In the old days, the public was understandably upset when politicians resorted to huddling in smoke-filled backrooms to strike deals with one another and otherwise transact what was supposed to be the public’s business in clubby, out-of-sight secrecy.
Well, the modern-day equivalent doesn’t usually have smoke, and it’s not often done, literally, in backrooms any more. There’s not even much back-slapping, another characteristic of those conclaves.
Rather, the politicians’ modern brand of clandestine activities are now often transacted over the internet and on the phone – either by conversations or, increasingly, cryptic text messages.
Like many readers who’ve submitted Public Asks questions about their activities, we, too, have grown increasingly concerned that Graham’s city council members are conducting far too much of the people’s business through these secretive, non-public back channels.
The newspaper cannot usually find out about their one-on-one conversations – whether by phone or personal meetings – but the North Carolina Public Records Law does provide the public and press a means to find out what the council members are, at least, writing to each other. And it turns out Graham’s council members are burning up their keyboards with messages to each other on subjects that should be being discussed openly, not in private correspondence.
And their behind-the-scenes correspondence clearly covers a lot of territory in addition to the park.
The newspaper filed a public records request one month ago (today), asking for copies of “all correspondence (including e-mail or text messages) to, from, and among the council members and any Graham business owners, residents, or anyone else with whom they [had] received or sent comments or information on the existing Sesquicentennial Park or its possible relocation since December 1, 2025.”
Council members Bobby Chin and Bonnie Whitaker have repeatedly said at council meetings over the past three months and last year that they’ve heard “a lot” of complaints about the current location of the park and received support for moving it.
Our front page story in this week’s edition finds precious little written evidence of any magnitude of citizen dissatisfaction with the existing park, based on the correspondence since December of last year that they provided.
Granted, it’s possible that the councilmen heard – but only verbally – from complaining constituents, but we have to confess we’re suspicious about whether such dissidents actually exist, as well.
Chin, Whitaker, and mayor pro tem Hall have voted in three consecutive months to move the park, in each case with a new configuration of how it would be designed and, on each occasion, without allowing an opportunity for the public to be heard prior to voting. (The council moved up the public comment period on February 10 when citizens overflowed their meeting chambers, but took no vote regarding the park.
So the newspaper filed its public records requests with the three individual council members – Chin, Hall, and Whitaker. The newspaper did not seek correspondence from the two newest members of the council – mayor Chelsea Dickey or councilman Jim Young – both of whom were sworn in on December 9. Dickey has consistently voiced her opposition to moving the park, seeking more public input on such a decision, and preferring to repair and restore the existing park.
Young voted for the first change, on January 13, when he voted with the three veterans,4-1, to move the park.
And while we didn’t request their emails from them, individually, plenty of their messages showed up in response to our requests to the three council members and to city hall.
At that first meeting of the new year, Hall, who had previously opposed moving the park, made a presentation, including hand-drawn renderings, of a proposal to move of the park to a location behind the Graham Historical Museum on West Elm Street, also taking half of a city-owned parking lot there. While there had been no advance notice that they would take action on the item, which was listed on the agenda merely as a discussion item, the council did in fact, vote to adopt Hall’s concept, 4-1.
Subsequently – on February 17 and March 10 – a 3-2 majority (of Hall, Chin, and Whitaker) voted for two other versions put together by a consulting firm hired by the council.
The newspaper had a number of “Public Asks” questions from readers, raising the question of how much council members were talking with one another about the park relocation outside of the public council meetings, where the discussions have often been fairly brief, in some cases voting last week, for instance, after less than 10 minutes of council consideration of a wholly new plan – that, quite frankly, looked rather sophomoric, in our judgment.
When the council heard from two dozen citizens who spoke during a “public comments” period on February 10, all the speakers advocated for keeping the current location of the park and pleaded with the council to reverse its January vote for moving it. It was the largest turnout of in both meeting attendance and speakers taking to the podium that we can recall.
We are still stunned at the audacity, arrogance, and indifference, of the council members to continue taking action on the park without even acknowledging the widespread public outcry against their contemplated action. Less than a week after that, unprecedented, outpouring of citizen involvement, they simply voted, 3-2, on their second plan – at a special Tuesday morning called meeting (on February 17) – where, guess what, the public was not allowed to voice an opinion or ask any questions about the proposed park design.
When we hadn’t gotten even the courtesy of an acknowledgement, much less a substantive response, from any of the three council members, the publisher hand-delivered a second letter before they convened their March 10 council meeting, reminding them of their obligations to comply with the Public Records Law – and also of the possibility that they could each be held financially liable for the newspaper’s legal fees if litigation became necessary in order to compel their compliance.
Meanwhile, when the council adopted its third variation on moving the park, again, no public comments allowed prior to the council’s 10-minutes of deliberation and 3-2 vote.
Fortunately, within the week after we delivered that further demand, each of the council members has, at least ostensibly, complied. The caveat of “ostensibly” is because it is interesting to note that various emails provided by one councilman (or city hall) are not always in the list of those turned over to the newspaper by another council member.
It’s also a bit suspicious that none of the three council members provided any correspondence from their personal accounts – although we’re already aware that they often use them for city business. The Public Records Law makes no exception for whether the email accounts are “private” or “public.” If the discussion is about public business, they’re public records that the public (including this newspaper) is entitled to review them.
The long and the short of it is that there is entirely too much back-channel policy discussion going among Graham’s city council members.
This is not the way local government is supposed to be operating.
The council often takes a different lesson from various responses.
After the outpouring of opposition, the council first started down the path of limiting discussion to 30 minutes, and each speaker to no more than two minutes at the podium.
The council ultimately relented on imposing an overall time limit, but did cut the individual speakers’ time from four to three, rather than two, minutes.
We suspect that the lesson they will take from this newspaper’s public records request will be to curb their written communications with each other (so there won’t be a paper trail for the newspaper to uncover in the future) in favor of verbal (and thus, so far, untraceable) ones.
Somehow, there’s a certain irony that the week of these revelations happens to coincide with National Sunshine Week.
Launched in 2005 by the American Society of News Editors, the annual Sunshine Week is a nationwide, bipartisan effort intended to ensure the public’s right to know what its elected and appointed officials do in the transaction of official public business.
Sunshine Week is intended to educate people about their rights to access public records and official meetings that are considered public under North Carolina law.
Sunshine Week 2026 runs from March 16 through March 21.
This newspaper is dedicated to ensuring, to the extent we can, that the public is informed of what’s happening in government, both at public meetings, and – in the case of secretive boards like Graham’s city council – in between.
