The task of the city's ethics board is to "advance transparency and accountability" in city government, according to a rewrite the board approved yesterday of city rules on gifts, tickets and charitable events.

That being the case, it was ironic that the board met behind closed doors to discuss the new rules.

The rewrites were ordered in 2007 after Mayor Luke Ravenstahl accepted a high-priced round of golf at a charity outing from UPMC and the Penguins, both of which were doing business with the city.

After more than a year of work (and clearing the mayor of wrongdoing), the board was poised yesterday to unfurl its proposed new rules, which would set a cap on the numbers of freebies city workers can take and require that they be in the course of city business.

Before meeting publicly in the City Council Chamber on the new regulations -- which could be hotly debated by council and the mayor, as the city approaches a mayoral election year -- the board met privately in a Law Department conference room to discuss them.

Generally, the state's Sunshine Act requires all government meetings to be public, unless they are about pending litigation, personnel or property matters.

Sister Patrice Hughes, the board's chair, said the five board members were "very careful" not to debate the regulations, which they were given in advance. "All it provided was clarity. There were no decisions made" in private, she said.

City Solicitor George Specter, who also sat in on the closed-door session, said the board members have been getting "input from various aspects of the city" on the regulations and were merely "discussing their thoughts" about them.

Those explanations didn't pass muster with legal experts at the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, who monitor open meetings and open records matters statewide.

"There is no exception that allows agency members to 'get clarity' or 'discuss their thoughts' about agency business behind closed doors. If a quorum is discussing agency business, the general rule requires that discussion to happen in public," said PNA media law counsel Melissa Bevan Melewsky in an e-mail.

"To the extent that the board members discussed policy and its possible impact on city government, I think that discussion should have been held during a public meeting. The general rule requires most meetings to be public because the public is entitled to witness and participate in policy creation."

To write the new rules, an ethics board working group -- which included council and mayor's office officials, a nonprofit executive and an official from PNC Corp. -- met 16 times over the past year and reviewed more than 20 other city ethics codes, vice chair Kathy Buechel said.

The board would not release its proposed regulations for gifts to city elected officials and workers, but from their public discussion they appear to go like this:

• All gifts valued at $100 or more need to be reported and will be posted monthly on the board's Web site.

• Free tickets or participation in public events (including charity golf outings or ceremonies) are acceptable, provided officials are invited by the sponsoring organization and are serving in an official city capacity.

• Officials who are members of associations or boards are allowed to receive tickets related to that work. So if a council member is on the Sports & Exhibition Authority and gets Penguins tickets from the authority, that's OK.

• Gifts valued at less than $100 do not have to be disclosed. Since ticket costs may be less than $100 but can pile up over a season, the rules would limit workers to receiving free tickets to no more than four events each year from any one donor or organization.