on behalf of the Council The fact that CAO team meetings were not meetings of the Council itself does not end the Ofl>MA inquiry because the OPMA also applies to committees and subcommittees of legislative bodies under certain circumstances: (2) Governing body means the multimember ... council, or other policy or rule-making body of a public agency, or any committee thereof when the committee acts on behalf of the governing body, conducts hearings, or takes testimony or public comment. s We do not reach the issue of whether such a serialized sequence of communications can ever constitute a meeting under OPMA. 19 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 RCW 42.30.020 (emphasis added). Here, CAPR has not alleged that the CAO Team conducted hearings or took testimony or public comment. Thus, for the CAO Team to be subject to the OPMA, it must satisfy two conditions: (1) it must be a committee thereof with respect to the Council and (2) it must have acted on behalf of the Council. The CAO Team does not meet either of these requirements. CAPR failed to create an issue of fact whether the team was a committee of the Council because CAPR failed to offer any evidence that the Council authorized the creation of the CAO Team. Moreover, the CAO Team never acted on behalf of the Council because the record contains no indication that the CAO Team exercised actual or de facto decision-making power. Rather, all evidence adduced by CAPR suggests that the CAO Team's role with respect to the Council was, at most, that of staff support. 1. The CAO Team was not a committee thereof with respect to the Council We apply the 1986 AGO opinion's construction of committee thereof, under which the CAO Team can be considered a committee of the Council only if the Council somehow acted to bring the CAO Team into being. 1986 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 16, at 7. None of the voluminous documents that CAPR obtained during discovery and cited in its court filings suggest that the Council took any such action. All six individuals who were members of the Council during the CAO update process filed declarations before the trial court stating individually that they took no action as a council member to bring the CAO Team into being, never intended to bring it into being, never authorized the CAO Team to act for the Council, and never intended 20 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 for the CAO Team to act for the Council. CAPR failed to adduce any evidence disputing these unequivocal statements that the Council did not create the CAO Team, 6 nor have they cited to any documents in the record suggesting that the Council later ratified the CAO Team's formation. The concurrence/dissent argues that the CAO Team was created by the Council because [i]t was the Council, not the county administrator, that determined it needed an updated participation plan in order to fulfill its mandatory duty to update its critical areas ordinance using best available science. Concurrence/Dissent at 6. This is a non sequitur. When a governing body directs its staff to develop a plan of action and the staff creates a committee to develop the plan, the staff, not the governing body, has created the committee. That is the nature of organizations: the governing body decides on policy and orders the staff to implement the policy, and the staff complies. If the concurrence/dissent's theory were correct, every staff department would be a committee of the governing agency and would be subject to the OPMA. This cannot have been the intent of the act. For these reasons, the CAO Team was not a committee thereof with respect to the Council. 7 6 In its response to the summary judgment motion, CAPR cited to a single deposition statement by another county employee who was a member of the CAO Team opining that the Council would have created the CAO Team. The trial court correctly struck this statement as speculation because the deposition did not suggest that the employee had any personal knowledge of how the CAO Team was created; CAPR did not challenge this decision in its petition for review or supplemental brief. 7 On appeal, CAPR has argued that meetings of other council subcommittees-specifically governance, budget, and solid waste subcommittees-also held closed meetings in violation of OPMA. See Am. Pet. for Review at 4-5. The Court of Appeals rejected CAPR's 21 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 2. The CAO Team did not act on behalf of the Council Even if we were to conclude that the CAO Team was a committee of the Council, CAPR's claim would fail because the CAO Team did not act on behalf of the Council. Applying the 1986 AGO opinion's definition, CAPR must demonstrate that the CAO Team exercised actual or de facto decision-making authority for the Council to establish that the team acted on behalf of the Council. See 1986 Att'y Gen. Op. No. 16, at 8. The record contains no indication that the CAO Team ever exercised such authority. The record demonstrates that the CAO Team's role with respect to the Council was, at most, that of staff or an advisory board. The CAO Team appears to have spent much of its time discussing procedural and logistical issues such as the timeline for completing the update, the formatting of reports, the scheduling of public comment sessions, and gathering information from outside consultants and experts. Other topics discussed included public messaging and anticipating and responding to potential objections to the update. To the extent that the team addressed the substance of the CAO update, nothing in the record indicates that they did anything more than gather information, conduct internal discussions, and provide information to the Council. As the 1986 AGO opinion suggests and as the argument with respect to these other subcommittees, noting that while CAPR made some passing references to the other subcommittees in its amended complaint and response to the County's motion for summary judgment[, it] did not name those subcommittees as defendants, include them in its claim for relief, or provide evidence and argument in support of its assertion that they violated OPMA. Citizens All., 181 Wn. App. at 542 n.4. We agree and therefore do not consider CAPR's arguments concerning other subcommittees. 22 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 Court of Appeals held, none of these activities amount to the exercise of actual or de facto decision-making authority. Rather, they are consistent with the role of an informal advisory committee or administrative staff support. See id. at 11-12; Citizens All., 181 Wn. App. at 551-52. The concurrence/dissent selectively seizes on part of a definition of the word act or acts from 1986 AGO opinion, using exert[s] power or influence or produce[s] an effect to define acts. Concurrence/dissent at 8. But this ignores the AGO's express qualification that the committee must be acting on behalf of the governing body: Under this construction, a committee acts on behalf of the governing body when its exercises actual or de facto decisionmaking authority for the governing body. 1986 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 16, at 5. The concurrence/dissent seems to conclude that a committee might be subject to the OPMA if the committee exerts power or influence, concluding that the CAO Team might have exercised power or influence because it played a key role in formulating the best available science synthesis adopted by the Council. Concurrence/Dissent at 9. This theory is internally inconsistent, as the CAO Team could not have been acting on behalf of the Council by making a recommendation to the Council itself; particularly where the Council, not the CAO Team, was deciding what would constitute the best available science. The concurrence/dissent's focus on the exercise of power and producing an effect results in a vague definition of when a committee acts on behalf of the governing body, which the concurrence/dissent characterizes as nuanced. /d. at 7. As a result, three years after the CAO Team completed its work, after 23 Citizens Alliance for Property Rights Legal Fund v. San Juan County, No. 90500-2 proceedings in three levels of court, and despite a summary judgment record exceeding 1,000 pages, the concurrence/dissent concludes that we still do not know if the CAO Team acted on behalf of the Council. This lack of clarity places government units in the untenable position of not knowing until long after the fact whether any committee is subject to the OPMA. State and local governments need a clear definition, not a nuanced definition. We adhere to the clear and workable definition that a committee acts on behalf of a governing body only when the committee exercises actual or de facto decision-making authority for a governing body. Consequently, the CAO Team did not act on behalf of the Council. The team's meetings therefore cannot constitute meetings of a governing body under RCW 42.30.020(2).