What is Closing the Meeting?

A word about closing commission proceedings to the public may be an appropriate way to end this section on commission meetings. As a general rule in Montana, only the presiding officer may close a commission meeting and then only when the presiding officer makes a finding recorded in the minutes that the right of privacy of an individual clearly exceeds the right of the public to know and to participate in the public’s business. The meaning of this general
rule and the few exceptions to it require interpretation by competent legal counsel. Improperly closing a commission meeting may and probably will result in costly litigation. 

Governing the Municipality 45
In general, there are two acceptable reasons for closing a commission meeting (MCA 2-3-203). The presiding officer may close the meeting if he or she determines that the “demands of individual privacy clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure”. The most common individual privacy reasons for closing a meeting are related to personnel issues. The second acceptable reason for closing a meeting is to discuss legal strategy related to litigation. It is acceptable to close a public meeting if the discussions of legal strategy in an open meeting would put the city/town at a disadvantage in pending litigation. Minutes must be taken during closed meetings, however, those minutes must not be made available to the public except by court order (MCA 2-3-212(4)).