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Illegal (Continued from page 1) 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,
Security (Continued from page 8) The suggestions also include reassuring children that they are safe, reminding them that trustworthy people are in charge, telling children the truth but not dwelling on the scope of the tragedy or its emotional impact, and varying discussions about the shootings to make them appropriate to the age of the child. Carr said that the Police and Sheriff’s departments have increased patrols around Guilford County schools, particularly elementary schools. Police officers and Guilford County sheriff’s deputies, called school resource officers, are permanently stationed at middle schools and high schools in Guilford County. School board member Amos Quick said he was contacted Tuesday by a staff member at an elementary school, who said that the lockdown drills were causing a little bit of chaos in schools. Quick said, “It frightened the kids very much, in that they thought something actual was happening.” Quick said he knew the drills need to be taken seriously. “Agreed,” Carr said. “It’s always a balancing act.” Carr said that most Guilford County schools had already held lockdown drills and didn’t need to hold new ones after the shootings. She said the school system has an emergency management team and has plans for different types of emergencies. “Will any one thing prevent that type of situation?” she said. “I think that’s probably beyond the ken of this discussion.” The problem with heightened states of security, whether at schools, airports or government buildings, is that it is impossible to maintain a state of alert indefinitely. Quick questioned the sustainability of the school system’s heightened security. He said, “As tends to happen in America, by New Year’s Day, we’ll be talking about something else.” Quick said the school system may have to spend some money to make schools more secure. “The answer to the safety of our students can’t be, ‘We don’t have the money,’” he (Continued on page 34)
Thursday, December 20, 2012
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. ShahKhan 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 closeddoor 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
Throats (Continued from page 4) upgrade facilities at Hagan-Stone was in the works as well. Coleman asked, “The work done there was minimal, right?” Woodard responded that the work so far was just the beginning. “There’s much more coming up,” Woodard told Coleman. Woodard said that roughly $800,000 in improvements were planned for HaganStone Park – some of that being state grant money that was in the pipeline. However, Coleman didn’t seem satisfied. “Do you know when that work will begin on Hagan-Stone Park?” she asked. Vonda Martin, a representative of the state who oversees park grant money, told Coleman the Hagan-Stone Park project is expected to be funded in April of next year. She said Hagan-Stone was “on the short list” for a state grants but Coleman told Martin that didn’t give her much comfort. “With a new governor coming in,” Coleman said, “I’m just wondering what ‘short list’ means.” Despite all the questions, the transfer of the money to the Northeast Park project passed on an 8-to-1 vote, with Henning casting the sole no vote. It may turn out to be an interesting conversation on the county’s parks that takes place at the commissioners retreat. On Jan. 1 the county is taking over those
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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.”
operations and putting about 30 park employees on its payroll. However, on Thursday, Jan. 10, at the retreat – 10 days after that massive transfer of labor takes place – the new board may be debating the wisdom of that move. The commissioners also named some commissioners and former commissioners to the county’s boards. Former Commissioner Skip Alston was named to the Board of Public Health, while former Commissioner Billy Yow was named to the county’s Board of Adjustments. Trapp was appointed to the Board of Social Services. One bit of disagreement at the new meeting came over the 8:30 a.m. start time Shaw had set for the retreat. Coleman asked, “Do we have to begin at 8:30?” Henning said jokingly: “You want to do it earlier?” Shaw said, “I guess we could go to 9.” Trapp said he appreciated Coleman’s suggestion to start the retreat later. “I got into real estate so I wouldn’t have to get up at 8:30,” Trapp said. Shaw decided it would be fine if all the county officials got to sleep in a little longer that day. The truth is that the retreats rarely start on time anyway, since the group usually waits on several straggling bleary-eyed commissioners before getting them underway. That retreat will be the next meeting of the Board of Commissioners.