Law broken while learning it

Peabody city council members may have violated the Kansas Open Meetings Act while receiving a lesson on how to comply with it.

Council members Linda Martinez, Rodney Hague, Trevor Hamm, and Jennifer Bush; Mayor Bailey Penner; city administrator Paul Leeker; and city attorney Tim Hodge emerged together from a closed room immediately before Monday’s council meeting.

Council members had asked Hodge for a “brief crash course” on the Kansas Open Meetings Act, Kansas Open Records Act, and Robert’s Rules of Order, Bush said.

UPDATED AFTER PRINT DEADLINE: That discussion might have been conducted privately under attorney-client privilege, though an open meetings expert, Lawrence attorney Max Kautsch, doubts that it legally could be because only privacy concerns, not policy concerns, legally can be shielded behind closed doors. Still, even if the council disagreed, it first needed to convene publicly and then make a motion to enter executive session.

Instead, the discussion occurred before the meeting was called to order.

Nothing else was discussed during the gathering, Bush said.

“That was all it,” she said. “I’ve never done this, and I’m not about to screw it up.”