Bad decisions made in bad ways | Eastern North Carolina Now

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

It was a bad decision and it was made in a bad way.

    The decision was an administrative one and should have been made solely by the County Manager according to board policy. Instead, because there is no policy, it was made by a secret phone vote by board members. Such decision-making is certainly contrary to the intent of state law.

    North Carolina General Statute § 143-318.9. says:

    Public policy.

    Whereas the public bodies that administer the legislative, policy-making, quasi-judicial, administrative, and advisory functions of North Carolina and its political subdivisions exist solely to conduct the people's business, it is the public policy of North Carolina that the hearings, deliberations, and actions (emphasis added) of these bodies be conducted openly.

    That's about as plain and straight-forward as it can be.

    If you want to get a bit more technical, in relation to the subject of this article, you will want to know that § 143-318.13 deals with "Electronic Meetings." Simply stated, it provides for a public body to take action via telephone but it requires that "...it shall provide a location and means whereby members of the public may listen to the meeting and the notice of the meeting required by this Article shall specify that location."

    This law was broken by the Beaufort County Manager and four of the commissioners on October 24, 2013. Here's how it happened.

    The Beaufort County Republican Club held its regular monthly meeting at Apollo's Steakhouse in Washington. The meeting was chaired by Larry Britt and planned by Commissioner Al Klemm. The program was to allow political candidates for the Washington City Council to make campaign speeches.

    Prior to the meeting Al Klemm contacted County Manager Randell Woodruff and asked/told him to get the county's videographer to record the meeting and to play the recording on the County's cable TV channel.

    In another article posted here, Commissioner Hood Richardson addresses the foolishness of the decision and examines some of the implications, political, ethical and legal.

    What we address here is the way the decision was made.

    Woodruff apparently had some reservations about approving Klemm's request. So he polled the commissioners by phone. He told us "they all agreed except two" to allow the video to be shown on the cable channel.

    We had a rather extensive conversation with the Manager, protesting that he did not notify those who have requested to be notified of county meetings. Woodruff insisted that it was not a meeting. He's flat out wrong about that. If county business was handled, it is covered by the Open Meetings Law.

    But that is not the point. The point here can be clearly stated: The public was not allowed to know how this decision was made. It was not allowed because the media was not allowed to observe and report on who said what. In fact, the public has no way of knowing who the two commissioners were who opposed the televising of this campaign event. And it was a purely political campaign event. It should not have taken the Manager but about five seconds for him to tell Mr. Klemm that county resources may not be used for campaign events. That's just good judgment, but it's also the law.

    We don't want to get too technical about it here, but we believe the law is clear. If you have a phone meeting you have to let the media know you're doing it and allow them to be present to observe and report on the conversation. Woodruff seemed at one point in our conversation to be trying to make a distinction between using the phone to call one commissioner at the time, versus a "conference call" but we think that's nonsense. It is a distinction without a difference. The issue is whether the decision was made in public view. The point is that the law's intent and purpose is to insure that the public knows how what went on. It is absurd to argue that making the calls one by one means that the right of the public to know was not operative.

    But the real issue here is much, much greater than how they decided to use the county's cable TV channel. The real issue is that it is just one more example in a long list of instances where decisions have been made out of public view.

    For example, find any record of why/how the Gang of Four decided to build a new jail in the Washington Industrial Park. We say at the annual Planning Retreat last February clear evidence that the decision had been made prior to that meeting, you will not find any record of when, where, how and by whom that decision was made.

    Then try to find any public record of the decision that was made to switch the site for the jail from the Washington Industrial Park to the Chocowinity Industrial Park. The Gang of Four came into a meeting, made a motion and passed it without any discussion from any of those voting for the motion. Anyone with "one eye and half sense" could tell it was a done deal before the meeting ever began.

    And similar shanigans are legion in Beaufort County.

    Here's the real problem. North Carolina's Open Meetings and Public Records law are predicated on an assumption that public officials will act in their official duties in good faith. That is, they will obey the law because that is the right thing to do. There are almost no effective teeth in either law. The only enforcement mechanism provided is for an "aggrieved person" to sue the public body. The public body then uses taxpayers' money to defend itself. Few people have the resources to go up against such deep pockets in court. But when open government advocates seek to get the law changed inevitably the public bodies' lobbyists parade into the Legislature and assure the lawmakers that the public servants really will act in good faith.

    That may be true in other counties, but it is certainly not true in Beaufort County.