A quorum of the Landis Board of Aldermen ate dinner together a couple of Wednesdays ago without calling a public meeting.
Since I was at the gathering, too, I can’t call the meeting secret or illegal.
In fact, it was the quarterly meeting of the Rowan Municipal Association, held this time at the Stag ’n Doe Restaurant in China Grove. They let me come along to talk about the Post.
Mostly, though, I wanted to listen to what they had to say about the Post and our coverage. They gave me plenty to think about.
Take, for example, the public records and open meetings laws. When Isaid I had brought copies for anyone who wanted them, the audience chuckled. I was talking to town managers and elected officials from seven of the county’s 10 municipalities, plus three Rowan County officials. These people work with the law every day.
You probably know more about the law than we do, I said.
“Would you repeat that, please?” Landis Town Manager F.E. Isenhour piped up.
You probably know more about the law than we do, I repeated.
More chuckles all around.
Very funny. Very funny.
Of course, you know what that means. When elected officials and/or staff do something that violates the spirit of the law —in our opinion at the Post —they do it intentionally and with full knowledge. Because they know the law.
Actually, I was preaching to the choir that Wednesday night, the most involved top officials. But each election brings in new faces and begins a new learning curve for public officials concerning what the public has a right to see and hear.
State law says public bodies exist solely to conduct the people’s business. So, the law says, “it is the public policy of North Carolina that the hearings, deliberations and actions of these bodies be conducted openly.”
That’s what upset some Salisbury residents about the prospect of three school board members’ meeting last week with other people to talk about the future of Salisbury High. Even if the gathering didn’t involve a quorum of the school board (which would be four members) it appeared a substantial number of board members were going to deliberate in private about a very public matter.
To deliberate, according to one N.C. court decision, “is to examine, weigh and reflect upon the reasons for or against” a possible decision. “Deliberations thus connote not only collective discussion, but the collective acquisition and exchange of facts preliminary to the ultimate decision,” the court said. (So quotes an Institute of Government publication, “Open Meetings and Local Governments in North Carolina.”)
Gathering opinions on the fate of a public school sounds like “the collective acquisition and exchange of facts preliminary to the ultimate decision” to me. Inviting just enough officials to do that to be one person shy of a quorum is legal. But it raises a lot of questions in the minds of others when they find out about it.
To his credit, School Board Member David Aycoth called off the meeting in question when he saw how it had spiraled in size and created the wrong impression —that is, when word leaked out.
A lack of communication instantly looks like secrecy, and secrecy leads to paranoia. “What are they up to?”
Isn’t it ironic? Back when the redistricting debate was at its hottest in spring 2000 and Vic Bost zipped his redistricting proposal through a school board vote,critics of the proposal were more than vocal. They accused school board members of holding secret meetings and cried “foul” when it became obvious that Bost had worked out this deal in private, talking one-on-one with fellow board members.
Citizen Aycoth stated some pretty strong opinions at the subsequent public meetings. I don’t recall if he addressed the secrecy issue particularly, but everyone involved came away with a conviction that — whatever the outcome —leaving the public out of the deliberations just created doubt and backlash . That’s one of the reasons Bost’s coalition fell apart and the board ditched his plan.
Now Aycoth is on the other side of the table, having been elected last fall. Thanks to last week’s experience —complete with phone calls, accusations and rumors —he now has an appreciation for how easily a board member’s best intentions to build consensus can raise suspicion and doubt.
This is territory that every public official has to find his or her own place in. I’ve had some tell me nothing could ever happen on a public board if members did not talk one-on-one occasionally behind the scenes, to see which ideas might fly and which ones have no chance of getting off the ground.
But where do you draw the line?A chance, one-on-one discussion grows into a planned lunch, which could lead to a called gathering of three board members. Before you know it, one of them can recruit another member to their side and they’ve formed a voting caucus that can call all the shots without even consulting the remaining board members.
The law is the law. It spells out the minimum a board has to do to involve the public, with its quorums and official meetings and such.
But here’s a vote for elected officials to go beyond minimum requirements and keep discussions out in the open whenever possible. Not just so the Post can be there to cover it. But so other board members and potential critics can’t claim to have been left out.
nnn
Elizabeth G. Cook is editor of the Salisbury Post.
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