MARTA faces open meetings lawsuit

Some people in other areas of metro Atlanta are concerned after the decision to expand MARTA into Gwinnett County.

The MARTA Board of Directors has violated the Georgia Open Meetings Act, a community group says in a lawsuit filed last week in Fulton County Superior Court.

The Open Meetings Act requires government boards to conduct their business in public and to give adequate notice of what issues will be discussed. In the lawsuit, the group Concerned Citizens for Effective Government says the board violated the law on June 22 when it approved several items that did not appear on its agenda in advance. Among them was lawsuit settlement.

The group previously complained about the meeting to the state Attorney General's Office.

In response to that complaint, MARTA said its actions did not violate the law. It said the board discussed the lawsuit settlement in a closed session June 22 (as allowed by law) and needed to act on it in a timely fashion to avoid incurring unnecessary legal costs.