Alabama AG Issues Opinion Supporting Secret Meetings of Banking Board

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - State Attorney General Troy King says
Alabama’s banking board may meet in secret if its entire agenda
that day is confidential.
    King’s opinion, published Monday, said the board can meet in
secret if it is considering information about banks that are
failing or in danger of failing if nothing else is on the agenda.
    State law gives the board wide latitude in handling internal
matters of banks in executive sessions.
    The banking board met Aug. 10, four days before it seized
Colonial Bank in a meeting originally scheduled for Aug. 12. State
law generally requires notice of a changed meetings, and Dennis
Bailey, attorney for the Alabama Press Association, was quoted in a
story in the Aug. 12 edition of the Montgomery Advertiser
questioning the legality of the meeting.