Doesn’t matter if you elect new councillors. If the Council can’t hold a substantive meeting without the public present all meetings are electioneering. You can’t negotiate in public unless you are completely secure in your power. Any negotiation will involve setting out options, give and take that will anger some part of any coalition. If the meetings are public those angered people get to yell at the councillors and otherwise disrupt the negotiations, not just physically but by raising coalitions against proposed measures in almost real time.

Obviously the various factions will have private meetings among themselves and have private meetings between representatives when they actually need to get things done or come to an agreement.

This degrading of internal communications is pretty much the entire point of Wikileaks.