Lee Johnson, Lindsay Holliday, and Louis Ryan filed this action for a declaratory judgment and an injunction against the Bibb County Board of Commissioners and the commissioners as individuals collectively, “the Board”, alleging that the Board violated Georgia’s Open Meetings Act1 by voting in closed meetings to pursue the acquisition of certain real estate. After a hearing, the trial court granted the Board’s motion to dismiss based, inter alia, on its conclusion that the challenged conduct falls within an exception to the Act’s requirement for conducting open meetings, OCGA § 50-14-3 4. Johnson2 appeals, contending that, although the Act specifically excludes from the requirement of open meetings any discussion of future acquisition of real estate, the Act requires that the vote on any such acquisition be taken in public. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. We review de novo the trial court’s grant of a motion to dismiss. Lee v. Owenby & Assocs. , 279 Ga. App. 446, 447 1 631 SE2d 478 2006. “A motion to dismiss may be granted only where a plaintiff would not be entitled to relief under any set of facts that could be proven in support of the plaintiff’s claim.” Citation and punctuation omitted. D. C. Ecker Constr. v. Ponce Investment , 294 Ga. App. 833, 834 670 SE2d 526 2008.
For the purpose of evaluating the Board’s motion to dismiss, we assume, as the trial court did, that Johnson can prove the following facts as averred in his amended complaint. On August 5, 2008, the Board voted to go into closed session to discuss the acquisition of real estate for the construction of a new courthouse. After a discussion, the Board voted to authorize Connie Mac Darnell to purchase as the county’s proxy certain parcels of real estate. On November 18, 2008, the Board again voted to go into closed session to discuss the acquisition of real estate for the new courthouse. After a discussion, the Board voted to authorize Darnell to purchase certain additional parcels. In January 2009, the Board first made public the minutes of the closed portions of the August 5 and November 18, 2008 meetings. On February 17, 2009, after Johnson and the other plaintiffs commenced this declaratory judgment action, the Board met in an open meeting and voted to ratify the votes taken in the August 5 and November 18, 2008 meetings.
