Dispute over videoing Jail Committee meetings reveals abuse of power by Chairman Langley | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    There was an interesting discussion and vote at the October Beaufort County Commissioners meeting that would probably go unnoticed unless we highlight it.

    The issue was whether Jail Committee meetings should be videoed. Here's the breakdown:

    As you will hear in the discussion in the video clip below, the practice has been that if a commissioner wanted a meeting videoed he requested that the Manager arrange that it be done. The idea was that often a commissioner cannot attend all the meetings they would like to so if it is recorded they can obtain the disk and watch it whenever they can. Of course the same is true with any member of the public or the press.

    (We would ad that the Observer makes extensive use of this feature. We simply cannot have a reporter at every meeting of the various agencies so we get the video and then edit it for posting so the public does not have to sit and watch the entire video to get the salient parts thereof. That is exactly what this article is doing.)

    The taping of such meetings also produces a permanent record of what went on. If the County Clerk needs to review the video to insure accuracy of the minutes, the record is there.

    But our experience is that the most significant feature about meetings being recorded is that it imposes on the participants a measure of accountability that is not there if what is said and done will never be seen by the public. We would argue that recording public meetings is one of the strongest accountability tools We The People have going for us.
Beaufort County Commissioner Jerry Langley: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    In the past it has not been a big issue. It was just done. But the current Commission Chairman, Jerry Langley, recently unilaterally changed all that. He order the County Manager NOT to record Jail Committee meetings. We'll leave it to you to assess why he might have done this.

    But Hood Richardson blew the whistle, once again. He raised the issue at the October meeting. You can watch the discussion and vote below:



    There will be a Jail Committee meeting November 6 at 3:30. Presumably that and all subsequent meetings will be videoed. We will post significant clips here.

    Commentary

    Let's cut to the chase. What we have here is a clear example of Jerry Langley abusing his power as Chairman. He gives orders to the County Manager. That is not appropriate. Nowhere in the Rules of Procedure of the Board of Commissioners does he have the authority to act without board consent. He has no authority other than that conveyed by the board.

    For example, he appointed the Jail Committee without following the prescribed appointment process. That process stipulates that appointments will be made by the Board or with the consent of the board voted on in open meeting. (And that makes the Jail Committee illegal if someone decides to sue the County on this issue).

    The same is true with the decision to video the Jail Committee meetings. Langley has no authority to dictate whether the meetings will be videoed or not.

    We are extremely disappointed in the weak position the County Manager has taken on such abuse of power by the Chairman. That is not in the best interest of the County. (And in our experience, not in his own professional best interest in the long run). We will hope for stronger leadership from the Manager in the future. He does not work for the Chairman. He works for the Board.

    Now we realize that as long as Langley can muster four votes he can get what he wants. But that is a far different matter than him dictating his wishes behind the scenes. The important thing is that the decisions he wants implemented be transparent to the public. And the public can only know what is done in public. That's why the law and procedures are spelled out the way they are.

    Many people criticize Hood for ranting and raving and we will admit that we cringe sometimes when he "goes over the top" in his rants. But having seen how politics is played in Beaufort County we understand that if he does not scream sometimes these shenanigans will go on and on. Langley is one of the worst offenders of these shenanigans we've ever observed in over 40 years of observing governing boards.

    The problem, we sense, is that Jerry has an attitude problem. It was seen when he used his position to try to extort special job favors for his wife in the Chickengate debacle. If you watch closely you can see it in nearly every meeting, if in nothing else but his body language and facial expressions. You can often see it in the way he treats people who appear before the board. Some are treated with the utmost courtesy while others are treated with disdain. He let some people go way over his "Three Minute Rule" and crack the whip on others who go a few seconds over.

    His speech in this video clip is a classic example of arrogance. His argument that "anybody who wants to attend a Jail Committee meeting can just walk through that door..." No, Jerry, anybody cannot come to the meetings. Most people have to work for a living. But just because they can't take time off work to attend a Jail Committee meeting does not mean they don't have a right to know what went on. Langley's position belies his attitude. It is an arrogant elitism that he and he alone knows what is best.

    We all know what's really behind the videoing of the Jail Committee meetings. It's the same thing that's behind Judge Wayland Sermons demanding that county staff "report" to him on a monthly basis what is going on with "planning the construction" of a new jail and that these session are not conducted in public.

    Both Sermons and Langley, and a few others, simply don't want to do the public's business being conducted in public. They fear the accountability that comes from the people knowing that the public is going to know what they're doing behind the scenes.

    But held accountable they will be. The Beaufort Observer, as the crawler at the top of our Home Page says, will shine the light on "people who loved darkness because their deeds were evil" John 3:19. Count on it.