FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The City Council met in executive session two hours last Tuesday night for a special meeting regarding pending litigation involving the city but took no formal action on any of the cases.

”I hereby request the Fairhope City Council go into executive session to hear an update of all the legal issues (current and pending),” read City Attorney Marion “Tut” Wynne from a letter he entered into the minutes of the executive session.

The letter stated the council would meet for approximately two hours then return to open session to resume the meeting.

All five members of the council, the mayor, Wynne, and three attorneys with the Hand, Arendall law firm which provides legal services to the city, left the council chambers, apparently to attend the executive session.

According to state law, a government body must take several steps in order to legally meet in executive session.

“Before entering an executive session the body must: (1) convene an open meeting; (2) move to go into executive session, setting forth the statutorily allowed reason for the session; (3) certify that an executive session is warranted; (4) vote to go into executive session (with each member’s vote openly given and recorded in the meeting minutes); and (5) state whether the body will reconvene after the session, and, if so, the approximate time the body will reconvene,” states the summary of the applicable law in the Alabama Press Association Legal Manual.

After two hours and four minutes, the council returned briefly to an open meeting before adjourning, according to draft minutes of the meeting that will be presented for approval at Monday’s council meeting.

“No action was taken,” Council President Debbie Quinn said. “I did reiterate that I wanted the attorneys to forward the (Fairhope Courier) a list of cases and their docket numbers.”

The Fairhope Courier had requested that information prior to the executive session.

Wynne said he provided an update to the council in the executive session on approximately 12 cases or related cases.

Wynne said the city’s pending litigation includes matters related to disputes over sewer lines, construction of a private pier, drainage problems, a bill allegedly not paid for work done during airport expansion, denial of a subdivision application, moratorium on construction in wetlands, and reimbursement from a citizen who crashed his automobile into local police vehicles.

The pending litigation also includes two more complex cases, involving the Colony at the Grand condominium development and the so-called Dyas Triangle litigation.

The lawsuit over the eight-story condominium project has stalled while state appellate courts have considered a similar issue that is the subject of a pending motion in the local case.

That similar case is now before the Alabama Supreme Court. The developer in that case lost at the Alabama Civil Appeals and appealed to the state supreme court.

The Dyas Triangle case has been transferred to U.S. Federal District Court in Mobile, while all the other cases are in state circuit court in Bay Minette.

The Dyas case contends, among other claims, that the city did not treat equally its plans to build a mixed-used development at the intersection of Veterans Drive and U.S. 98/Greeno Road in the same way that the city allowed construction of a mixed-used project at Parker Road and U.S. 98/Greeno Road. Both of those projects sought to include a “big box” grocery store in the plans.

A Publix supermarket is now under construction at the Parker Road project, which has been the subject of a stop-work order by the city, and a notice of violation by the state environmental agency, for problems related to stormwater runoff from the construction site into nearby Fly Creek.

The Tuesday night executive session occurred pursuant to state law, which allows a few exceptions to the general rule that all government meetings must occur in open meetings. One of those exceptions is to discuss with an attorney the legal ramifications of and legal options for pending litigation, according to the state Open Meetings Act.

Although government bodies such as city councils can meet in private for such purposes, they are limited in what they can discuss in private.

“If any deliberation begins among the members of the governmental body regarding what action to take relating to pending or threatened litigation based upon the advice of counsel, the executive session shall be concluded and the deliberation shall be conducted in the open portion of the meeting or the deliberation shall cease,” states Section 36-25A-7(a)(3) of the Ala. Code.