DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997             TAG: 9704230464

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, CORRESPONDENT 

DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY                    LENGTH:   87 lines

COUNTY OPPOSES PUSH TOWARD MORE ACCESS TO RECORDS

Pasquotank County commissioners oppose two bills in the North Carolina legislature that, if passed, would give the public unprecedented access to discussions of public land sales and personnel records.

``I don't think our personnel want to be on the front page of the paper, and I don't blame them,'' Commissioner Patsy McGee said after the board unanimously voted Monday to write a letter of opposition to legislators.

The commissioners' letter may be for naught, however, if they plan to write Sen. Marc Basnight, the president pro tem of the Senate.

``I was part of the reason the bills were written,'' Basnight said from his Raleigh office Monday. ``I support both bills.''

Sens. Roy Cooper, D-Nash, and David Hoyle, D-Gaston, introduced Senate bill 799, ``To bring more openness to the performance of public employees by providing greater access to personnel records.''

If the bill passes, a public employee will have very few secrets after Jan. 1, 1998. It will be part of public record if the employee is fired, demoted or reprimanded, including accounts of performance and comments from supervisors.

``The reason we keep pushing is for better accountability,'' said Terri Saylor, executive director of the North Carolina Press Association. She said Basnight has long been a friend of open meetings laws.

``As you know, there are instances where poor teachers have moved to different counties, and they don't change how they work. They're still doing the same old bad things,'' Saylor said. ``A police chief could have done something wrong in one county and gone to another.

``And this could work in their (public employees) behalf,'' Saylor said. ``If they've been treated unfairly, they've got some recourse.''

Senate bill 844, also sponsored by Cooper and Hoyle, would ``require accounts of closed meetings . . . and to clarify information that must be disclosed publicly about prospective real estate purchases by public bodies.''

``As we all know, this would have the effect of increasing the cost to taxpayers for that piece of property,'' Pasquotank County Attorney Ike McRee said during Monday's meeting.

McRee said it puts government at a disadvantage to have to negotiate land deals publicly.

But the bill allows for the buying process to be finished before disclosure is necessary. The written account of negotiations ``may be withheld from public inspection so long as public inspection would frustrate the purpose of a closed session.''

The commissioners received summaries of both bills from the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.

``They're always opposed to this stuff,'' Basnight said of the NCACC.

The bills are another step North Carolina is taking to make discussions by governing bodies more available to the press and the public.

``There's been an awful lot of activity in North Carolina, and there needed to be,'' said Rebecca Daugherty, director of the Freedom of Information Act Center based in Washington, D.C. ``The North Carolina legislature, to (its) credit, has passed an awful lot of laws in the last decade.''

State governing bodies first had to open meetings in 1971, but they did not have to give prior notice, according to a history compiled by attorney Hugh Stevens of Raleigh. The press did not know where and when to show up.

Lawsuits followed because of the loophole in the law. After extensive lobbying by the North Carolina Press Association and Association of Broadcasters, the law was amended in 1979 to require prior notice of meetings. It also defined public body in more detail and what circumstances were necessary for a closed meeting, according to Stevens' account.

In 1986, the legislature passed a law that nullified the actions of a public body that met in secret.

The General Assembly was exempt from the open meetings law until 1991.

Three years ago, the number of legitimate reasons for a closed session was reduced to seven from 21, Saylor said. And two years ago, a law was passed to prevent government from making money on electronically stored records.

``Some reporters had been charged $300 for one disk or something really exorbitant like that,'' Saylor said.

Saylor and Daugherty said North Carolina is among the most open states, but still has strides to make.

``We're going to keep hammering until we have the best open meetings laws in the country,'' Saylor said. ILLUSTRATION: THE MEASURES

Sens. Roy Cooper, D-Nash, and David Hoyle, D-Gaston, introduced

Senate bill 799, ``To bring more openness to the performance of

public employees by providing greater access to personnel records.''

Senate bill 844, also sponsored by Cooper and Hoyle, would ``require

accounts of closed meetings . . . and to clarify information that

must be disclosed publicly about prospective real estate purchases

by public bodies.''

``I was part of the reason the bills were written,'' said Sen. Marc

Basnight, the president pro tem of the Senate. ``I support both