Members of a Fort Worth city board may have violated the state's open meetings law by talking with a downtown developer outside a public meeting, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.

The developer called the eight board members to discuss the plans for City Place, a large mixed-use complex in downtown Forth Worth.

An assistant city attorney cautioned the members of the Downtown Design Review Board about the communication with the developer, even though the board members did not meet as a group outside the public meeting forum:

Melinda Ramos, an assistant city attorney, reviewed the act with the board Thursday after city staff told her that David Porter, president of PNL Cos., wanted the phone numbers of the eight board members. PNL is redeveloping City Place, the former Tandy Center complex.

'The fact that he was trying to contact all of you, that created the walking quorum,' Ramos said. 'I would advise you to avoid that kind of discussion.'

The developer said he wanted to show the board members the site:

He said he looked into open-meetings rules beforehand and was told that he just couldn’t meet with more than one or two board members at a time.

The debate in Fort Worth centered on the state law on open meetings, which is designed to make sure that public officials conduct their work well within the public's view. Discussions and deliberation should, according to the spirit of the Texas Open Meetings Act, always be hashed out in an open meeting. Without that safeguard, public meetings could become little more than venues to approve deals that have already been cut behind closed doors.

For more news related to open meetings, check out the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which highlighted a recent case out of Alpine, Texas.