of cosponsorship and the Open Meeting Law

 Among the odd little items on this week's Worcester City Council agenda is this, coming back from the Law Department: 

Transmitting informational communication relative to a proposed Home Rule Petition to provide the city of Worcester an exception to the Open Meeting Law to authorize the city clerk to publish, prior to the start of a city council meeting, the names of city councilors who have signed onto items as co-sponsors

 It is accompanied by, no lie, the actual text of an actual home rule petition that the Council would file with the Legislature to grant the Worcester City Council an exception to the Open Meeting Law. 

It is hard to describe how silly this is.

The Open Meeting Law is a requirement, in brief, that public business be discussed in public session; that if a government body is going to make a decision about how things work or how money is spend, then the public has the right to hear about it.

This led, back in 2013, to a finding from the Attorney General, barring the City Council from posting an agenda in which the items already had a list of co-sponsors. The Council was reminded of this, in response to their inquiry, in February.

Let's be clear about something: the whole system of co-sponsorship is a weird Worcester thing. In many places, an elected official puts an item on the agenda, and the agenda is then worked through at the meeting as posted. Each item must then receive a second from a member, and the item, after discussion, is then either voted up or down by the body. Thus each member by virtue of the action of the body stands for or against each item.

In Worcester, someone submits an item to an agenda, and, historically, that list then goes out to all members, who let the clerk know if they wish to add their names as co-sponsors. 
If the agenda is posted prior to the meeting with that list of co-sponsors, however, an item can (and frequently does) have a quorum in support prior to any discussion, thus entirely circumventing the reason for having a meeting at all. 

The Worcester School Committee last week changed its rules: we now get the list of items, let the clerk know what we wish to co-sponsor, but the agenda comes out with only the initial sponsor. Co-sponsors are added to an agenda that is shared only as the meeting begins. 

Co-sponsorship being posted prior to the meeting adds literally nothing to public process. It serves only to get a little extra portion of credit from something accrued to an individual. 
And having it posted ahead certainly is a violation of the open meeting law.