From the Daily Camera (Boulder):  The Boulder City Council will hold its first ever closed session in early December.

Boulder voters approved a charter amendment on Nov. 4 to allow the City Council to meet in executive session specifically to discuss legal issues and negotiation strategy related to municipalization. The first such closed session will take place either Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m. or Dec. 8 at 6 p.m.

Until now, the City Charter required that all meetings be open to the public. Reasons that other government bodies could use to go behind closed doors — real estate transactions, personnel matters and legal issues — were not available in Boulder.

Before that historic first closed meeting, the City Council will discuss procedures to govern the use of executive session at their Dec. 2 regular meeting.

Some of the rules are outlined in the charter amendment. For example, it requires a two-thirds vote of the council to enter executive session and any two council members can suspend it if they feel that the discussion is straying off topic. And the meetings will be recorded in case of a legal challenge.

But other guidelines need to be incorporated into City Council rules and procedures.

The Boulder County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has called on the City Council to pledge to release all recordings once litigation with Xcel Energy has concluded.

On Tuesday, the City Council adopted by emergency a new records policy that aligns the city with state policy and allows the destruction of executive session recordings after 90 days.

Visit the Daily Camera for more.