Jackson v. Board of Commissioners

WILLIAMS, Judge.

This is an appeal by Sidney Cates III from a decision finding that the Board of Commissioners for the Housing Authority of New Orleans [“Board] violated the “Open Meetings Law” (La. R.S. 42:4.1 et seq) in awarding him an employment contract.

A meeting of the Board was scheduled on January 9, 1986. Based upon the testimony of numerous witnesses at trial, a rumor circulated prior to that meeting that the Board would discuss entering into an employment contract with its then-director Cates. The agenda of the meeting, distributed a number of days earlier, did not include any…