Court Opinion

ID: 9791632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:14:59.031839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:37.508447
License: Public Domain

Six, J.,
concurring and dissenting: I concur in the result. With-
out evidence of prearrangement, the telephone communications between the commissioners were not violations of KOMA. I dissent from the majority’s broad sweep which excludes prearranged conference calls from the purview of KOMA. I disagree with the majority’s decision to limit 'the word “gathering” to face-to-face relationships.
The thrust of KOMA is openness in the cluster of concepts that flavor the democratic process: discussion, analysis, and decision-making among members of a governing body. The legislature intended that discussion, analysis, and decision-making should not occur in secret and undetected, protected by the contemporary camouflage of the speakerphone. I do not believe the legislature intended, for example, that government be conducted by the prearranged 5:30 p.m. conference call, with each commissioner gathered beside his or her speakerphone. The governing body’s staff is on the line. The chairperson announces the agenda, discussion begins, action follows. The governing body decides, before the telephones are hung up, which member will move and who will second the evening’s agenda items. A charade is played out later that night at the regular weekly public meeting.
The philosophy of KOMA is addressed in K.S.A. 75-4317(a):
*453“In recognition of the fact that a representative government is dependent upon an informed electorate, it is declared to be the policy of this state that meetings for the conduct of governmental affairs and the transaction of governmental business be open to the public.”
“The open meetings principle is based on the basic belief that the people have a right to know the public business and that public knowledge and information is essential to the effective functioning of the democratic process.” Tacha, The Kansas Open Meeting Act: Sunshine on the Sunflower State?, 25 Kan. L. Rev. 169, 170 (1977). The concept of the liberal interpretation and broad construction of KOMA which is required by State ex rel. Murray v. Palmgren, 231 Kan. 524, 531, 646 P.2d 1091 (1982), is significant in resolving the instant case. The concept authenticates inclusion of prearranged conference calls within KOMA.
Openness in government is the dominant hue in KOMA fabric. I would limit the decision in the case at bar to the facts and affirm summary judgment, reasoning that the calls were not “prearranged.”