Woodbury City Council violated open meetings law with vote on school officers, state says

The Woodbury City Council violated the state's Open Meeting Law when it met in closed session Sept. 6 to vote on a suspension of its contract providing city police officers to serve as school resource officers at two area high schools, according to a ruling from the state Department of Administration.

The council's justification for the closed meeting — that it might get sued for breaking its contract with the local school district — did not meet the threshold set by the state's open meeting law for going into a closed session, according to an opinion issued Nov. 14 by Department of Administration Commissioner Tamar Gronvall.

The council's action was prompted by a new state law that went into effect this summer that says students cannot be held in a prone position or subjected to "comprehensive restraint on the head, neck and across most of the torso." The provisions of the new law drew questions from some police agencies and from the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, which directed its members to be wary of school assignments until the association could learn more about what the law meant.

The city and others understood the law to mean that school resource officers could not use physical force except in very limited circumstances, and that use of force might lead to a lawsuit, said Woodbury City Attorney Kevin Sandstrom on Sept. 27 while reviewing the council's decision.

After Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued guidance that said the law does not limit "the types of reasonable force that may be used by public officers to carry out their lawful duties," the city voted to restore the school resource officer positions at Woodbury and East Ridge high schools.

The state's Open Meeting Law doesn't specifically say that meetings can be closed to discuss pending litigation, but it does say in 13D.05, subdivision (3) b that meetings "may" be closed "as permitted by the attorney-client privilege." That privilege still doesn't allow a public body to close a meeting due to the threat of litigation by itself according to an earlier ruling from the Minnesota State Supreme Court, Commissioner Gronvall said in the opinion.

"At the time of the discussion there was no threatened or pending litigation," wrote Gronvall. "Therefore, the public's right to hear the discussion about the contract outweighed the need for absolute confidentiality." Gronvall further faulted the council for taking a vote in closed session to temporarily suspend the school resource officer positions at the high schools, saying that a public body should return to open session when it takes votes.

City Administrator Clinton Gridley said in a statement that city officials received the notice from the state that it had violated the open meetings law, and "are working with our legal counsel to gain further understanding."

"The Woodbury City Council fully believed it had a good-faith legal basis to go into closed session on September 6 to address the potential for litigation regarding prematurely breaching the school resource officer contract. This was a complex legal situation that needed to be addressed expediently due to recent changes in state law," he said.

South Washington County Schools spokesman Shawn Hogendorf said the district didn't have any comment on the Open Meeting Law violation.

"During the Sept. 27 Woodbury City Council meeting, the City Council approved a resolution allowing the Woodbury SROs to provide service in our schools," Hogendorf said. "SROs returned to East Ridge and Woodbury high schools on Oct. 2, and have been working in our schools ever since."

Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury, said she helped prepare the information that went to Commissioner Gronvall for consideration of the Open Meeting Law violation. Mitchell, who supported the new law prohibiting student holds, said she became concerned after learning of Woodbury's plan for a closed session. She said the city, in her opinion, put out "untrue information" and had mischaracterized the legislative process.

The Open Meeting Law complaint said South Washington County Schools attorney Michael Waldspurger told Woodbury's city attorney that the district had not made a threat of litigation; further, Waldspurger said the council's SRO discussion should be held in open session for the public's benefit.

Mitchell said she filed a public records request for minutes of the closed session, but the city responded that it didn't record the meeting due to attorney-client privilege.