Memo to all the people either holding elected office or seeking a seat this fall: If you want to serve on a public board, study open meeting laws and make sure that you abide by them. If you're ever in a position where you think the law is being violated, speak up immediately and notify the public.

Details emerged last week of a secret meeting in 2006 involving a majority of Auburn city councilors and some members of the Cayuga County Legislature. Because the meeting involved three councilors - Mayor Tim Lattimore and councilors David Dempsey and William Graney #- it qualified as an official meeting and was subject to the state's open meeting laws.

That meant the gathering should have been disclosed ahead of time to the public and minutes should have been taken.

Apparently the three city representatives (the county contingent was not large enough to constitute a quorum on their part) took turns sitting in on the meeting in an effort to show it wasn't an official meeting, but the bottom line is all three came with intent to take part in a meeting and all three did.

Upon being caught last week, the involved officials either pleaded ignorance that they were in violation, passed the blame on to others or stated that there were more important issues to worry about than some meeting in the past.

All of those stances are fundamentally flawed and illustrate a complete disregard for the public these representatives serve.

Open meeting laws are a foundation for representative democracies. If elected officials could conduct official business any time and place they wanted without telling their constituents, there would be no accountability to the public. The system would be vulnerable to major abuse, as well.

And there's no such thing as an illegal meeting that wasn't such a big deal. Once elected officials do this for any reason, they've lost their credibility.