We’ve often thought it would be highly commendable if public officials would occasionally read through North Carolina’s Open Meetings Law.
They might actually learn what the law requires.
But, of course, few elected officials want to do so.
And, in many cases, we’re not at all sure they would comprehend what they’re reading – or abide by the law.
We’ve got to give it to the school board this week for one of the most creative violations of the law we’ve ever heard of.
During her “welcome” to the new superintendent, Dr. Aaron Fleming, this week at Monday’s announcement meeting, school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves thanked Elon University for allowing school board members to use their facilities to interview superintendent candidates.
We thought that odd.
We went back and reviewed the meeting announcements for special-called meetings, which is the term used for most of the meetings held under the provisions of the law that allow for closed sessions to consider personnel issues – and to consult with their attorney.
Nowhere did we find that the board had scheduled or announced such a meeting as being held at Elon University.
But here’s apparently what the school board did, as confessed to by school board chairman Ellington-Graves. We’ll at least give her ex post facto credit for honesty in admitting the deceptions she and other school board members employed.
What the school board apparently did was call a meeting, which started at the auditorium on the second floor of the Central Office on Vaughn Road where most of the school board’s meetings are held.
Then they adjourned into a closed session, apparently in an adjacent room – again, as is their custom.
All fine – albeit we’re never keen on closed meetings for public bodies.
But closed sessions for personnel, including the hiring of a new superintendent, are, in fact, allowed as one of the few exceptions in the state’s Open Meetings Law.
But here’s where they then crossed the line into blatant illegality.
The school board members then slipped out of the closed meeting, left the building through a side door, and drove to Elon University where they met, apparently several times over several weeks, to interview various applicants for the school system’s top job.
Then, when finished, they’d return to the Central Office, go into their closed meeting room, emerge into open session and declare the meeting adjourned. (Meetings must be opened and adjourned in an open session, even if all the substance in between is in a closed session.) However, their closed meetings are not supposed to be held somewhere else. It was a sneaky ploy that should have been beneath the integrity of school board members.
Now, keep in mind that the Open Meetings Law provides a pretty straightforward requirement that people must be notified of the “date, time, and place” of meetings of the public body.
“If a public body holds an official meeting at any time or place other than a time or place shown on the schedule [of regular meetings], it shall give public notice of the time and place of that meeting. . .” [emphasis added]
“Date, time, and place.”
That doesn’t include slipping out a back door to go to Elon University, or any other location, in the middle of a closed meeting, to continue their closed meeting elsewhere.
We hope Dr. Aaron Fleming, the current Harnett County superintendent hired by the board on a 6-1 vote Monday, will end up being a good superintendent.
The county certainly needs one.
But the subterfuge and deception used in the process of hiring him doesn’t bode well for his future – or that of the current seven board members who participated in this sneaky, illegal charade.
