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It's very interesting to hear a round of applause from a group listening to a man telling them how he's going to break the rules of an organization he's chosen to join. Once again, though, it'd be nice to hear some facts (which commissioners?) instead of Skip's usual "white people do it so we can" shtick. What about it, Mark? Is there a rule that Skip Alston has just admitted breaking, and if so, what's the consequence?

Sue: Glad you asked. We reporters like it when commissioners and other public officials tell us what's going on in these closed door session.

I've got to say up front: Skip is usually pretty good about sharing some - not all - details from closed door meetings with us grubby reporter types. But I will also say from experience that his accounts sometimes differ from others who were in the room.

This is one area of law/politics/whathaveyou that I'm perfectly willing to be outspoken on: Public officials go behind closed doors way, way too often.

Where I differ with Skip is that I don't think public officials should report what they do to one reporter or one member of an organization. Nor do I think the motivation should be to help one group or another.

I think public officials should report to the public on the public's business. That means giving an immediate, accurate, and as complete as possible account of what went down in a closed session immediately afterward. The door may be closed, but they're still doing the public's business.

Better yet, don't close the doors at all.

My reading of the closed meetings statutes - which some lawyers have told me is right and some have told me is way off base - is that they're permissive: they allow but in most cases do not require public officials to keep a lid on things.

I think in personnel cases, yeah, the public body probably needs to clam up. And you can probably make a pretty good case than commissioners et al. should not talk about legal strategy with the public at large.

But in my experience, staff lawyers frequently threaten public officials with dire consequences if they divulge what's going on behind closed doors. In most cases, that lawyer is delivering a very conservative reading of the law that borders on baloney.

If the council or commissioners are contemplating giving taxpayer money away to a company, that discussion should happen in public. If they are in a big controversy like the one over Jenks Crayton, where contents of the closed session were widely reported anyway, why not do it in the sunshine so people know what went on.

So is Skip breaking a law when he talks to somebody about what went on behind closed doors. I think not.

Is he breaking a rule? Yes, but it's a dumb rule that is regularly broking not just by Skip but by no fewer than five or six of the 11 sitting commissioners. You can argue over the rationale for why he breaks it, and I would, but I'm not going to complain that he does.

The better discussion to have is why closed sessions are used so often and what may be done to limit them.

"Every public body is required to keep full and accurate minutes of all official meetings (including closed sessions)...When a public body meets in closed session, it shall keep a general account of the closed session so that a person not in attendance would have a reasonable
understanding of what transpired....Minutes of legitimate closed sessions are public records..." N.C.G.S. § 143-318.10(e)

Do you know if the minutes of the county commish meetings closed sessions are available and how one would request to review them?

(source: http://www.jus.state.nc.us/cr/opmweb.pdf)

Sue,
Any citizen can make a request for a public record through the Clerk to the Board of Commissioners. While the closed session minutes are considered public records, they can be withheld from disclosure as long as the disclosure would "frustrate" the purpose for having a closed meeting. For instance, a personnel discussion would probably always stay private since those privacy protections never really expire. But if they went into closed session to discuss giving incentives to a company, they'd have to give up the minutes as soon as they disclose who the company is when they announce a public hearing on the incentives.

But as Mark says, the emphasis is on the words "can" or "may." State law gives governments the ability to withhold disclosure of some records but doesn't require them to. As a matter of policy, elected officials could instruct their staffs to waive their rights, stop holding closed sessions and release almost any public record (with a few exceptions).

The other problem with minutes of closed door meetings is that they tend to be sparce. I've reviewed many minutes of closed door sessions and they usually say just enough to keep the public body from getting sued.

There's actually a great deal of disagreement among clerks about how detailed minutes in general need to be. Around these parts, most adhere to the "Action Minutes" style of recording. So you might get something like:

>8:10 p.m. Upon motion of Council Member X, the council ajourned to a closed session to discuss economic development.
>8:15 p.m. Council members heard from Joe Blow of the local economic development recruitment agency.
>8:21 p.m. Council members discussed the proposal for incentives to help Brand X relocate to our fair city.
>8:23 p.m. Council members directed staff to call a public hearing on offering Brand X incentives.

Of course, that assumes that the Clerk bothers to look at his/her watch and actually records the name of the company, some do not. And sometimes the clerks aren't even in the room when such things are discussed, so you're relying on a member of the public body to take "full and accurate" minutes.

Bottom line: the minutes don't tell you things like which council members asked questions, what questions were asked, what threats were made, etc...

Hmm, very interesting. FOR CUTTHROAT COVERAGE OF NEWS THAT MATTERS, NO HOLDS BARRED REPORTING, VISIT THE GREENSBORO BEE