EVANS CITY — Tensions boiled over at Monday's borough council meeting, after council members pushed back on accusation that they held illegal unadvertised meetings in violation of the state's Sunshine Act.

Council member Shelley Natali, mayor Dean Zinkhann and EDCO park President John Rogers said that they believe Sunshine violations have been taking place in the borough and pointed to several incidents in the past year, most recently a Feb. 19 parks board meeting where a quorum of council members attended and commented on borough business, in violation of open meeting laws.

“They had the quorum of three at the public meeting, which wouldn't have been an issue if they hadn't contributed to the discussion,” Natali said in an interview after the meeting.

The Sunshine Act governs municipal open meeting requirements, specifically that all public council meetings must be available to the public and previously advertised so residents can attend. A council meeting is whenever a quorum — in this case at least three members of the council — are in attendance and discuss borough business.

At the meeting, council received the complaint in the EDCO parks board report. It outlined the board's concerns about the Feb 19 meeting as well as their suspicions about three council members meeting after the parks board meeting.

Council president Lee Dyer said that if any rules were broken, it was done inadvertently with no intention of violating open meeting requirements.

“If I made a violation of the Sunshine Act by making a comment at that meeting it was purely innocent,” he said. “I thought as a citizen I could come in here and raise my hand on several questions. I wasn't behaving as a council member; I was behaving as a citizen in my opinion.”

A full report will appear in Monday's Butler Eagle.