On its face, the scant record in the meeting minutes of the Northampton City Council's executive sessions appear to comply with the letter of the state's Open Meeting Law, though not its spirit. Fortunately, the limits of the law are being addressed and the days of governmental bodies recording vague, one-line summaries of closed-door deliberations may be numbered. A revised Open Meeting Law takes effect next July.

The primary purpose of the state's Open Meeting Law is to eliminate secrecy surrounding the deliberations and decisions on which public policy is based. And there is no better opportunity for government to keep its work hidden from the public than an executive session from which no information emerges.

There are stated exemptions all legitimate that allow public bodies to close their doors and deliberate. They include sensitive personnel matters, litigation and collective bargaining. The law also states that minutes must be kept of those sessions and may remain secret as long as publication may defeat the lawful purpose of the executive session. In other words, once the issue discussed behind closed door is settled, the public has access to the minutes and, presumably, some insight into the issue, the discussion and the decisions.

In Northampton, a wave of litigation and collective bargaining in recent years has prompted the City Council to hold a fair number of executive sessions. Yet, as the Gazette reported last week, the minutes of many of those sessions provide vague, bare bones information.

Some are not even clear what the meeting was about.

Among the most recent minutes released are those of a nearly hour-long closed-door session in which the council ultimately voted to borrow $1.2 million to buy properties around the regional dump off Glendale Road. The move was reportedly made to end costly litigation that was continuing to spiral upward, but there is no record in the minutes of the council's May 21 deliberations, nor any record of the information presented to city leaders by attorneys on hand. In our opinion, this is wrong because, apart from a mayoral press release after the Gazette broke a story on the issue, the public will never fully know what transpired before the council that night.

The lack of these details not only stifles the public's right to know, but it flies in the face of the state attorney general's Open Meeting Law guidelines. Those guidelines, used to train public officials, state that meeting minutes must record a summary of what has been discussed, whether the session is open or closed. They note that it would be sound practice to include in any meeting minutes a summary of each discussion held and that the contents of executive session minutes must mirror those required for open sessions.

Fortunately, state lawmakers revisited the Open Meeting Law as part of the wide-ranging ethics reforms just signed into law by the governor. The AG's meeting guidelines have now, in part, been incorporated into the actual Open Meeting Law.

In addition to creating and maintaining accurate minutes of all meetings, including executive sessions, public bodies must now record a summary of the discussions on each subject, a list of documents and other exhibits used at the meeting, the decisions made and the actions taken at each meeting, including the record of all votes. Also, before executive sessions are called, the chairperson of a governmental body must not only state the purpose for a closed-door meeting, but also state all subjects that may be revealed without compromising the purpose for which the executive session was held.

Public bodies can still invoke the attorney-client privilege or one of many exemptions to withhold records, but the changes in the law are certainly a call for a more open government. Beginning next year, enforcement of the state Open Meeting Law shifts from local district attorneys to a new division of open government in the attorney general's office. Complaints must initially be filed first with the public bodies who allegedly violated the law, and they must promptly notify the AG's office of those complaints. Upon the finding of violations, the AG can require a number of steps be taken, $1,000 for each intentional violation.

The changes to the Open Meeting Law are welcome and long overdue. The real test will be whether the reforms further reveal the work of government and deter public officials from skirting the law, and shielding deliberations that lead to policy decisions. Only then will the public's interest be better served.