— Submitted by San Juan County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office

Today, the Washington Supreme Court issued a ruling regarding the application of the Open Public Meetings Act to meetings of subcommittees in San Juan County.  In a 6-3 ruling, written by Justice Charles Wiggins for the majority, the court said that meetings of the Critical Areas Ordinance Team did not violate the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA).

Prosecuting Attorney Randall Gaylord was pleased with the decision and said that this was a a hard-fought case and that briefs were offered to the court from media groups and other municipalities.

Gaylord said the ruling was the first from the Supreme Court on the subject of subcommittees and the ruling provides guidance for the future for cities and counties.  But best of all, said Gaylord, the ruling confirms that the procedure used to update the San Juan County critical areas ordinances (CAO) complied with the law.

The court wrote:

• “We conclude that the OPMA did not apply to the CAO team meetings.”

• “CAPR produced no evidence indicating that the Council created the CAO Team.”

• The OPMA “does not extend to advisory committees and other entities that do nothing more than conduct internal discussions and provide advice or information to the governing body.”

• “We see no reason to depart from our long-standing rule requiring the presence of a simple majority of a governing body’s members – a rule that provides clear guidance to public agencies regarding the application of the OPMA.”

• “The record demonstrates that the CAO Team’s role with respect to the Council was, at most, that of staff or an advisory board.” And  “To the extent that the team addressed the substance of the CAO update, nothing in the record indicates that they did anything more than gather information, conduct internal discussions, and provide information to the Council.”  … This is “consistent with the role of an informal advisory committee or administrative staff support.”

• “That is the nature of organizations:  the governing body decides on policy and orders the staff to implement the policy, and the staff complies.”

Gaylord added that the ruling will be less important in San Juan County because under the Charter Amendments made in 2012, all meetings of subcommittees of the Council will be subject to the Open Public Meetings Act.     “Given the Charter Amendments, this lawsuit was continued in an effort to overturn the CAO Ordinances, which did not happen,” said Gaylord.

Read the full ruling here.