Open Meetings Violation

Am I interpreting this correctly?

Public Officers Law, Article 7, section 107(3) The statute of limitations in an article seventy-eight proceeding with respect to an action taken at executive session shall commence to run from the date the minutes of such executive session have been made available to the public.

The violations have been going on for at least a year and a half, with the most recent provable violation 2 months ago. The most egregious violation was about 1 1/2 yrs ago. Since it occurred in a secret meeting/executive session and has never been discussed or approved at a public meeting, is there no statute of limitations since no minutes of this action have ever been made available to the public?

Thank you.

I have a situation where minutes of committee to our legislature were never filed. When I requested copies, I was told that the past chairman had never filed any minutes. These include meetings over at least 12 months. The committee meetings are public meetings, and in my estimation constitute a public body, based on the Open Meetings Law here in NY.

They just never bothered to file any minutes for an entire year.

What is my recourse under the law? I believe the Open Meetings Law says Article 78, but from what point does the four-month clock start ticking? I would say from the time my formal request is denied, but is it in fact from the time of the last committee meeting at which this was not done (December 2009)?

Thanks

It really depends on your judge. The criteria for 3 or 4 month statute of limitations is very unclear. I went ahead and filed an article 78 proceeding on my own (no lawyer). So far, we've had 2 conferences with the judge, with a 3rd scheduled at the end of the month. Each time, the village has tried to get it dismissed due to statute of limitations. Thus far, this hasn't happened. I don't know what will ultimately happen, but every time the judge continues the case and keeps it open, I consider it a win.

Word of caution - it is expensive to file a suit - I've spent about $500 in filing and service fees. The NYS court system has some really good information on line: http://www.courts.state.ny.us/. I've found it really helpful in putting the suit together. The biggest problem I had was with some of the templates - some of the documents on line are not fillable and I had to recreate them to make them look presentable. I also made the mistake of filing a Request for Judicial Intervention. The judge told me that it was an unnecessary form for me. Good luck with this. There seems to be problems in a lot of municipalities in the state.

We ultimately lost our case, not due to a statute of limitations, but, rather, because the judge determined that the park was not a park (despite photos of village installed signage listing "park rules.")

Of note though, is that shortly after the case ended, the village decided to eliminate and have removed the ice skating rink. This ice skating rink foundation is what had been used for the skateboard park. The village has decided it is too expensive to maintain the concrete and is having it removed. Once it is removed, it will be impossible for the skate board activity to continue.

Interesting, so I lost, but won. I guess they needed a way to save face and have it be their idea. I'm just glad the activity has ended.