Source: Rhino Times Greensboro

Secret Private Illegal Meeting

by John Hammer

December 20, 2012

The Greensboro City Council held an illegal meeting behind locked doors and armed guards at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 18 before the legal public meeting at 5:30 p.m.

With the old council the public and liberal media were up in arms protesting week after week about speakers from the floor having to wait until the second half of the meeting to speak. This council under Mayor Robbie Perkins held a meeting behind locked doors with armed security guards keeping the public out, and nobody other than The Rhino Times has said a word.

The City Council held an illegal closed session on Tuesday before its regularly scheduled meeting and, according to the statements by City Attorney Mujeeb Shah-Khan, the entire City Council can meet whenever it wants, as long as they don’t send out notices that it is an official meeting.

Shah-Khan argued that because the clerk didn’t send out notices that this meeting of the City Council in the council chambers was an official meeting. It was not. Even though the entire council was present, and, as he admitted, they were discussing city business and were there to have their official photograph taken, it was not an official meeting and not subject to the North Carolina open meetings law.

Shah-Khan’s legal reason flies in the face of the North Carolina open meetings law, the interpretations by the North Carolina School of Government, which is generally municipal friendly in its interpretation of laws, and the legal decisions of the courts.

The occasion for this meeting, which was “informal” and thus not subject to the North Carolina open meetings law according to Shah-Khan, was the official City Council portrait. Each councilmember was notified at least twice that they needed to be at city hall in the council chambers at 4:30 p.m. for the official photo. Shah-Khan ruled that having the official portrait was not “transacting the public business” and therefore was an “informal” or social gathering that did not require public notice, and armed security guards were posted at the doors to keep the public out.

The council, while waiting for their picture to be taken was doing what councilmembers do when they are together – they were talking about city business, deciding on strategies on how to get things done and generally conducting the business of the City Council.

While Shah-Khan was explaining to me that this was only an informal meeting of the City Council and a majority was not actually gathered together, five councilmembers – a majority – were standing in a rough circle discussing the Duke Energy situation, something a couple of hours later the council took action on.

It is going to be a huge waste of time and money if the people of Greensboro have to take the City of Greensboro to court to force the City Council to do what it has done for 20 years, which is meet and do its business in public as required by law.

Amanda Martin, an attorney with Stevens Martin Vaughan and Tadych, who represents the North Carolina Press Association, when asked what constituted an informal meeting said, “There is no such thing as an informal meeting.” She said that if a majority of the City Council were present and they were discussing city business then it was an official meeting and should be open to the public.

When I told Martin that the decision made by the city was to allow me and, of course, the photographers into the council chambers but keep the public at bay with locked doors and armed security guards, Martin said there was no exception or provision of the open meetings law that would make that situation legal.

Martin said, “There is no situation in which you should be allowed in and no one else.”

Martin said that the law said, “a social meeting or other informal assembly.” She said that the exception was for events like weddings, or any social gathering where a majority of council might be present but was not there to discuss or conduct business.

After the portrait, Perkins said he assumed the meeting for the portrait was an official meeting and that the public and press had been properly notified. He said he couldn’t think of any reason for the meeting to be closed to the public and was surprised to find out afterwards that it had been.

Perkins said he arrived about 10 minutes late and by that time I was already in the room, so he had no reason to think the public wasn’t allowed in.

Unfortunately for Greensboro, the city is not run by the mayor or the City Council, it’s run by the staff, which has started making arbitrary decisions on when the public is allowed in the council chambers and even which door the public has to enter the building from in order to qualify to go to a City Council meeting. Sometimes it is the front door, sometimes it is the side door. If you enter the wrong door you are sent back outside to walk around the building and enter through the correct door.

What happened on Tuesday is the council did the city’s business the way it did the city’s business back before the open meetings law was passed.

In the 1960s, the City Council would hold a private closed-door meeting just prior to its public meeting. All the decisions would be made in the meeting closed to the public, and then most of the votes at the public meeting would be unanimous with very little discussion because everything had been hashed out in the back room.

On Tuesday that is what the City Council did, except I was there for the closed-door meeting. However, I don’t know if Councilmember Nancy Vaughan would have been so bold with her excellent “cease and desist” motion aimed at Duke Energy if she had not had the time to discuss the matter with her fellow councilmembers and known that she had near unanimous support.

Having their official portrait taken in a room behind locked doors, protected from the prying eyes of the public by armed security guards, isn’t going to cause the city much damage. But it does send a message loud and clear that this council is not interested in openness and transparency.

Any one of the councilmembers could have told the staff to open the doors. Perkins was late and didn’t know what had transpired, but every councilmember was present and none had enough of a problem meeting behind locked doors to do something about it.

The open meetings law exists to protect the public and in this case was trampled on by city staff and the City Council.

The pertinent part of the open meetings law states, “’Official meeting’ means a meeting, assembly, or gathering together at any time or place or the simultaneous communication by conference telephone or other electronic means of a majority of the members of a public body for the purpose of conducting hearings, participating in deliberations, or voting upon or otherwise transacting the public business within the jurisdiction, real or apparent, of the public body. However, a social meeting or other informal assembly or gathering together of the members of a public body does not constitute an official meeting unless called or held to evade the spirit and purposes of this Article.”