Welcome to the light!
It’s Sunshine Week! (But maybe not in the way you think.) We aren’t talking about that big orb in the sky radiating heat to our little corner of the state. We are referring to the duties our elected officials have when it comes to transparency.
See, leaders long ago realized if you put people in charge of major decisions affecting a multitude of people or give them large sums of cash to dispense…well, they tend to be more responsible when they are held accountable to the people they govern. God Bless Shad White and his efforts to root out less than honest officials!
In fact, Mississippi lays out very specific reasons a public body can go into an executive session (meaning not witnessed by the public). A public body may (but is not required to) go into executive session to discuss only the following:
• personnel matters
• litigation-prospective or actual
• security personnel, plans or devices
• investigations of alleged misconduct or violations of law
• emergency posing immediate or irrevocable harm to persons or property
• prospective purchases, sale or lease of lands
• preparation of admission tests for certain professions
• location, relocation or expansion of business or industry
• line item in budget which may affect termination of employee(s)
• certain school board discussions with individual students, parents or teacher
• Legislature may go into executive session anytime
This is a very telling statement. See it says “may” but “not required”. Over the years in many different states, I’ve seen public entities abuse this.
There are certain areas I completely understand. When it is concerning an employee. The goal is to protect the reputation and not cause undue harm to the employee.
Or new industry. For example, if Tate County were working on a deal for an Aldi’s, we wouldn’t want certain competition to go and scrub the deal before it was finalized.
But, let’s say the county tried to recruit a Volkswagen factory, but for some reason or another, the deal fell through. In my opinion, six months after the deal fell through it should be released to the public. Why? Well, it shows activity. It shows we had people in positions who were engaged in recruiting.
However… let’s read the terminology again. Mississippi Code of 1972 regarding open meetings states executive session may be called regarding “Transaction of business and discussion regarding the prospective purchase, sale or leasing of lands.” …as it pertains to publicly owned land.
I wonder how many times this privilege has been abused when the land in question was owned by a private owner and public officials caught wind of a possible deal and simply wanted to discuss the issue.
Or I wonder how many times public officials have been present for economic meetings when they weren’t the designated representative of the public body for the economic development foundation. Or how many public officials of the same governing body were present and it would have been deemed a public meeting, yet was never announced.
Oh well. It’s Sunshine Week after all! Let’s shine the light here in Tate County.
