Like clockwork, the announcement came this morning: another closed meeting of the Annapolis City Council.

Mayor Josh Cohen, who pledged a new "culture" of openness at City Hall, is proposing the third private meeting in as many months in office.

This time, at its Feb. 8 meeting, the council plans to boot the public out to discuss "collective bargaining negotiations and the energy park," to quote the official announcement.

Those are, respectively, one of the most critical elements of resolving the city's $9 million budget deficit and a proposed project that could provide enough "green energy" to power the entire city.

Wouldn't you like to know what's said in that meeting?

I discussed the practice of secret union negotiations in a previous post. Now we learn the energy park, which has been delayed amid questions about the bid process, also will be discussed in secret.

Cohen has stood by the need for the closed meetings and said that in many other respects his administration has taken steps toward openness. That's true. But the drumbeat of secrecy undermines the positive steps.

The good news is the mayor can't close a meeting unilaterally. The bad news is most aldermen either don't know that or don't seem to care. They shrug and take the mayor and city attorney's word that the closed sessions are necessary, rather than acting as the independently elected public officials they are.

In December, the first time Cohen proposed a closed meeting, three aldermen, Fred Paone, Richard Israel and Ross Arnett, voted to keep it public. (They were outvoted 6-3.) The topic then was the completely uncontroversial appointment of two senior advisers, the city attorney and, ironically, the public information officer.

Disappointingly, no alderman voted against Jan. 25's closed meeting to discuss union bargaining negotiations.

The law allows these closed meetings, but in almost every case they are discretionary. There are very few times a meeting must be closed.

The County Council, which represents more than half a million people, manages to function with no closed meetings. The County Charter specifically bars a quorum of the council from meeting privately for any reason. It says flatly, "All meetings and legislative sessions of the County Council shall be open to the public." No exceptions.

And by the way, Cohen, who was a member of the County Council for three years before becoming mayor, ought to know this.

But the City Council will keep holding these closed meetings unless they think voters care.

So here are the e-mail addresses and phone numbers for the mayor and aldermen.

Let them know what you think.