The newly created Sustainability Advisory Board is scheduled to meet on Wednesday September 27, 2006-- behind closed doors. I probably couldn't have gone, but called just in case. Are such secret meetings legal? Maybe.
New York State does have an Open Meetings Law which sounds like a hymn to openness: " Every meeting of a public body shall be open to the general public..." Public Officers Law Article 7, Section 103 (a).
Since, as we know, much of the real work of government is carried out by three men in a room, there must be some lawyerly exceptions hidden away in this statute. (and there are. For example: is the Sustainablity Advisory Board a "public body?") But are such hidden meetings good policy?
