Last week I attended a meeting of the Kenedy City Council where pretty much the entire meeting was one long string of executive sessions.

In case you don’t know what an executive session is, that’s when a governing body (a city council, school board, commissioners court, etc.) goes behind closed doors to discuss things in secret.

With rare exceptions, the law requires governing entities to conduct their business in public for one simple reason.

It’s the public’s money being spent, and it’s the public’s business.

Last week’s meeting concerned items that are of a public nature. Changes in city ordinances and contracts for street repairs are the kind of thing the public has a right to know about and they should be discussed in public.

Public officials often get caught in a trap of thinking that they can do a better job of handling their business if they can "keep things quiet" by adjourning into executive session, but they are forgetting that what they manage does not belong to them – it belongs to the public.

While in exile for more than two hours spent with about a dozen other people in a sweltering space with nowhere to sit except a four-inch brick ledge, I had a lot of time to think about open meetings and why the law requires open government.

Eventually, I surrendered and went home without knowing what had happened.

This kind of secrecy is wrong and this is why the law requires public officials to meet in public. People have a right to know. On almost all public issues, they have a right to know what is going on – how their tax dollars are being spent.

But nobody – except for the insiders – knew what was going on at that meeting last week.

As far as I’m concerned, changing city ordinances or discussion of contracts with companies that work for the city should be discussed in open session, so that the public can understand what’s being considered.

It is the public’s money, after all. They pay the taxes.

The money does not belong to the mayor or city council members and they need to remember that.