It should, it seems, be fairly simple for public officials to comply with the law when it comes to conducting the people’s business. Open-meeting laws have been in existence for decades, providing common-sense guidelines for elected officials. To summarize those laws: The public is your boss; it should know what you are doing when you’re on the job.
Simple. Concise. Easily understood. But just in case local officials required one more reminder about the importance of openness, they recently have been provided with two.
First, the Battle Ground School Board inexplicably was mum about a buyout of former Superintendent Shonny Bria. Keeping Bria’s golden parachute a secret from even high-ranking district administrators and attempting to circumvent a public records request from media outlets, board members waited several months before coming clean about the extent of the buyout.
The final cost: $401,715 to taxpayers and a dissolution of trust between citizens and the board.
Second, Port of Vancouver commissioners apparently violated state meetings law in discussing a proposed oil terminal. As reported by Aaron Corvin of The Columbian, board members opted to hold some discussions in private executive session and to not inform the public in advance of how long the session would last — despite the fact that such moves are prohibited by law.
The final cost: A violation of public confidence and, perhaps, a future legal roadblock to the terminal, which commissioners ultimately approved.
The cases of the Battle Ground school board and the Port of Vancouver represent vastly different paths to the same destination. The Battle Ground situation comes with an easily defined price tag, while the port seemingly did nothing more than violate some rules.
Yet both instances should serve as a reminder — and a warning — to all elected officials: The public will settle for nothing less than transparency and honesty from officials. Be it a city council or a county commission or a school board or any other entity beholden to voters, openness is essential. For example, if officials make a crucial taxpayer-funded hiring while ignoring protocol, they will face the wrath of the people.
The days of public policy being forged in smoky back rooms have long since ended, driven out by the 1966 Freedom of Information Act — signed, appropriately enough, on Independence Day — and by the open-meeting laws that followed in every state in the union.
As colonial revolutionary Patrick Henry said: “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”
Certainly, mistakes will be made when it comes to compliance with such laws; errors are not necessarily the result of some nefarious attempt at secrecy. But public entities have at their disposal copious legal advice — paid for by taxpayers — and they would be wise to take heed. If poor legal advice is what led to poor or illegal decisions, then perhaps those providing that advice should be re-evaluated.
In the end, Stephanie Etulain, an eighth-grade teacher in the Battle Ground district, summarized the feelings of the public at a board meeting last week: “I ask the board to operate in the light of day.”
That would seem to be a laudable and easily attained goal for all public officials. Yet all too often, we are treated to examples of darkness.
