For the past several weeks, Wardtown citizen Ken Dufty has been challenging the legitimacy of the Comprehensive Plan Review Stakeholder Group (PRSG). In a recent letter to County Attorney Bruce Jones, Dufty asks whether last week’s meeting of the PRSG may have violated the state’s Open Meeting Law.
I am writing to ask for your legal opinion regarding whether or not a recent meeting of the Comprehensive Plan Review Stakeholder Group (PRSG) was subject to the Open Meetings Law which requires that a meeting of a public body be officially advertised and noticed in the manner required by code.
As background, in 2012 the Northampton County Board of Supervisors created the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC) a public body charged with advising county leaders on the economic section of the draft of an update of the 2009 Comprehensive Plan. At approximately the same time, a Comprehensive Plan Stakeholder Review Group (“PRSG”) was created after citizens who may be interesting in participating in the 2009 Comprehensive Plan update review process were invited to attend a public meeting at the Northampton County Administrative Complex in Eastvillle. Note that the CPAC issued its final report about one year after it was formed, and the group was dissolved by the Northampton County Board of Supervisors in 2016, upon information and belief. [Read more…]