My speech to Danville City Council on 9/2/2014

As promised, here’s the speech that I made to City Council during the public comment section on Tuesday, September 2nd. Two members of city council met and discussed business with two members of the school board in a way that the public nor media had to be notified in advance. This meeting was not in violation of state law, but I felt that the spirit of the Open Meetings law was violated.

Greetings,

I have discovered that on Wednesday, August 6th, Mayor Sherman Saunders, Vice-Mayor Gary Miller and City Manager Joe King met with School Board Chairman Ed Polhamus, Vice Chair Terri Hall and acting superintendent Kathy Osborne to talk about school system updates, plans, budget and projections. Although this meeting did not violate Open Meeting laws because only 2 members of 2 different elected boards met, I feel that this was an skirting of Virginia’s open meeting laws. At council’s work session the next evening, Mayor Saunders distributed a package for each Council member from the school board.

I ask that package be put into the public record and minutes for that work session so that the public has full access to what it contains. I especially make this request because the public was not informed about this meeting ahead of time, even as a courtesy.

In the future, should council and the school board want to do this 2-and-2 type of meeting, I urge that both boards clearly advertise the date, time and location of this meeting so that the citizens can attend and the media can cover it. Transparency is the key to trust in your elected offices. Behavior shown on August 6th is not conducive to public trust.

I also suggest that if council delegates 2 representatives for such a meeting, that those two members be ones who have actually attended school board meetings in the past few months. Thank you for your time, and I stand ready to answer any questions from Council or to hear your comments.

There you go!