Citations to Open Meeting Laws
Citations in Court Decisions and Compliance Board Opinions
News Sentinel vs. Knox County Comm’n, reported at NSvKnoxCountyCommission.pdf (Oct. 2, 2007).
McElroy v. Strickland, No. 168933-2 (Chancery Court, Knox County Tennessee (Oct. 2007), reported at http://knoxcounty.org/decision/decision.pdf.
The Associated Press, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, The Montana Standard, Missoulian, Great Falls Tribune, Montana Newspaper Association, Montana Broadcasters Association, The Billings Gazette, The Daily Inter Lake, Montana Television Network, Eagle Television Network, Havre Daily News, Helena Independent Record, and Yellowstone Newspapers v. Richard A. Crofts, in his official capacity as Montana Commissioner of Higher Education, 321 Mont. 193, 89 P.3d 971 (May 19, 2004), lawlibrary.state.mt.us/dscgi/ds.py/Get/File-30593/03-239.doc.
Dewey v. Redevelopment Agency of Reno, 64 P.3d 1070 (Nev. March 14, 2003).
Kleitman v. Superior Court, 74 Cal. App. 4th 324, 87 Cal. Rptr. 2d 813 (6th Dist. August 18, 1999), modified on denial of rehearing (September 9, 1999).
Shapiro v. San Diego City Council, 96 Cal. App. 4th 904, 117 Cal. Rptr. 2d 631 (4th Dist. March 5, 2002).
Maryland Compliance Board Opinion 99-11, August 12, 1999.
State v. Beaver Dam Area Dev. Corp., No. 2006AP662, SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN, July 11, 2008. Overview: Nonprofit corporation was quasi-governmental corporation subject to open meetings and public records laws within meaning of Wis. Stat. §§ 19.82(1) and 19.32(1) because it resembled governmental corporation in function, effect, and status, as it was funded exclusively by public tax dollars and had no clients other than city. (“A leading treatise on open meetings laws sets forth 14 factors used by courts in determining whether private entities are subject to such laws.”), citing Ann Taylor Schwing, Open Meetings Laws § 4.100 (2d ed. 2000).
Citations in Attorney General Opinions
Nevada AG 08-014 (June 30, 2008) .
Nevada AG Complaint: In re Clark County Board of School Trustees (Attorney General File No. 08-011, OMLO 2008-03) (June 2008).
Letter Addressing Open Meeting Law Inquiry # 07-07, Office of the District Attorney, Norfolk, MA (Jan. 24, 2008).
Nevada Opinion, 2005 Nev. Op. Atty. Gen. Opinion No. 2005-05 (March 31, 2005) and Opinion No. 2005-08 (July 12, 2005).
Hawaii Opinion Letter No. 05-11 (April 27, 2005), 2005 Office of the Information Practices, Hawaii.
Maryland Opinion, 89 Md. Op. Atty. Gen. 22 ( 2004).
Iowa Opinion No. 98-4-4(L) (April 17, 1998), Office of the Attorney General, State of Iowa.
Citations in Law Reviews
Cramer, The Power of Secrecy and the Secrecy of Power: FACA and the National Energy Policy Development Group, 13 Comm. L. & Pol’y 183, 226 (2008).
Chance, The Government-in-the-Sunshine Law Then and Now: A Model for Implementing New Technologies Consistent with Florida’s Position as a Leader in Open Government, 35 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 245 (2008).
Crowder,“Ain’t No Sunshine”: Examining Informality and State Open Meetings Acts as the Anti-Public Norm in Inner-City Redevelopment Deal Making, 74 Tenn. L. Rev. 623, 625, 633, 641-44, 646, 650, 656 (2007).
Fenster, The Opacity of Transparency, 91 Iowa L. Rev. 885, 922 n.161 (2006).
Comment: Sunshine In Cyberspace? Electronic Deliberation and The Reach of Open Meeting Laws, 48 St. Louis L.J. 755 (2004) (at 757 n.8:“As suggested by the title, this reference provides an in-depth discussion of all aspects of open meeting laws”).
Nuckolls, Kansas Sunshine Law; How Bright Does It Shine Now? The Kansas Open Meetings and Open Records Acts, 72 J. Kan. B.A. 28 (2003).
Reiman, In Congress Electric: The Need For On-Line Parliamentary Procedure, 18 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 963 (2000).
Citations in State and Municipal Manuals
Nevada Open Meeting Law Manual, Attorney General George J. Chanos, Tenth Edition, December 2005.
“A discussion of various State law requirements pertaining to minutes is found in a detailed law book . . . .” Brookings City Council, Brookings, South Dakota.
“For a comprehensive review of state ‘sunshine’ laws . . . .” Maryland Open Meetings Act Manual, Fifth Edition, October 2004.
Understanding the Open Meeting Law: A Handbook from Norfolk County, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, June 2002.
Maryland Open Meetings Act Manual, Fourth Edition (2000).
Citations in Articles and Presentations
Submission to the Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills - Bill 123: Transparency in Public Matters Act, Ontario, Canada (2004).
Hearn, McLendon & Gilchrist, Governing in the Sunshine: Open Meetings, Open Records, and Effective Governance in Public Higher Education (2004) (“scholar A.T. Schwing’s comprehensive cataloguing of state open-meeting statutes published in 2000.”
McLendon, Gilchrist & Hearn, State Open-Meetings and Open-Records Laws in Higher Education: An Annotated Bibliography (2003):
This 727-page reference guide, a second edition, provides a comprehensive survey, description, and classification of open-meetings laws in the fifty states. Following an overview of the constitutional context in which state open-meetings laws have arisen in the U.S., Schwing annotates state statutes as they pertain to each of the following topics: entities subject to open-meetings laws; mechanical details of open-meetings laws; meetings, quorums, deliberations, and voting; executive laws; defenses to actions under open-meetings laws; the process of open meeting litigation; and, attorneys fees, defense, and reimbursement. For those interested in the application of state open-meetings laws to higher education, the most pertinent and valuable sections of Schwing’s volume are pages 59-69, which detail open-meetings provisions governing state educational institutions, particularly colleges and universities. Regents, Show Us the Sausage, A primer on open meetings laws, Damon Hodge, Las Vegas Weekly, Feb 5-11, 2005.
Observations after Three Decades of Open Meetings, C. Robert Heath, Bickerstaff, Heath, Smiley, Pollan, Kever & McDaniel, L.L.P., Presented at the National Education Law Association Conference, November 1998.
Reporter invokes her state’s public-records laws — and triumphs, Isabelle Gan, Special to chipsquinn.org, Posted: March 18, 2004.
Appendices to Openness & Transparency, Appendix A, California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law: Features of Member Access to Information & Decision-Making, Leon Koay and Michael Richardson, Harvard Law School, October 31, 1999.
Making Municipal Government More Accountable: The Need for an Open Meetings Law in Ontario, Information and Privacy Commissioner Ontario, Ann Cavoukian, Ph.D., Commissioner, Tom Mitchinson, Assistant Commissioner, October 2003.