Transparency takes a hit by moving meeting date
A PeeDeePost.com editorial
The Richmond County commissioners voted on Monday 6-1 to change its monthly meeting date to the first Tuesday of each month instead of the first Monday.
Starting next month, the first Tuesday of each month will include a full lineup of public meetings:
* 5:30 p.m. Richmond County Board of Commissioners, downtown Rockingham
* 6 p.m. Richmond County Board of Education, downtown Hamlet
* 7 p.m. Richmond Community College Board of Trustees, Hwy 74 Business, Hamlet
If your interests are intertwined to any more than one of the above-mentioned public bodies, you’re simply out of luck.
The catalyst for change, according to county officials, was two-fold. First, having the meeting on a Tuesday bypasses the need to reschedule meetings for when they fall on a Monday that is designated as a federal holiday. Second, it gives the commissioners eight additional business hours to ask questions about the issue of the day. The agenda is made available to the public and to the media on the Friday before each Monday (now Tuesday) meeting. The agenda for Monday’s meeting was sent to the commissioner two days before that, on Wednesday.
The answer to the latter issue is simple, and something we suggested it to all seven county commissioners and County Manager Rick Sago in an email late last week. The fix? Make the agenda available one day sooner. The Post published Sago’s response — the only one of eight people written to — in a staff report on Monday after Sago had replied over the weekend.
The counter to the former, meanwhile, is this: There will still be times the commissioners choose to move their meeting date. Election Day, the first Tuesday in November, is among the possibilities. Same with days of severe winter weather.
Commissioner Jimmy Capps cast the lone dissenting vote. Reached Tuesday, Capps said he saw nothing wrong with the regular meeting date. He had arranged his work schedule to make himself available each first Monday evening of the month. Now he’s forced to reschedule what appeared to be set in stone.
“I just didn’t see any need to do it,” Capps said.
Capps said he also had doubts after reading the email from The Pee Dee Post. The points were good ones, perhaps, but Capps was the only one who thought so.
Sago told The Pee Dee Post the digital newspaper had two options: Choose which meeting to cover or hire someone. The former is obvious, although until now an unnecessary evil. The latter is financially not possible, and he knows it. To suggest that — well, let’s just say the PDP doesn’t have a taxpayer-fueled general fund.
It’s true, the commissioners’ meetings are broadcast live on Time Warner Cable. That’s great if (a) you subscribe to Time Warner Cable and (b) you are in front of the television at 5:30 p.m. It’s also true, as county IT Director Jimmy Quick announced last night, that the meetings will be streamed live online — circumventing the need for Time Warner Cable subscription — and available on demand in an online archive.
Those steps are positives ones towards transparency and accessibility, but the vote to change the meeting date takes the commission a couple of steps back. The commission knowingly voted to make a decision that will have an adverse impact on the media’s ability to provide coverage with so many meetings on the same night.
It’s not simply watching the video; it’s about having a reporter on scene to ask follow-up questions and obtain more information than what the public body wants to, or initially thinks to, share with the public. Even a replay of a meeting might not do much good; there is often very little discussion before a vote — a vote just like the one made Monday night to change the meeting date.
We realize this issue is not one to garner massive public attention — if any at all — and compel readers to swarm the county building with emails, letters and phone calls. That doesn’t change the bottom line, which is this: Having a reporter help tell readers not only what happened but why and how it will impact them is the hallmark of a free society that embraces a free press. Six commissioners voted against that on Monday.
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