Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Closed Meetings

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

On Sep 16, 2007, at 12:58 AM, O3C11N6G wrote:
> However, here at Oak Creek Commons on the Central Coast of
> California, there are committees and teams that do not feel
> comfortable having their meetings open to anyone wanting to
> attend.  This is especially true when there is a fear that visitors
> may interfere with the goals and agenda or that statements about
> certain people are meant to be confidential.

The only part of this desire to close meetings that seems defensible to me 
is that in certain kinds of meetings, statements about individuals are 
expected and they need to be confidential.

At Shadowlake Village Cohousing as at many other communities we have a 
Conflict Resolution Team whose work is intended to be entirely 
confidential.  The temporary committee that proposed members for this team 
also worked in closed session, as agreed to via whole-group consensus when 
that committee was created.  Probably any kind of nominating committee 
needs to received input and then work in closed session.  Perhaps there are 
also certain legal situations in which it may be agreed that certain 
meetings may be closed.

The key factor is whether the community as a whole accepts that these 
specific matters are inherently confidential and therefore need to have 
closed meetings. If the only people who want to have closed meetings are 
the committee or team members, that seems like an issue that the larger 
coho group should take up.

I'm curious to know what kinds of groups Norm Gauss is alluding to. Are 
they regular standing committees and teams or ad-hoc groups?  Do those 
committee members believe that their mandate includes confidentiality or 
are they just secrecy-prone for no apparent reason?

  Muriel
  Shadowlake Village Cohousing
  Blacksburg, VA