Ms. Miller ran on a platform of transparency and baselessly accused City Council members of deliberating in private. Given that, it is appalling how often Ms. Miller flaunts the Open Meetings Act (OMA). The OMA is a law that requires deliberation on council topics to occur in open, public meetings. Deliberations, whether oral or written, are prohibited by 3 or more council members outside of a public meeting. This law is in place to ensure transparency. All newly elected officials normally attend a half-day training offered by the Michigan Municipal League designed to orient them to their new role. A large part of this course covers the various aspects of the OMA. Ms. Miller refused to go to this training and insisted she did not need it, so she regularly commits potential OMA violations. Here are a couple of recent examples of Ms. Miller's voluminous potential OMA violations:
June 27, 2023 In this email thread (read from bottom to top), Ms. Miller contacts all Council members (3 or more is a violation), discusses her thoughts, and attempts to educate the entire Council on personnel issues that the Council was deliberating upon at that time. Discussing an active Council topic under the cloak of email secrecy is a potential OMA violation. Note the City Attorney stepped in and admonished Ms. Miller.
June 28, 2023 In this email thread (read from bottom to top), Ms. Miller contacts all Council members (3 or more is a violation) and discusses her thoughts on a resident issue via email. Using email prevents residents from seeing this information. Most distressing in this email is the fact that Ms. Miller jokes about the seriousness of the OMA and her admonishment from her potential violation the day before (see June 27, 2023 incident above) by placing the banner “Warning, Warning - Don't reply to all” at the top of this email. Simply telling others not to “reply all” does not alleviate the constraints of the OMA and the need to conduct City Council business in a public setting. It is distressing to see Ms. Miller joke about her lack of transparency and potential OMA violation.