The Town of Fountain Hills has been notified by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office that a complaint regarding an open meeting law violation against council members has been closed.

In a letter to Town Attorney Aaron Arnson dated Nov. 24, the Office of the Attorney General states “the Office is unable to substantiate a violation of the Open Meeting Law in connection with the allegation.”

The complaint was filed July 10 by Shawn Dow, a resident and political consultant. Dow alleged email exchanges by council members related to potential camera enforcement of red light traffic violations constituted the OML violation.

Specifically, Dow cited an Attorney General’s opinion that states, “When members of the public body are parties to an exchange of e-mail communications that involve discussions, deliberations or taking legal action by a quorum of the public body concerning a matter that may foreseeably come before the public body for action, the communications constitute a meeting through technological devices under the OML. While some one-way communications from one board member to enough members to constitute a quorum would not violate the OML, an e-mail by a member to other members of the public body that proposes legal action would constitute a violation of the OML.”

The letter dismissing the complaint states that “the emails demonstrate that only two council members (Mayor Ginny Dickey and Vice Mayor Mike Scharnow) responded individually to a reporter’s inquiry and that the mayor then forwarded her response to the vice mayor and Town Manager (Grady Miller).

“The exchanged email communications do not appear to rise to the level of legal action as defined in (State Statutes) as the emails were in response to an inquiry, were individually sent to the reporter by (Dickey and Scharnow), and ultimately did not involve a quorum of the council.”

The Town Council ultimately rejected a proposal to install the red light traffic camera, which Dow opposed.