Do you ever wonder when you read public officials held an executive session, just what the heck are they up to?

I do. Frankly, I wonder if they are trying to get away with something.

Early in my journalistic career, there could be a whole year with no executive sessions. Employee negotiations were sometimes open to the public!

Today, executive sessions are an everyday event. The state’s Sunshine Law is interpreted extremely liberally these days.

In theory, public bodies in Ohio must meet in open session, except for specific instances, like pending litigation, personnel and land acquisition. Also, all final legislation must pass in open meetings.

Well, if you stretch it enough, these reasons can be used for virtually any closed meeting.

Look no further than when Conneaut City Council met in secret to discuss problems it was having with the School Board over tax abatements. Now the board pledged it would not file a lawsuit against the city over the problems. Yet council still met in private, citing pending litigation. Huh?

If you’ve looked at Star Beacon Web forums, you know there’s a lot of speculation about what Conneaut council is doing with the East Conneaut Industrial Park.

Rumors abound that council is willing to sell property there for pennies on the dollar to some unnamed source. For weeks it was also reported Joseph Mayernick, executive director of Growth Partnership for Ashtabula County, was involved. There are a lot of people on the forums who just don’t trust Mayernick.

Earlier this month, council met in executive session with, among others, Mayernick, to discuss a wind turbine farm.

Now you might say the executive session is fine because it is dealing with land acquisition, right? Legally maybe, but when you stop to think about it, wouldn’t it be more beneficial for the city to hold this meeting in public under normal circumstances?

Closed meetings for land acquisition used to mean the government entity wants to buy land and is worried that discussing the venture in public would drive the price up.

But in this case, it is the city selling the property. So if these meetings were open and the public knew what prices were being discussed, maybe someone else would read about it, offer more money for the land and make an even better deal for the community.

Under normal circumstances, what advantage is there for the city to have these meetings closed?

The 159 acres would be sold to an undisclosed client. After a recent work session, which was closed, our reporter asked Council President James Jones what was going on. Jones hemmed and hawed before referring questions to interim City Manager Edward Somppi, while another councilman said he was anxious to get to a bar. Somppi, to his credit, is trying to alleviate fears and pledges an open meeting to discuss these concerns. But that is still in the future.