The Loveland City Council approved their City Manager's request Tuesday night (Aug. 7) to discuss the McWhinney proposal to use sales tax dollars to buy a trolley attraction for Grand Station in secret at their next meeting.  An open meeting to hear public input on the proposal was scheduled for weeks after the secret session.  The open meeting will take place on August 28, 2007.



Councilman Walt Skowron told the city manager his justification for discussing the matter in private "is quite a stretch."



State law requires locally elected officials to meet and do business in public.  A few exceptions exist inlcuding the ability to "negotiate" certain agreements or property acquisitions where public release of the data could give an unfair advantage to the other side in the negotiation or another interested party.



The Loveland City Council never directed the city manager to renogotiate the MFA (Master Financing Agreement) and several councilmembers have already said publicly the MFA is closed and another change will not be considered.



Don Williams presented the City Council some specious reasoning to try and justify bringing the trolley desicion into a secret session where next steps will be carefully coriographed.  Any thoughts?