Editorials - 05/10/01

Open government inspires public trust

Except for a few listed exceptions, governing bodies are required to operate openly and hold meetings in the presence of the public and the press. Our elected leaders are allowed to use closed sessions to discuss personnel and student personnel, to confer with attorneys concerning pending litigation and to discuss real estate purchases.

Though the law requires closed session records be kept, often they are unsatisfactory when later reviewed. During a 1998 civil suit between JP Sanitation and Jackson County, then county attorney and clerk to the Board of Commissioners Tom Jones said there were no minutes from certain closed sessions because action was not taken, and state law only required a record of board action.

Unfortunately, the interests of the people were not served as well several weeks ago with the defeat of a bill that would have remedied that situation by requiring local officials to tape all closed sessions. The N.C. Press Association lobbied hard for the bill's passage, and its defeat was a blow both to the public and the press.

In the aftermath of the extensive discussion of the merits of that bill, and its subsequent defeat, we've noticed a troubling local trend - failure to give proper notice of public meetings to those who have requested such information.

It started when the Sylva Town Board held a series of committee meetings without adequate notice. Because that town's standing committees are all composed of three elected board members, which represents a quorum, Sylva's committee meetings are considered special board meetings under the Open Meetings Law.

Though the decision to recommend a city manager for Sylva was made during a personnel committee meeting rather than an announced board meeting - a decision rubber-stamped last week by the full board - there does not appear to have been an intent to exclude the public. Likewise, when we learned that the selection committee charged with making recommendations about a professional county manager had done the same thing, i.e. scheduled and held a meeting without proper notification, our anxiety grew. Again, it appears the lack of notification was an oversight or misunderstanding of the law rather than an attempt to deceive.

The Open Meetings Law stipulates that public bodies - town councils, county commissioners, school boards, authority boards - and all committees formed by or from the public bodies must give 48 hours notice of all special meetings to all who request it. County and town leaders - all of whom do an excellent job of publicizing their board meetings and notifying the press and public of any changes - were apparently unaware that the same rules applied to their appointed committees.

We have chosen this week to reprint a column by N.C. Press Association attorney Hugh Stevens in which the veteran media lawyer outlines two very different procedures for choosing and hiring city managers: the "Raleigh way" and the "Durham way." He equates elected leaders' willingness to open the process with how much they trust the people they were elected to serve.

As we stand poised to report on the upcoming county manager selection and anticipated move to a city manager for the town of Sylva, we hope, for all our sakes, our leaders will choose the "Durham way."

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