The City of Elberton held a public hearing and called meeting on June 2, releasing an agenda that listed the budget public hearing as the only item to be discussed.
While the public hearing did take place, council members also discussed approving the condemnation of 6 Public Square, owned by Bob and Rina Thomas.
After learning about the added item, The Elberton Star contacted City Manager Lanier Dunn, whose only comment about the omission was that “We met the requirements of posting the meeting to the public.”
The Elberton Star, believing the item was known about in advance and had been purposely left off the agenda, then contacted the Georgia State Attorney General’s office for a clarification on laws covering this type of situation.
Jennifer Colangelo, Assistant District Attorney, replied with the following:
“Here’s the code sections that I think are relevant here:
“OCGA 50-14-1 (b)(2) says, ‘Any … official action of an agency adopted, taken, or made at a meeting which is not open to the public as required by this chapter shall not be binding.’ So if the meeting violated the Act by failing to have a proper agenda, the action would be void.
“OCGA 50-14-1(e)(1) says agendas should include ‘all matters expected to come before an agency or committee at such meeting.’ But a ‘failure to include on agenda an item which becomes necessary to address during the course of the meeting shall not preclude considering and acting upon such item.’
“So if the eminent domain issue legitimately came up unexpectedly and required immediate action because of something else that happened at the meeting, that would be okay.
“But if the city is arguing that an agenda item that says ‘any other business’ means that they can just take care of other business that they knew about in advance, then no, that’s not cool. Our office has mediated lots of situations where we’ve insisted that the agenda be clear enough that the public will know what matters are going to be addressed.
“If they knew they were going to talk about that property, it needed to be on the agenda with a description that made it clear what it was to any citizens who would be interested in that issue.”
This information was sent to the city as well as a request to hear the transcript for the meeting.
After checking on the availability, Dunn told The Star there was video of the meeting but no audio was recorded.