Government shouldn’t play
‘I’ve Got a Secret’
Welcome to another good news / bad news week. First, the good news: The City of Marion failed to violate the Open Meetings or Open Records Acts this week — which, given recent history, may be worth a headline.
The bad news is, even though it didn’t break the Open Meetings Act, it most assuredly violated its spirit.
The law begins: “In recognition of the fact that a representative government is dependent upon an informed electorate, it is declared to be the policy of this state that meetings for the conduct of governmental affairs and the transaction of governmental business be open to the public. It is declared hereby to be against the public policy of this state for any such meeting to be adjourned to another time or place in order to subvert the policy of open public meetings.”
Two weeks ago, Marion City Council adjourned its normal Monday meeting until Tuesday to consider behind closed doors applicants for the city’s long-vacant city administrator position. Although many other cities have searched for administrators in public, the city chose to do so in secret. Still, it seemed to want to cooperate and do whatever was necessary to avoid yet another violation of a law that seems to have become more honored in its breach than in its observance.
City officials promised that after they conducted their close-door interviews with candidates, they would let the newspaper know of any decisions they reached.
They apologized for forgetting to call or email that night but sent a note the next morning saying: “There was no action taken after the meeting.” Another city official repeated a similar line Monday night when asked by an audience member, “Where are you at with your administrator? Did you hire one?” “Still working,” was the only response.
What’s troubling is that, in between those meetings, Mayor Mike Powers spilled the beans on a podcast city officials and a handful of others have started. The council decided during its secret meeting exactly whom it wants to hire, instructed the city attorney to draw up a contract, and apparently authorized the mayor to negotiate with the candidate. Powers even provided tantalizing details about the candidate’s current position, saying the candidate wasn’t a city administrator but did help oversee a large city budget.
Word already had leaked about who was interviewed, and with Powers’ clues we probably could guess who was selected. The question is, why did two other officials act as if nothing had been done when, in fact, everything except dotting I’s and crossing T’s on a contract already had completed in secret.
It barely passes a laugh test to say that deciding on a winner, telling an attorney to draft a contract, and giving permission to negotiate are not binding acts subject to the Open Meetings Act. But that’s the way the law — absent legislative closing of loopholes — is interpreted.
It’s not as if local governments have a great track record for employees they hire in secret. Marion hired a police chief who was about to be demoted elsewhere and who ended up running an illegal raid that is likely to cost the city millions. It hired an administrator with a penchant for lasting only a few months then escaping with a golden parachute. The county hired an ambulance director with a hidden criminal record. The state hired a grant administrator that Peabody then named interim city clerk and grant coordinator despite his record of a financial felony. Peabody then hired a police officer who has hopped, skipped, and jumped across the country, one step ahead of potential criminal and civil prosecution.
Exposing candidates to public scrutiny doesn’t chase good people away. It gets rid of bad people trying to sneak through closed doors.
Worse is the duplicitous action of officials who could have told the whole truth — even without naming names — but chose instead to deceive by making it sound as if the search continues when in fact all that’s left is signing on the dotted line.
People in Marion seem enchanted with the phrase “Stronger Together” but seem not to understand that intentionally deceiving people isn’t the way to get there. People often criticize President Trump for trying to control the media, yet the city spilling the beans only on its never-say-anything-negative social media is no less targeted at damaging local media than is its policy of ignoring a crystal-clear city policy that city social media, like Marion Community Enrichment, not be used to promote commercial activity except by certified 501(c)3 charities.
The city, like the president, seems to want news media to go away or fall totally under their control. That’s not democracy. That’s something far worse.
— ERIC MEYER