ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603190007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
A BILL requiring local governing bodies to keep minutes of "executive" sessions was killed by the 1996 General Assembly. Keeping records of what goes on behind closed doors, local officials complained, would be too burdensome.
Which is one good reason for the requirement: If closed-door meetings posed a bit of a burden, perhaps elected officials would be less inclined to huddle in secret - regularly abusing the spirit, and perhaps also the letter, of Virginia's Freedom of Information Act.
As it is, it's just so-o-o-o easy to hide from the public when discussing the public's business. State lawmakers have steadily expanded the number of broadly worded exemptions (read: excuses) for circumventing the open-meeting law, until now there are nearly two dozen. And it's so much more pleasant to make public decisions in private, without nettlesome input and scrutiny.
For evidence that stealth is too often the modus operandi of choice in local government, one need only look south to Rocky Mount, where Town Council held 112 executive sessions in 1994. Or west to Montgomery County, where the Board of Supervisors held 105 closed-door meetings that year.
But it's all perfectly legal, isn't it? With so many loopholes in the 28-year-old FOI law, the answer is probably yes - but who knows for sure?
The minutes-requirement bill was sponsored by Republican Del. William Mims of Leesburg. There, local-government officials had held an executive session, and a newspaper later discovered that the topic of discussion was a good stretch from what the officials claimed.
The Mims bill would have helped check public officials' tendency to use FOI exemptions as loose cover for anything they'd prefer to talk about out of public earshot - and thereby would have boosted public confidence that officialdom isn't blithely and arrogantly ignoring the intent of Virginia's open-meetings law.
The bill also would have given local public officials a new measure of protection against allegations of violating not just the spirit but also the letter of the law. As the Wythe County supervisors have been reminded, failure to strictly interpret and adhere to FOI provisions can spell trouble. County Administrator Bill Branson has threatened an FOI lawsuit against one or more of the supervisors, who in January held an unadvertised meeting at which they allegedly agreed to oust Branson.
State lawmakers, too, have been known to cavalierly disregard the FOI law that they've written and amended. In past years, for instance, members of budget committees infamously skirted open-meeting provisions, devising escape routes through capitol restrooms and an underground tunnel system to plan privately the expenditure of taxpayers dollars.
Legislators no less than local-government officials need to make a new commitment to the spirit of the 28-year-old law. Campaigns for elective office are waged over public issues. For those who are elected then to conclude they have a right to exclude the public from discussion of these issues is to betray a contempt for the people who elected them.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB