The question: Should council work groups — which can include council members or city staff — be forced to make their meetings public?
The Lexington Herald-Leader had argued the answer is yes, citing a section of the Open Meetings Act it said confirms that subgroups of elected bodies who develop public policy should not hold what amount to closed-door meetings. The paper had questioned whether a solar work group, including four council members and two staff members, ran afoul of the law.
Attorney General Russell Coleman sided with the city. In an April 17 ruling, Coleman wrote in the case of the solar work group, it consisted of all volunteers and was not appointed by Mayor Linda Gorton or Vice Mayor Dan Wu.
While Wu said he was glad to see the AG agreeing that city broke no rules, the Leader writes that the solar work group met 11 times between September 2025 and February 2026 without any advertisement and some groups who oppose large-scale solar on agricultural land were not invited to participate.