The public’s business should be done in public

 

Perhaps the Newport City Council is simply bashful.  It is hard to think of another reason its members seem so averse to carrying out their duties under the watchful eye of their constituents.

Week after week the board shoos observers out of the council chamber and does whatever it does behind closed doors.

It is true that Vermont state law allows for municipal bodies to conduct some of their business privately, but it is worth remembering that the relevant statute is known as the Open Meeting Law.  The provisions for executive sessions are meant to lay out legitimate exceptions, not to state the rule.

Even if a discussion could conceivably be fit into one of acceptable categories that allow for private discussion, that list gives permission, it doesn’t prescribe that any piece of municipal business be done out of sight.

Over the past several months the city council has spent far more time behind closed doors than facing the people who elected its members.  For us, who attend a huge number of municipal meetings in a year, the difference between the council’s behavior and that of any other board we cover is glaring.  No other body even comes close to the percentage of Newport’s council spends in private consultation.

Granted, we are reporters.  Open meetings are   our bread and butter.  But that is only because our charge is to report on the activities of public bodies so our readers can see how well or poorly they are being served.

In almost every other town public business is discussed.  That is, members of a select board or school board consider a course of action and, through conversation, weigh its pros and cons.

Newport’s council goes behind closed doors, comes out, a motion is made and, in most cases, rubber stamped.  There is no discussion.

At the council’s most recent meeting, held on December 2, members even carried out a bait-and-switch in two of its executive sessions.

The law requires a board to state what the purpose of an executive session is before voting to go behind closed doors.  It is not good enough to pick one of the ten acceptable reasons and say that is the purpose.  The idea is to give members of the public as full an account of the business the council is doing without causing harm to the city.  In addition, only the piece of business stated in the motion can be done in a session.  If there is more private business to conduct, the council must come before the public and state, in as much detail as possible, what that business is.

The first of the meeting’s two executive sessions was billed as being for a fire department personnel matter.  After just about an hour, the council emerged and voted to create a new 40-hour-a-week position.

How is that in any way a personnel matter?  There is no reason on this earth why members couldn’t hash out whatever personnel problem may or may not exist, and then come before the public to discuss the merits of creating a new job.

Given the city’s precarious financial position and, in particular, the state of fire department spending, there must have been some discussion about adding a person to the city payroll.

Instead, the only thing revealed to the public was the name of the job.  It took a reporter’s question to get even a hint of what the job entails.  There was no vote on what the job will pay, so members of the public will have to wait until next year’s annual report to learn that bit of trivia.

The second executive session was supposed to concern the employee evaluation of a public official.  Instead, the council came out of session having decided to do two things, not one, both completely unrelated to the stated purpose of the session.

Councl members voted to create a $15,000 position of internal grants manager and then voted to offer the job to Newport Zoning Administrator Frank Cheney.

It is not a reflection on Mr. Cheney to say that the council’s actions are simply not good enough.

Several weeks ago the council emerged from an executive session and dismissed City Manager Jonathan DeLaBruere without a word of explanation.  In the two meetings held since then, not a word has been breathed about how the city means to go forward without a manager.

That is not a “personnel matter.”  It is a matter of public policy, as is the creation of new city positions at a time where financial austerity should be the word.

The council has plenty of reason to hide its face, but shame does not seem to be something its members feel.  They should.  Newport is burning while they fiddle in the back room.

JIG