At 8 a.m. every Tuesday, you can count on seeing two members of Brighton’s three-person village council sharing breakfast at the Cup’a Sunshine Coffee Shop. Sometimes the conversation wanders into a discussion of council business. Is this a “meeting?”

The three members of the seven-member Open Government Commission who make up the body’s Finance Committee meet on Wednesday evenings to review financial issues. A fourth commission member who is not on the committee attends a meeting to listen to discussion of a particular topic. Is this a “meeting” of the Open Government Commission?

The members of the Marigold City School Board decide to hold a new-member orientation and planning retreat to brainstorm about future projects they might undertake. No action will be taken; just discussion. Is this a “meeting?”

Ohio’s Open Meetings Act defines a “meeting” as (1) a prearranged discussion (2) of public business (3) by a majority of the members of a public body. The law enables people to witness what government officials are doing on the public’s behalf. 

While the law is to be read broadly to require the members of government bodies to take official action and deliberate only in open meetings,¹ courts generally have not interpreted it to prohibit informal conversations.² In the first scenario above, the Brighton village council members who make up a majority when they get together for their standing breakfast appointment may touch on council business without violating the law if it is clear that they are not deliberating or conducting public business in secret.³

When a public body creates a committee, the sub-group is usually considered a “public body” in its own right, with its own majority and the same obligations the primary body has to provide notice, ensure openness and keep minutes.  Thus, the Finance Committee in this example is a public body and is holding a meeting.  Members of the primary public body who do not belong to the committee are not explicitly prohibited from attending committee meetings, but participation is key. In the second scenario above, the curious commission member who sits with other observers and does not participate or influence the committee members in any way most likely does not create a majority of the full Open Government Commission. On the other hand, if the commissioner attends as a guest, joins committee members at the table and takes part in the discussion, she may create a majority of the commission itself, triggering separate obligations for notice, openness and minutes for the full Open Government Commission. ⁵

A “meeting” by another name—“retreat,” “workshop,” “planning session”—is still a “meeting” for purposes of the Open Meetings Act if a majority of members gather for a prearranged discussion of the public’s business.⁶ Once the new members of the Marigold School Board take office and gather with the rest of the group to talk about their new responsibilities and long-range plans, the public has the right to hear what they are saying, even if no voting or other action occurs. By its terms, with narrow exceptions, the Open Meetings Act requires the members of a public body to discuss and deliberate on official business only in open meetings.⁷

¹  R.C. 121.22(A)
² Haverkos v. Northwest Local Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., Nos. C-040578, C-040589, 2005 Ohio 3489, at ¶10, 2005 Ohio App. LEXIS 3237, at *9 (1st Dist. July 8, 2005) (“[M]ere discussion of an issue of public concern does not mean that there were deliberations.”).
³ Holeski v. Lawrence, 85 Ohio App. 3d 824, 829 (11th Dist., 1993). (“The nature and purpose of R.C. 121.22 support the interpretation that the statute is intended to apply to those situations where there has been actual formal action taken; to wit, formal deliberations concerning the public business.”)
⁴ R.C. 121.22(B)(1)(b); State ex rel. Long v. Council of Cardington, 92 Ohio St.3d 54, 58-59, 2001 Ohio 130 (2001)
⁵ State ex rel. Fairfield Leader v. Ricketts, 56 Ohio St.3d 97 (1990)
⁶ State ex rel. Singh v. Schoenfeld, Nos. 92AP-188, 92AP-193, 1993 Ohio App. LEXIS 2409 (10th Dist. May 4, 1993).
⁷ R.C. 121.22(A); R.C. 121.22(B)