I don’t need to know your reasons, no, not even if they’re good…

A city in our fair state recently had an audit, with unpleasant results relating to its parks department.  Funds were missing.  Clear signs pointed to the need for a strong response.

So the council decided to hire a new director for the parks department.  Had the discussion focused on hiring a person for the post, that would have properly been held in a closed meeting.  (Well, it didn’t HAVE to be in a closed meeting — all of you know, of course, that the closing of a personnel matter is allowed but NOT required, right?)  But where this body got off course was that the entire discussion of whether to create this new full-time position in the budget was part of the closed meeting.  There is no way this discussion of budget and employment — of job creation — belonged in a meeting closed for “hiring, firing, disciplining and promoting” purposes.

What, you say?  These two discussions belonged together?  Well, hardly.  The law says the exceptions need to be interpreted strictly.  Therefore, it was incumbent upon the body to separate these two topics and wait until they were talking about personal information about a candidate before they closed the discussion.

Hopefully the public won’t let closure settle on THIS discussion.  Someone needs to bring a little sunshine to this topic in this community.