Because the general public and media are prohibited from executive sessions, New York State’s open meeting law contains very specific rules as to how an executive session should be convened during a public meeting. The purpose of these rules is to make sure that anyone attending the meeting can hear and understand the reason for the session at the time it is convened. The rules also serve to keep officials accountable for keeping their discussion limited to the reason stated, as well as defining which subjects are allowable to discuss in private.
When elected officials fail to follow the rules when convening an executive session, not only are the purposes of the open meeting law subverted, but the municipality is put at risk as decisions or resolutions that result from those sessions could be invalidated if challenged in court.
I’ve witnessed many executive sessions called by the Amsterdam Common Council over the past seven years, and I supposed that’s why a while back on October 20, a motion to go into executive session by the Amsterdam Common Council stood out to me as an obvious red flag.