SEC. 67.8-1. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR CLOSED SESSIONS.
§ 67.8-1
All closed sessions of policy bodies must be audio or audio-video recorded and kept for at least ten years; recordings become public when the reasons for closure no longer apply, with "anticipated litigation" recordings released after two years, statute of limitations expiration, or settlement. The City must also identify courts, case numbers, and filing dates for existing and anticipated litigation on public agendas and disclose whether anticipated litigation became actual litigation upon request.
Government bodies covered by this rule must record all their closed (private) meetings and save those recordings for at least ten years. Once the reasons for keeping a meeting private no longer exist, the public can hear the recordings. For meetings closed because of expected future lawsuits, the recordings must be released after two years if no lawsuit is filed, or when the deadline to file runs out, or once the dispute is settled. When the agenda includes a real lawsuit, the government must list which court it's in, the case number, and when it was filed. If the agenda mentions a potential lawsuit, the city must tell the public (if asked) whether that potential lawsuit actually happened and provide the court and case information if it did.
- Complex:The section contains multiple conditional release provisions for litigation recordings with overlapping time-based and event-based triggers that may interact unpredictably in practice.
- Controversial:Recording and public release of closed sessions, particularly those involving anticipated litigation, raises tensions between government transparency and attorney-client privilege or litigation strategy concerns that reasonable people disagree about.
AI-generated · claude-haiku-4-5 · informational only, not legal advice.
Official text
(a) All closed sessions of any policy body covered by this Ordinance shall be either audio recorded or audio and video recorded in their entirety and all such recordings shall be retained for at least TEN years, or permanently where technologically and economically feasible. Closed session recordings shall be made available whenever all rationales for closing the session are no longer applicable. Recordings of closed sessions of a policy body covered by this Ordinance, wherein the justification for the closed session is due to "anticipated litigation" shall be released to the public in accordance with any of the following provisions: TWO years after the meeting if no litigation is filed; UPON EXPIRATION of the statute of limitations for the anticipated litigation if no litigation is filed; as soon as the controversy leading to anticipated litigation is settled or concluded.
(b) Each agenda item for a policy body covered by this ordinance that involve existing litigation shall identify the court, case number, and date the case was filed on the written agenda. For each agenda item for a group covered by this ordinance that involves anticipated litigation, the City Attorney's Office or the policy body shall disclose at any time requested and to any member of the public whether such anticipated litigation developed into litigation and shall identify the court, case number, and date the case was filed.
(Added by Proposition G, 11/2/99)