« Heart of the Triad: Connecting with the community | Main | On the Agenda: Jamestown planning »

February 10, 2006

Secret meetings and your City Council

Education reporter Bruce Buchanan has a report today on two meetings that took place between school officials and members of the city council to talk about redistricting.

The meetings weren't "closed" to the public, but no one bothered to let the public know they were going on, either. And the meetings didn't violate the letter of the state's open meetings law since no more than four city council members were present at each meeting. Had a majority of the council, i.e. five members, been present, well, that's another story.

If any formal decisions had been made, or later resulted from the meeting, then I think someone would have a strong basis for challenging the validity of the decision.

There have been cases in other states -- I'm not aware of any in North Carolina -- where a judge has ruled that splitting a government body into two seperate groups in order to avoid notifying the public may satisfy the letter of the law but violates the intent of the law and therefore is not allowed. But in perhaps the most famous case of using a "constructive quorum" -- the firing of Indiana University basketball coach by the college's Board of Trustees -- a judge said it was OK.

It appears no decisions came out of the High Point meeting(s) -- Mayor Smothers says they were "informational" only -- so there wouldn't be much for one to challenge.

Posted by Jonathan Jones at February 10, 2006 10:01 AM

Comments

The folks south of 311 have one set of rules, we who live north of 311 don't matter.

SOS

Posted by: NC Transplant at February 11, 2006 2:56 PM

Amen to that, Transplant. And I almost fell out of my chair when I read that the Becky clone, Ms. Stalmann said that it just happened that way simply because of availability of council members. I think she's a liar, just like her mentor.

If it was an "informational session" as Puppet Becky claimed, when did council not attend the GCS forum in High Point like everyone else? Probably because they were too busy trying to cover up their incompetence in the recent ABC debaucle.

It really sickens me that my tax dollars are going into their sleezy pockets.

Posted by: SC at February 11, 2006 8:49 PM

I've been away from the blog for a few days but I've seen some interesting comments on these meetings in the last couple of days. The N&R's editorial board weighed in, focusing on the city council actually getting involved. And the paper's editor, John Robinson, gave some of his thoughts over here. The High Point Enterprise's editorial board gave its thoughts today in a pointed opinion about the council's secrecy. Unfortunately I can't link directly to the article because of the web publishing system they use. You have to be a subscriber to log in.

Posted by: Jonathan Jones at February 13, 2006 2:12 PM

The HPE editorial today basically says it all.

Apparently High Point is a city without rules. Clearly the city goes through the water rudderless.

Posted by: Buckmtn at February 13, 2006 7:35 PM