- Target:
- NY State Legislature
- Region:
- New York State
- Website:
- www.nyopengov.org
There are secret local government meetings occurring all across New York State, where public business is being discussed. No notice is provided for these meetings, there are no meeting minutes, the public and news media are not allowed to attend.
Due to a law passed by the state legislature in 1985, these secret meetings are legal and not a violation of the Open Meetings Law. Elected members of the same political party are allowed to hold a private political caucus meeting, where they can discuss political party business and public business. The political party in control of a public body can hold a private meeting, bring in staff and department heads, run through the night’s public meeting agenda and work everything out in secret before the public meeting occurs.
These secret meetings, make the public meeting a sham as the real discussion has already occurred in private.
We the undersigned elected officials pledge to not discuss public business in a closed door secret political caucus meeting.
We the undersigned elected officials and concerned citizens support the enactment of a local law and a state law, eliminating the ability to discuss public business in secret political caucus meetings.
It is our position that political caucus meetings should be limited to discussing political party issues and not public business.
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The Stop Secret Local Government Meetings petition to NY State Legislature was written by Paul Wolf and is in the category Law Reform at GoPetition.