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In my career of small-town journalism, it was seldom
difficult to find out what happened in an executive
session.
The best course is prevention, of course, and the first
rule is to avoid calling them executive sessions
in
print. Instead, use phrases like clandestine
meeting
or secret conference,
and always imply
that the town trustees or county commissioners are up to no
good when they refuse to meet in public:
The Backwater County Commissioners voted unanimously
Tuesday to hold a secret conference concerning 'legal
negotiations.' The board has recently been asked to vacate
public roads which provide local access to the National
Forest, but which pass through a 1,700-acre ranch recently
acquired by a California multi-millionaire.
The board may actually be discussing settling a lawsuit brought by someone who tripped on the icy courthouse steps three years ago, but how would you know?
And there is that pending request for the county to abandon its RS-2477 rights-of-way across that Person of Money's new estate. For all you know, that is what they planned to talk about.
So if the entire recreation lobby, both motorized and non-motorized -- a vocal panoply of passionate backpackers, worried equestrian outfitters and angry back-road drivers -- shows up at the next commissioners' meeting with lawyers, tar barrels and ropes, demanding that their access to public lands be preserved even if the county seems determined to sign it away to some outsider greedhead -- well, again, how were you to know?
For some reason, they don't teach you how to write this
way in journalism class -- literal truth with some creative
juxtaposition -- but it really works well to insure that
the topics of executive sessions are made specific, rather
than a vague legal matters
or personnel
matters.
Indeed, the board in question often finds that it's much easier just to do things in public.
Even so, sometimes they will hold a private session.
Then you face the journalistic challenge of finding out what happened -- but remember, you can't lie to anybody in the process. That would be unethical.
So you begin by discussing the issue in the newspaper office -- a wide-ranging brainstorming discussion, so that every imaginable angle is mentioned at least briefly.
Then you talk to one of the town trustees, city councilpersons or county commissioners. Call her Jane Doe. You talk about the weather, the state of the local economy, the Broncos, whatever.
The next step is to call John Smith, who generally opposes Jane Doe on everything that comes before that board.
Say, John, I was just talking to Jane. (True) And
I've heard that you guys are fixing to fire the police
chief because he's got his hand in the till (Also true, but
you heard that in your office discussion).
Smith responds with She told you that? That's not
what happened at all. It's just that we thought the city
might make a little more on bicycles and stuff like that at
the annual police auction if we hired a professional
auctioneer rather than have the police do it themselves.
And the police chief finally agreed. That was the size of
it.
Thus you get the real story. A further benefit is the growing conflict distrust between Doe and Smith, which means they argue more at meetings, thereby keeping you awake when you're covering them. This results in more interesting stories, and thus the public pays more attention and democracy is enhanced.
Some of the legislators who have opposed Mitchell's bill say that the current state law -- which has no way to insure that only the allowable topics are handled in an executive session -- is sufficient.
And they may be right. But it should be clear by now that these secret meetings can put public boards at the mercy of scurrilous journalists -- something they could avoid by minimizing their closed meetings, and by keeping good records of those meetings when they do have them.
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