Michigan's Open Meetings Act sets some pretty strict rules for ensuring public access to meetings of public officials, but the Act doesn't apply to collective bargaining sessions, where agreements can have a huge impact on the public. An example is Lansing's early retirement incentive program of 1992, which city council felt compelled to approve because it was "negotiated in good faith" with the Teamsters. 144 employees retired with generous bonuses, including the mayor, the city clerk, the budget director and the finance director. This is from a 1/11/1993 article in the Lansing State Journal:

     [W]hen the council tried to put off the entire deal, it was told that would be an unfair labor practice, because the Teamsters had negotiated in good faith. . . .
     The council discussed the plan in two private meetings before voting on it. Michigan Open Meetings laws allowed the closed meetings because the topic related to union negotiations. . . .
     Council members were told not to discuss the plan with anyone and any notes they took were collected after each meeting,  [councilwoman Ellen] Beal said.

The city council is the city's legislative body, elected by the people of Lansing. Any time important decisions are made by anyone other than the council, outside the view of the people of Lansing, democracy is thwarted.

Just recently, I was looking at the "definitions" for the Police and Fire Retirement System in chapter 294 of the City ordinances (on the City Clerk's website). Under Voluntary Retirement it says "A new member [that is, hired after December 31, 1943] may retire after his or her attainment of age 50 if he or she has 25 or more years of credited service, or after his or her attainment of age 55."

That's not true; the ordinance is wrong. Police and firefighters do not have to attain age 50. They can retire at any age as long as they have 25 years of service, and that is the way it's been as far back as 1988 (see IAFF contract, page 85). Up to 5 of those years can be purchased. And police and firefighters do retire as young as age 46.