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Schoen v. Cherokee County

The Board of Commissioners did not violate Georgia's Open Meetings Act when it met with the county attorney to discuss a proposed consent order involving pending zoning litigation.

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Lloyd Schoen, a resident of Cherokee County, sued Cherokee County, the chairman of the County’s Board of Commissioners, and several members of the Board of Commissioners collectively “the Board”, alleging they violated Georgia’s Open Meetings Act OCGA § 50-14-1 et seq. by holding a private meeting in which they discussed and acted upon a zoning matter. The Open Meetings Act provides that all meetings as defined in OCGA § 50-14-1 a must be open to the public, and any actions taken during a meeting held in violation of the Act are not binding. The meeting at issue in this case comes within the Act’s attorney-client exception. Moreover, the issues which Schoen says were discussed and acted upon in the privileged meeting were later discussed and acted upon in a public meeting. We therefore affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to the Board.

The Landon Group, which is not a party to this case, applied to the Board of Commissioners to change the zoning classification of the Landon Group’s property from agricultural to planned unit development. After the Board of Commissioners denied the application, the Landon Group filed a lawsuit against the County challenging the decision. On or about October 25, 1996, after a public meeting, the Board met in a private, executive session with the county attorney regarding the Landon Group litigation. According to Schoen, in the meeting the Board discussed and voted to approve a proposed consent order in the Landon Group case, then voted to bring the rezoning issue raised in the Landon Group case back before the Board in a session open to the public.

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