The Ely City Council held a closed meeting in April to discuss its ongoing negotiations with the EPA over violations for which city was being fined. The City Council closed the meeting citing the need for a discussion of potential litigation strategy, currently an exception under Minnesota’s open meeting law. The City Council said it was protecting the concerns of the citizens by keeping the discussion of strategy confidential. The Ely Echo, one of the two newspaper’s in town, published an account of the meeting in the following week’s paper. The paper declined to respond to the city’s inquiry about the source of the article. The paper also said it was protecting the taxpayers’ interests by keeping them informed about the actions of the City Council.

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Participants included the spokesman for the complainants, Larry Miller, a manufacturing quality manager from Big Lake, and Bruce Gordon, director of communications for the Department of Commerce (DOC), as a witness for the complainants. Gary Meyer, editor and publisher of The West Sherburne Tribune, submitted a written response to the complaint, but did not attend the hearing. The hearing took place at the Ramsey County Library in Roseville.

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The Winona Post ran an editorial critical of the practices of the Winona County Board of Commissioners following a committee of the board meeting on January 9, 2001. After reading an incorrect report in the Winona Daily News that said the board had decided to buy a former school building in an effort to recover lost office space after a courthouse flood, the Post’s editor called the board and obtained a denial of the report. The editor concluded that if such a decision had been made, it would have to have been at an illegal meeting.

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