Pittsburgh City Council president defends closed-doors meetings

Pittsburgh City Council President R. Daniel Lavelle on Wednesday defended council’s decision to hold two closed-doors meetings next week despite concerns from legal experts and good-government advocates who say such sessions should be open to the public.

Lavelle, D-Hill District, said at least one of the off-limits sessions scheduled for next week won’t include back-and-forth discussion and will be organized as a briefing for council to receive information without deliberating.

Experts have said that council members engaging in discussion during closed meetings — which several members have acknowledged sometimes happens during such gatherings — seem to violate the intent of Pennsylvania’s open meetings laws.

Lavelle told TribLive that he sees no problem with barring the public from the two private meetings, both scheduled for next Wednesday.

One is about the city’s infrastructure commission, and the other is about the OneStopPGH portal where people can apply for licenses and permits through the Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections.

Lavelle initially told a TribLive reporter he did not know who called for those closed-door sessions.

After the city clerk’s office told TribLive that Lavelle had been the one to call for both meetings, Lavelle acknowledged he did call for the briefing about the OneStopPGH portal. He said he did not remember whether he called for the other briefing.

The council president said the OneStopPGH briefing is closed-doors because “we’re not ready yet to make the information public and for it to go live.”

Council members, he said, need to learn about the updated portal before the public so they can be prepared to field questions from constituents.

He could not say what kind of conversation the meeting about the infrastructure commission could entail.

Related:

• Pittsburgh City Council's private meetings raise questions about Sunshine Law compliance

• Pittsburgh council member cancels closed-doors meeting amid experts' concerns about transparency

• Pittsburgh City Council schedules more private meetings despite Sunshine Act concerns

Though experts have said these private meetings seem to violate the spirit of the Sunshine Act, Lavelle said he sees nothing wrong with council’s actions.

“Council has certainly broken no laws,” he told TribLive. “My law is to follow the law — not how you interpret the spirit.”

Council for years has frequently held private meetings in a conference room on the fifth floor of the City-County Building Downtown.

Members have said they make a deliberate effort to remain under a quorum in an apparent attempt to skirt the spirit of Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act, which requires most meetings with a majority of an elected body present be held in the open.

The meetings, by council members’ own admission, often include discussions about public issues. Experts have said that kind of behavior is in “bad faith” and skirts the intention of the Sunshine Act.

Council has not had any of these closed-off meetings since a TribLive report last month brought to light those concerns.