CEDAR FALLS -- The scene is played out in towns across Iowa: A citizen comes to a city council meeting expecting a spirited debate on a hot button issue. When the meeting agenda reaches that issue, council members quickly vote without discussion, and the meeting rolls on.

The resident is left wondering: Did they work this all out ahead of time?

Sometimes the answer is yes.

A bill in the Legislature would make it more difficult for local governments to work around the open meetings law.

A walking quorum is legal in Iowa. Nothing in the open meetings law prevents a city council or county board of supervisors from calling in two members at a time, hashing out an issue and making a decision before the topic is discussed in a public meeting.

The poster child for the walking quorum issue was born in 2004 when Polk County supervisors met with members of the Des Moines City Council behind closed doors. The effort was to arrange a deal that would prevent competition with the county-owned Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino.

Supervisors shuffled in and out of the meeting, never reaching a quorum, as the media watched the drama unfold. A $13 million deal resulted from the meetings.

Walking quorums also take place in cities across the state and draw less attention.

Kathleen Richardson, secretary for the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, said her organization receives many calls complaining governmental bodies have reached decisions before conducting public meetings.

"It's one of the things we hear commonly from the citizens who call us," Richardson said. "They say, 'There wasn't a lot of debate about it. There must be something going on.'"

Iowa Ombudsmen William Angrick said the walking quorum loophole is common knowledge around the state, but doesn't generate many of the 5,000 calls his agency receives each year.

"We've been aware of the possibility of groups of less than a quorum meeting to reach decisions in small and larger government bodies around the state," Angrick said. "It's obviously a hole or a void in the current law. It's not in the spirit and intent of the law to practice that kind of behavior."

This year the Legislature is considering a broad bill covering open meetings and open records. One section of that proposed bill would outlaw walking quorums that seek to make decisions on issues.

Language in the Senate study bill expands the definition of a public meeting by saying, "a meeting includes the calculated use of a series of communications, each between less than a majority of the members of a governmental body or their personal intermediaries, that is intended to reach and does in fact reach a majority of the members of the governmental body and that is intended to discuss and develop a collective final decision of a majority outside of a meeting with respect to specific action to be taken by the majority at the meeting."

The Iowa League of Cities is lobbying against the bill. Terry Timmins, associate general counsel for the Iowa League of Cities, thinks the walking quorum would limit the ideas of local elected officials.

"The major problem with it is we feel it will chill legitimate conversations council members have with each other," Timmins said.

Timmins said elected officials need to brainstorm ideas and think outside the box.

"When you try to have those in an open public session they may be hesitant to throw those ideas out there because they may be ridiculed. There has to be a balance between openness and the ability of our members to talk with one another to brainstorm ideas," Timmins said

Wisconsin is one of the few states that forbid walking quorums. In that state, case law established in 1976 that a series of meetings with less than a quorum poses a danger of determining an outcome, making the public meeting a formality.

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, feels a free flow of ideas, such as Timmins mentioned, is precisely why meetings need to be open to the public.

"There's another reason why these things should be out in the open - it's possible some member of the public will have an idea of interest," Lueders said. "There's a reason for public openness, because it's in the best interest of the board to have input from the public."

State Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Cedar Falls, was on a study committee last year that looked at the open meetings and open records laws and is on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is working with the Iowa bill. This week the committee heard from a number of opponents of various aspects of the bill, including the walking quorum section.

Danielson doesn't know what the final version of the bill will look like, but he feels the walking quorum language is clear in that it spells out calculated behavior that would be a deliberate attempt to work around open meetings laws.

In Cedar Falls, Mayor Jon Crews and Richard McAlister, administrative services director, occasionally call council members into City Hall two at a time for informational meetings about a pressing issue.

Cedar Falls City Councilman Kamyar Enshayan quit going to such meetings, thinking they dodge the open meeting laws.

"It's about counting votes ahead of time. Really this involves drawing a consensus," Enshayan said.

The two-by-two meetings usually take place on politically sensitive topics, exactly the kind of issues Enshayan feels need public airing.

"The law doesn't say if this is a sensitive issue, go ahead and meet two by two," Enshayan said. "It's about due process, responsibility to the public."

Such two-by-two meetings were conducted regarding the closure of Franklin Street for the new Lincoln School, the Target distribution centers, a potential commercial development at Thunder Ridge, the location for The Falls aquatic center and the State Street project economic development package.

Crews said the two-by-two meetings are not about creating consensus but getting information to council members.

"It's never been where, 'We've got your vote here, we've got your vote there.' It's not like that," Crews said.

Crews also said such meetings are used sparingly and couldn't recall holding one in the past 1 1/2 years.

Crews said most of the time the smaller meetings are meant to give out complicated information that would require large amounts of time in public meetings. It also allows council members to get answers.

"I think we need to be informed better than we can be in that public council meeting," said Cedar Falls Councilman Axe Haugen.

Councilman Frank Darrah doesn't have a problem with the smaller meetings.

"My whole issue is the more communication the better," Darrah said. "But I understand how small groups can be a concern."

Crews doesn't believe the walking quorums part of the open meetings bill would cause problems for the city of Cedar Falls. The city will abide by whatever the Legislature does.

"The intent of the law is good, but I find it ironic that it would not apply to the legislators themselves," Crews said. "If it's that important, it should apply to the Legislature. Their decisions affect a lot more people than a city."

Enshayan thinks elected officials should be comfortable making decisions in public.

"In general the council processes are very open, and we are very accountable in general. I just wish we didn't do this," Enshayan said.

Contact Jon Ericson at (319) 291-1461 or jonathan.ericson@wcfcourier.com.