Last year, Yankton County Observer contributing editor Brian Hunhoff received national attention for his Sunshine Week column challenging government secrecy. This year, Hunhoff marks Sunshine Week (March 13–19) with this list of Ten Commandments for open meetings:
“I think heroic deeds were all conceived in the open air.”
The quote above this editorial is from Walt Whitman’s Song of the Open Road – a cheerful 1856 tribute to freedom and the great outdoors.
Hopefully, Mr. Whitman would have approved use of his prose to promote open, well-aired government. It’s unlikely the great poet favored government secrecy and closed-door meetings. He also wrote, “Out of the dark confinement, out from behind the screen!”
For today’s purposes, Whitman’s “screen” represents the executive session – a self-important term for a classic oxymoron: closed public meeting.
Too many elected boards seek every opportunity to meet out of sight of the public they serve. Some schedule executive sessions as a regular agenda item. Some hold up to three executive sessions in a single meeting. Some have executive sessions that last longer than the open portion of their meeting.
In most cases, executive sessions do not violate open meeting laws. The closed-door discussions are often suggested or encouraged by an elected board’s legal counsel.
But legality and necessity are two different things.
Consider the following list our Fourth Estate counsel to county commissions, city councils, and school boards everywhere on executive sessions and general government openness. Citizens should hold their elected officials to the standards below. These are Ten Commandments for Open Meetings:
ONE: Do not gather as a quorum outside of regular meetings, and do not hold special meetings without giving at least 24 hours public notice.
TWO: Do not habitually add last-minute items to the agenda, and do not act on anything not listed on the posted agenda.
THREE: Do not abuse the litigation excuse for executive sessions to speculate about possible or imagined lawsuits.
FOUR: Do not stretch the personnel excuse for executive sessions to discuss policy issues. Example: Creating a new position or changing a department’s job descriptions are policy decisions and not appropriate topics for a closed meeting.
FIVE: Do not dial up the “negotiations” excuse to suddenly exclude the public from discussion of controversial issues that were previously aired thoroughly in open session.
SIX: Do not allow executive session conversations to stray to other topics.
SEVEN: Do not violate the spirit of the open meeting law with frequent phone, email or text dialogues with other members. Reach consensus at the meeting.
EIGHT: Do not make a habit of whispering or passing notes at meetings. You were elected to speak for us. Tell what you have to say out loud and proud!
NINE: Allow public input at every meeting. Include it on every agenda.
TEN: Be as transparent as possible. Do not hold executive sessions simply because counsel advised it is “legal” to do so. Ask yourself: “Is it absolutely critical we discuss this privately?”
That should be the test because legality and necessity are two different things.
We appreciate our local commissioners and board members. They serve for minimal compensation. They make tough decisions. They sometimes lose friends and make enemies. Their dedication to community is admirable.
We simply ask elected officials to think twice before kicking the public out of public meetings.
Strive for fewer. Less is more. A closed meeting should be a rare occasion, not a habit [Brian Hunhoff, Sunshine Week editorial, March 2016].
In the spirit of Sunshine Week, Hunhoff also shares with Dakota Free Press this 2014 editorial cartoon that he inked in protest of Republican legislators’ continued secret caucus meetings in Pierre.
Open government is better government. Elected officials, keep those doors open!
The Winner School Board has violated nearly every one of the above rules in the last year. They hold a “retreat”. Nearly every agenda has an open-ended “executive session” in the list. States Attorneys and local attorneys are scared spitless of prosecuting school boards for reasons I don’t understand. SD open-meeting laws are mostly eye-wash without transparency and teeth.
This is not just a GOP issue or a School board issue. This transcends party lines and levels of government. Only when people start to care and pay attention to what their government is doing will anything change
How does this transcend party lines when Dems do not control any gubmint functions,they don’t have the guv seat,they are small minorities in either house of congress and have zero clout??? And they sure as shooting aren’t going to win many,if any, converts from a rabid,anti-constitutional,anti-American voting block.
I apologize for being non germane to the topic, but did any other DFP faithful attend their SD Democratic Presidential Delegate Legislative District Caucus today? In District 12, Bernie beat Hillary 10 to 2 as far as potential delegate preferences were concerned. I am sure the St Patty’s Day parade in downtown in SF, at nearly the same time, did help caucus attendance, however.
iowa may need more open meetings. State public utilities co voted to approve Bakken oil pipeline across some of the most fertile ag soil in the world-my Obrien County and Sioux County where some farmland sold for $21900 an acre a couple years ago.
Good question, John. Crickets……
I attended my last Dem Pres Caucus about 40 years back. I turned down your parties multiple invitations this year as I traded in my Dem badge for an opportunity to participate in SD primaries a decade and a half ago. It appears the SD Dems think it is still 1976.
Blindman states in a different thread, you’re an idiot if you vote with just one X. There may be a few on board Blindman.
Back on topic, it appears futile when you get up against the system so broken all board members are involved. Good members leave creating non-contested openings to more bottom feeders.
Your site does not allow me to past too quickly at close to a couple hours between posts but the mouth of the south mifi is getting in at 10 min intervals.
G’night, Les. The game is still on.
(Les, really? You’re getting a forced two-hour delay between comments? That puzzles me. No widget on my site should be making that happen. Is it still happening today?)
The Sunshine Week idea is perhaps a worthy cause but similar to rubbing peanut butter in yer belly button. Sorry but I can’t subscribe to the notion that efforts like Sunshine Week put much pressure on elected public officials to be more transparent in their meetings and interpersonal discussions. The only thing that is going to accomplish that is strict liability law that mandates the responsible behavior under threat of prosecution and jail. We’d be kidding ourselves if we didn’t believe that there is more legislative strategizing , conspiring and deal making going on in motel rooms and bars after hours than there is in session. Closed caucuses are nothing more than formalizing strategy that has been planned out over a couple shots of Johnny Walker Red and a 16 ounce beef steak.
With political power comes arrogance and the reality that that power can and does control everything. We’ve seen evidence on both sides of the isle where political parties come to the defense of individual party members or bodies for all sorts of indiscretions and invariably, the party with the most power is able to either diffuse an issue into thin air or simply make it disappear by calling it a non issue. Haven’t we seen that with EB-5. Haven’t we seen that with Gear Up. In Doug’s School Board circumstances, what else is going to work. These folks have been playing that tag team game, likely for decades without consequence and they now firmly believe that just because they’ve been elected, they can rise to some privileged advisory level that should be immune from the peering eyes of the public. It’s that strange notion that we elect people for their self described wisdom and not their willingness to represent ideas and thoughts of constituents. To encourage them to just drop old habits and open the doors to cameras and angry faces is more than a bit of wishful thinking.