With all-new faces and a mayor entering his first full term, the Lewiston City Council’s need for an organizational meet-and-greet is understandable. No sense going into the year wearing name tags, after all.

Holding it behind closed doors, however, was an error.

On Tuesday night, the councilors-elect met privately with city staffers and the mayor for a briefing about issues facing the community. The Androscoggin Bank Colisee, for example. Immigration. City staffing. Etc.

In other words, nothing really surprising, or even that controversial.

The meeting was closed under the rationale that until these councilors are sworn-in, their gathering is exempt from open-meeting laws. Well, that’s true. There’s nothing in law that compels such openness, although if the topics were as vanilla as proclaimed, there was little reason to close it.

Colisee foibles, the serious issues related to immigration, the city budget – all are public knowledge, and none is a newcomer. Either this meeting rehashed old information, or unveiled unforeseen truths – either way, there’s strong arguments in both for having this discussion in public.

Then there’s the comfort factor. New officials are usually unfamiliar with procedural matters, such as Robert’s Rules of Order, or unaware every word they utter, or document they produce, is subject to public scrutiny or access. It’s a daunting feeling, we know, this suddenly being watched, chronicled and evaluated.

And one reason we’ve endorsed mandatory training for officials on public records and access laws.

Still, getting comfortable and familiar with operating in a public forum takes time. It takes hard-fought experience with serious issues, like facing upset taxpayers or angry special-interests. To be an effective city councilor, one must work well with peers on the panel, true, but most of all, earn the trust of the public they serve.

This comes from facing the public, and working in public. And if there’s anything a new group of councilor-elects could use some practice with, it’s becoming accustomed to working in a public forum.

Lewiston’s had that chance on Tuesday. It’s too bad none of them saw value in seizing it.