The increase over recent years in data-driven journalism has provided reporters with new opportunities to hold government accountable and ways to build trust among their audiences. In that spirit, I decided to find out how frequently cities in Salt Lake County closed a portion of their meetings to the public over the course of a year. To do that, I gathered information from nearly 400 city council minutes from 14 cities across the county, filed dozens of records requests and used Excel to manage and interpret the data. The process took nearly a month.
Once it was complete, the story was printed on the front page of The Salt Lake Tribune, which has a circulation of nearly 75,000 print papers, and it reached more than 5,000 readers online. The story also led to the finding that one city had misplaced records for more than a dozen meetings, in violation of state law, and prompted several municipalities to publicly address open meetings laws.

73% of Draper’s City Council meetings were closed to the public at some point. How does your city rate for transparency?
To close a meeting, state “sunshine” laws require public bodies meet a range of requirements, including stating the specific legal reason for the closure and a roll-call vote that must pass by at least a two-thirds margin.
State law doesn’t allow public officials to discuss just anything in closed meetings. For example, a discussion about “pending or reasonably imminent litigation” or “the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual” would be acceptable, while a discussion of tax increases or road projects would not. And any vote on public business would be illegal.
Michael Anderson, an attorney with the Utah law firm Parr Brown Gee & Loveless in its First Amendment and media practice group, said it’s possible Draper closed its meetings legally but called its number of closures “curious.”
“When the vast majority of meetings are being closed, that certainly would raise concerns that those meetings are not being closed pursuant to the very narrow exceptions for openness,” he said. “The clear legislative policy embedded in the Open and Public Meetings Act is, ‘Do as much in public as you can.’ “