Mayor of Columbia outvoted by council, special session about sunshine law violation to be closed

UPDATE: Council members didn’t make any decisions Monday morning.

Treece said the meeting served as a “briefing.”

Matthes said he didn’t have a comment due to the pending litigation. It’s likely the city could file an appeal to the ruling.

ORIGINAL STORY: The Columbia City Council is meeting in a closed session Monday morning after a judge said city manager Mike Matthes violated the sunshine law.

ABC 17 News reported last Thursday the city will likely have to pay a $1,000 fine and attorney costs.

Before the meeting, Mayor Brian Treece said he wanted to discuss how the city came to be sued by the Columbia Police Officers Association and what kind of consequences there should be for violating the law.

You can read about that here.

Treece said before the meeting that he didn’t think they should close a meeting where they were discussing transparency and the sunshine law.

The council out-voted Treece five to one in favor of closing the meeting, saying they didn’t want to risk negatively impacting pending litigation since the city can appeal the judge’s order.