The Utah Transit Authority board has canceled a special meeting and tour of the FrontRunner South construction zone after The Salt Lake Tribune protested its closure to the public.

Instead, UTA will welcome reporters on an altered tour that stays out of work zones that the agency says would require special training for safety.

The agency originally scheduled the Wednesday special meeting as a closed tour before its regular monthly meeting.

Officials cited a passage in the state's Open and Public Meetings Act that allows for special meetings to take place away from the normal location if there are extraordinary circumstances. UTA said there were extraordinary circumstances because federal rules require safety training for anyone who enters a rail construction zone, and only the board and staff had received that training.

The law merely allows the board to meet at a second location, though, and says nothing about exempting it from the open meeting law, said Tribune attorney Michael O'Brien.

He notified UTA's attorney of the objection and UTA then canceled the special meeting. Spokesman Gerry Carpenter said the meeting was canceled due to a lack of quorum because it turned out some members could not make it.

UTA instead scheduled an open van tour that does not require safety training, he said.

The Tribune 's attorney said the outcome was the correct one under the law.

"They were in kind of a difficult spot here. They had no basis for closing the meeting," O'Brien said. "The bottom line is they did the right thing."

Whenever a public board has a quorum it must meet in public unless it declares the need for a closed session to discuss matters covered by specific exemptions, such as personnel or real estate transactions.