In the midst of a heated debate last week, Allegheny County Council President Rich Fitzgerald revealed that council's Democratic caucus often meets behind closed doors with enough members present to form a quorum.

That practice, which Mr. Fitzgerald said has been part of council's standard operating procedures for years, is a violation of Pennsylvania's open records and meetings law, according to experts familiar with application of the law commonly known as the Sunshine Act.

"The basic rule of quorum applies every time they meet. This practice raises significant Sunshine Act concerns and is very troublesome," said Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

Mr. Fitzgerald, D-Squirrel Hill, said the Democrats, who hold an 11-4 majority on the 15-member council, regularly hold closed-door caucus sessions to discuss potential agenda items that may come up at council's scheduled public meetings, which are held twice a month.

"It is very informal. We use the meeting to catch up with what legislation might be coming up and then there might be questions that we bring up," he said. "It is an informational meeting that we have been doing for seven years."

Many times, he added, the caucus meeting is sparsely attended with barely enough members for a quorum, which requires the presence of eight council members.

But sometimes -- like during a caucus meeting two weeks ago when the Democrats met and decided to call a special meeting of council to grant the body power to put referendum questions on the ballot -- they have more than eight members seated at a conference table, essentially holding a closed door council meeting.

"They cannot do that. Whenever a quorum assembles, that is a council meeting. Any deliberations conducted by a quorum of council should be open to the public under the Sunshine Act," said Tom McGough, an attorney at Reed Smith, who also represents the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

"There is nothing in the law that says politically affiliated quorums of council are allowed under the open meetings act," Mr. McGough said, adding that only the General Assembly has a Sunshine Act exemption that allows caucus meetings to have a quorum. That exemption does not apply to County Council, he said.

County Council's solicitor, Jack Cambest, could not be reached for comment last week, but Allegheny County Solicitor Mike Wojcik said the issue will most likely be settled by a ruling from the State Ethics Commission.

"I have reviewed what they tell me happens in the [caucus] meetings, and I think it is fine as long as they are not taking official actions," Mr. Wojcik said.

Jared Barker, council's director of legislative services, said the caucus meetings fall within the constraints of the Sunshine Act, because the Democrats take no official action in the meetings and there are some exemptions to the law.

For example, he said, County Council members are allowed to have a quorum for informational sessions like a conference where they are being educated about a particular subject.

"It is about more than the number of people at the meeting. It is also about what they talk about," Mr. Barker said. He added that there is also a distinction between informational discussions and deliberations in a caucus meeting with a quorum of council.

"Deliberations are discussions of agency business for the purpose of making a decision," Mr. Barker said, adding that over the years, the courts have had a hard time establishing whether discussions in a caucus meeting rise to the level of deliberation.

What is more, he added, the courts have also in recent years allowed government agencies to "cure" or correct Sunshine Act violations by repeating the deliberation or actions they take behind closed doors in a public meeting.

But both Ms. Melewsky and Mr. McGough argue the courts never intended for the "cure" as a way around the Sunshine Act's stipulations.

"What they are doing is completely against the intent of the law," Ms. Melewsky said. The curing of Sunshine Act violations, she said, was intended to be used occasionally, adding, "You can't do it every other week."

"Every time they meet and have a quorum like this, even if they are not taking votes, the public loses its ability and right to comment on the decision-making process," Ms. Melewsky said. "It is almost useless to have the same discussion in a public meeting because the real meeting has already happened. It is basically a rubber stamp process."

Councilman Vince Gastgeb, R-Bethel Park, chairman of the four-member Republican caucus agrees.

"It makes it twice as hard to convince [the Democrats] on key positions when they come into the council meeting with a predetermined position that they have all talked about together," Mr. Gastgeb said.

"Take the debate on [implementing Allegheny County's 10 percent] drink tax for example; they would come out of their caucus meetings when they had already taken hard positions and it was very hard to have an honest debate," he added.

Sara Rose, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said County Council and other governmental agencies can violate the Sunshine Act in Pennsylvania, because the commonwealth has a very weak open meetings law.

"There is very little meat to the law in Pennsylvania," she said, adding that many municipalities often flout the law until they are challenged.