Same Song, New Verse, Same Wrong Notes

There’s one political body in this state that seems to make a habit out of regularly violating the
Sunshine Law. They’ve been called on this before by Attorney General Jay Nixon, but they
seem more than a little unwilling to devote time to understanding the law. Whether it’s
ignorance or just willful disobedience, they seem bound to repeatedly violate the provisions of
this law.

This week they held a meeting to allegedly discuss a matter under 610.021 (3), which should
have related solely to hiring or firing or disciplining or promoting an employee.
Instead, in this discussion, they discussed continuing a job duty for the employee. There is no
way that such a discussion could be harmonized into that exception. Just because the exception
in question says the magic word employee does NOT mean that anything that relates to the
employee can be discussed in closed session. For example, it is clear under the law that salary,
alone, when not tied to a promotion (or perhaps a firing or disciplining), would NOT be
appropriate for such a closed meeting. That probably comes as a surprise to some public bodies.
But there’s no excuse for a mistake like that outlined above in connection with THIS body. The
principles here are pretty basic. and the tune is simple

And if that isn’t enough, the body first told a reporter they took a voice vote in closed session on
the job duty issue. When they were questioned by the reporter on that (after all, 610.015 says
any votes taken during a closed meeting SHALL be taken by roll call ), they changed their
tune. No, this wasn’t a vote, it was direction given to the supervisor. Except, in their original
announcement of this closed session, they announced they had decided in closed session to
take an action in regard to this employee’s duties. What does decided mean? A body clearly
cannot decide anything without a vote. And if it was by consensus, it’s STILL a vote, even if
the body is naive enough to think they did not take a vote.

Sour note, sour tune, just generally a sloppy performance all around. These folks won’t be
performing as the next American Idol.