Published May 22, 2009 10:58 pm -

An illegal meeting?


Alan Mauldin
Published in the Moultrie Observer

MOULTRIE — A portion of a Thursday Colquitt County Board budget session that was closed to the public appears to have violated the state’s Open Meetings Act.

After discussing the budget for about an hour, the commission closed the meeting to discuss personnel, but the free-wheeling session that ensued covered topics for which the law does not allow a meeting to be closed.

A reporter sitting outside the room where commissioners held the closed session overheard discussion of the need to reduce the amount of reserves funds needed to balance the budget, retirement issues, and debt obligation.

One commissioner brought up dirt roads, water pipes and growth in ditches, and referred to county employees sitting under a shade tree while on the clock. No specific names of employees were mentioned.

The state’s Open Meetings Act prohibits such general discussion of employee issues, said Hollie Manheimer, an attorney and executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.

“The personnel exemption allows for closure only when discussing the hiring, firing, or other employment action concerning a specific employee,” Manheimer said in an e-mail response. “Discussions about general employment policies are not a permissible topic for closed session. General policies should be discussed in the public portion of a meeting.”

Georgia law allows governmental boards to close meetings to discuss personnel issues, but only “when discussing or deliberating upon the appointment, employment, compensation, hiring, disciplinary action or dismissal, or periodic evaluation or rating of a public officer or employee.”

Following the meeting, commissioners said that the board decided during the closed session to have County Administrator Brian Shuler give a list of budget-slashing options, including employees who could be laid off to cut costs.

David Hudson, an attorney who represents the Georgia Press Association, said that the topics discussed appear to be an egregious violation of law.

“The discussion in the closed meeting which you described is clearly illegal,” he said in an e-mail response. “It is so far from being permitted, there is a strong chance that it is a willful and knowing violation of the law.”

Commission Chairman Benny Alderman said during a Friday telephone interview that he does not feel commissioners violated the law.

“We were talking about if we were going to cut anybody,” he said. “That’s under executive session. Everything that we talked about pertained to the employees. We discussed employees and everything. The way I remember it, that’s all we talked about.”

Alderman said that he would have preferred keeping the meeting open, but the commission voted to do so. As chairman Alderman does not vote on most board motions.

“As far as I’m concerned, I would never close a meeting,” he said. “I don’t like executive sessions. I never have.

“I didn’t even want to come into executive session, (Commissioenr) Billy (Herndon) wanted to do that to keep anybody from naming names or anything.”