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‘Choose Life’ plates would fund Right to Life through the Secretary of StateAfter the resignation of Owosso City Manager Gregg Geutschow, there was speculation as to whether four members of the Owosso City Council had violated the Open Meetings Act. This speculation resulted in a complaint being filed with the Michigan State Police.
The Argus-Press reports this morning that although a violation occurred, no charges will be brought against the Council members:
The prosecuting attorney said Friday that four Owosso city councilmen violated the Opening Meetings Act, but added there is insufficient eviÂdence to press charges.
Shiawassee County Prosecutor Randy Colbry said there will be no action against the four councilmen because they did not intentionally break the law.
…
Colbry said a violation occurred because the four disÂcussed their decision outside of an open meeting, but the Open Meetings Act requires the violaÂtion to be intentional.
…
“If in fact they were well aware what they were doing was a violation of the act and they proceeded anyway it would have been a potential criminal violaÂtion,” he added.
I think this last section is interesting, because look at what Councilman Mike Bruff has to say …
Bruff said he also never questioned the outcome. “We know what we did and we followed all the rules, that was our intent, and our intent despite what people want to think was to treat Gregg with as much respect as we could,†Bruff said.
If you know all the rules, then you also know that you cannot have a “rolling vote” … that is, you cannot separate your voting members into different physical spaces, and then communicate by moving from one room of voters to another. In this case, Bruff indicates he knew that he could not have more than 4 people in one room, so they didn’t. But when they met as a group of 3 as permitted by the OMA, they already have an agreement by a 4th member who was intentionally not present.
In other words, they had a rolling vote, from that one member, to this group of three.
So if you know all the rules, then you intentionally violated them.
Honestly I didn’t care whether they were charged with violating the OMA … I don’t pay much attention to any of the Owosso Council. But I do think this is another example of Randy Colbry’s “rolling” standards for upholding the law in Shiawassee …
“Colbry said a violation occurred because the four disÂcussed their decision outside of an open meeting, but the Open Meetings Act requires the violaÂtion to be intentional.”
To be criminal, the law requires the violation to be intentional, therefore, this was not a criminal act.
I guess that is a hard concept to swallow.
No, the OMA says they shouldn’t meet outside of a public meeting to make decisions etc, but if they do so without INTENDING to violate the OMA, then it isn’t a crime.
I figure it to be one of those “do-nothing” laws with so many holes in it, that it is nearly impossible to enforce-even if it is violated quite blatantly.
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