From the Fayetteville Observer (2/3/09): A request by the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce to meet privately with elected officials for “candid two-way communication” sparked a swift backlash that might have killed the idea.
Last week, chamber President Doug Peters invited members of the City Council and the Board of Commissioners to meet with him this month in small groups outside of the public eye.
Over the weekend, some councilmen made it known they did not want to participate, saying they didn’t like the idea of small sessions outside the bounds of North Carolina’s Open Meetings Law.
In an e-mail sent Monday afternoon, Peters told the officials that the purpose of the meetings was to update them on chamber activities and initiatives. Peters said the idea wasn’t to discuss economic development proposals — a topic that the state already allows elected bodies to discuss in closed meetings.
“This was an attempt to provide you a quiet, comfortable and focused placed in which to communicate with me without distraction,” Peters said, adding in his e-mail that the “point of informational meetings is to simply ensure candid two-way communication” and to share “with you privately” community challenges to development.
Those challenges include crime rates and cost of living figures that other recruiters use.
Staff members for the city and county had forwarded Peter’s request for the private meetings to the officials Friday by e-mails, suggesting some times and dates.
Councilman Ted Mohn said he doubled-checked whether the meetings in fact would be private, after getting the request.
“That’s when I got mad,” Mohn said Monday.
The freshman councilman fired off an e-mail to the rest of the council and posted a comment Saturday on his blog, which appears on The Fayetteville’s Observer’s Web site. He wrote that he will refuse to attend the meetings.
“I might be an idiot for bucking the system and challenging the status quo here in Fayetteville,” he said.
Several other people commented on Mohn’s blog, deploring the idea of the private meetings with the chamber.
And now, given that resistance, the county commissioners plan to skirt those small meetings, too. Board Chairwoman Jeannette Council said Monday that the commissioners would invite Peters to a future public meeting instead.
Peters, in an interview late Monday, said there had been a misunderstanding about the intention of the meetings. He said the proposed meetings with elected officials would not necessarily have to be closed to the public.
“That is entirely up to them,” he said. “If they want to bring media, they can.”
Peters acknowledged he preferred some groups with the elected officials. He said he held similarly quiet and small meetings with elected officials last year after he arrived, and “they were well-attended.”
Not doing ‘it again’
At least three other council members — Keith Bates, Bill Crisp and Charles Evans — said they would not attend the private meetings.
“We just got slammed for having closed meetings with the county just before Christmas,” Mohn said. “So why are we going to sit there and do it again?”
Mohn was referring to small meetings between several members of the council and Board of Commissioners last fall. The meetings purposely avoided quorums, thus avoiding having to give public notice and to allow the public to attend.
From accounts of those who attended, the topics ranged from general discussions to specific policies and issues, including transit, safe drinking water and downtown parking decks.
The chamber is a private, nonprofit group that promotes the interests of about 1,300 dues-paying members. It is under contract by the city and county to recruit new industry and jobs. Almost half of the chamber’s $1.9 million budget this fiscal year comes from city and county taxpayers.
“They should be more than willing to come out in front of us at a regular meeting that’s televised and tell everybody and the city what they were doing with their tax dollars,” Councilman Keith Bates said in an interview.
Chamber’s initiatives
Peters became the chamber’s new chief executive officer last summer. He replaced Bill Martin, who had come under fire from some city and county officials for a lack of economic progress and his handling of a proposed ethanol plant.
Last week, at the end of the City Council’s regular meeting, Peters briefed the council in open session about various initiatives. He told the council that his agency was in contact with other companies looking to expand. If all the plans were to come to fruition, Cumberland County would gain a total of $1.4 billion in investments and 5,500 jobs.
Peters provided no details of the prospective clients at the meeting.
Mayor Tony Chavonne said Peters’ request to the council members did not specify whether the small-group meetings would be open to the public or closed. While Chavonne said he applauded Peters’ efforts to inform the public bodies, he wouldn’t attend any closed meetings to talk about general chamber items.
“Unless it dealt with a specific economic development request, it couldn’t have been closed,” he said.
Mohn also revealed on his blog other private meetings that have occurred. He said some council members met in groups of no more than four in 2007 to be briefed on the city’s plans for a $15 million veterans park and revamped gateway near the Airborne & Special Operations Museum. The city unveiled those plans in February 2008. Mohn said he did not participate in those meetings.
by Andrew Barksdale, Staff Writer