A lesson for Al Klemm and his cronies at the EDC | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

Groups doing the public's business should operate so the public can know what they're doing.

    N. C. law provides: § 143‑318.9. Public policy.

    Whereas the public bodies that administer the legislative, policy‑making, quasi‑judicial, administrative, and advisory functions of North Carolina and its political subdivisions exist solely to conduct the people's business, it is the public policy of North Carolina that the hearings, deliberations, and actions of these bodies be conducted openly. (1979, c. 655, s. 1.)

    § 143‑318.10. All official meetings of public bodies open to the public.

    (a) Except as provided in G.S. 143‑318.11, 143‑318.14A, and 143‑318.18, each official meeting of a public body shall be open to the public, and any person is entitled to attend such a meeting.

    (b) As used in this Article, "public body" means any elected or appointed authority, board, commission, committee, council, or other body of the State, or of one or more counties, cities, school administrative units, constituent institutions of The University of North Carolina, or other political subdivisions or public corporations in the State that (i) is composed of two or more members and (ii) exercises or is authorized to exercise a legislative, policy‑making, quasi‑judicial, administrative, or advisory function. In addition, "public body" means the governing board of a "public hospital" as defined in G.S. 159‑39 and the governing board of any nonprofit corporation to which a hospital facility has been sold or conveyed pursuant to G.S. 131E‑8, any subsidiary of such nonprofit corporation, and any nonprofit corporation owning the corporation to which the hospital facility has been sold or conveyed.

    Al Klemm and his cronies at the EDC/Committee of 100 don't like public scrutiny of their scheming to give away taxpayer funded goodies to their friends (and campaign donors). That was recently obvious when they called a "working group" together to rewrite the by-laws of the EDC. Klemm weaseled out of notifying the press of the meeting because he contended it was not a "regular meeting" or some such cockamamie. Even our County Manager reasoned that the composition of a body determines whether it is a "public body" subject to the Open Meetings and Public Records laws.

    These people need to go back to square one. That says: The public's business should be done in public. There are some exceptions, but any group doing the public's business must cite which reason and offer enough substantiation in the record that a court can determine whether they had a legitimate reason for going secret. The issue is not the makeup of the body, the issue is whether they are dealing with the public's business.

    This same issue was recently evident in a meeting of a "working group" to draft a plan for the N. C. ports. They closed the meeting. And the Wilmington Star-News correctly took them to task in a well written and reasoned editoral: Click here to read the rest of the story.