By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

WaKEENEY -- Two weeks ago, WaKeeney Mayor Lionel Sawyer cautioned against private meetings outside council chambers, thanks to a change in the state's Open Meetings Act.

Tuesday night, city attorney E. Jay Deines detailed the subtle but important changes that came about during this year's legislative session. The change took effect July 1.

One of those changes requires that meetings involving a majority of the agency be open to the public. Previously, the law had applied to a majority of a quorum -- two people in the case of a five-member council.

The change actually doesn't mean a whole lot in WaKeeney's case because the council had already increased to four the number of members it takes to have a quorum, a move that was available to all city and county governments. As a result, two council members would have been able to meet privately without violating the state's Open Meetings Act.

Then, as now, if a third council member is brought into the mix, it would have been a violation of KOMA.

Now, however, the law specifically states that "meetings in a series shall be open if they collectively involve a majority" of the board.

"What they're saying is don't have a meeting before the meeting," Sawyer said Tuesday evening.

The law also confirms that meetings can be conducted by telephone or any other "interactive communication," such as e-mail or text messaging.

The change in the law was a compromise between trade groups representing government agencies and the Kansas Press Association, which had pushed to close loopholes in the existing law.

"We think it's stronger as a whole," said Doug Anstaett, executive director of the KPA, "because it stops what we think is a growing trend among public agencies and boards to meet in series."

Going from a majority of a quorum to a majority, he said, was a "give-up."

But as KPA studied other states, it was determined that only Kansas and Illinois had the stringent "majority of a quorum" rule. Besides, Anstaett said, nearly 20 agencies had already increased their quorum rules.

The League of Kansas Municipalities, in announcing the legislation, said it had always considered the majority of a quorum aspect of the law burdensome.

The league had also objected to an attorney general's opinion concerning serial meetings or contacts by telephone as a means to violate the Open Meetings Act.

School boards generally don't have problems with two members talking because they often have seven members, so a majority would be four. County commissions generally only have three members, and two would be a majority.

But it's not as simple as a majority of a board getting together to talk about the affairs of the government the members represent.

Meetings of a majority are a violation if they are intended "to reach agreement on a matter that would require binding action" to be taken by the agency.

"It's a tough test," Anstaett admits. "There's no doubt about it."

Bottom line, he said, the goal of KOMA is to stop people who intentionally seek "to shut the public out of discussing something it needs to be part of."

The goal is not to scoop up commissioners who unintentionally talk about affairs of the city when they meet on the street.

"We want to catch the worst and make examples of them," he said.

Overall, Anstaett said he thinks the law is stronger, primarily because most of the calls KPA received involved concerns about serial meetings, which the majority definition would fix.

It's important, he said, for the public to become involved.

"This is sometimes our toughest sells," Anstaett said. "We are fighting for their rights, not ours. We are a surrogate of the public. We go to the meetings because they can't."