From the Charlotte Observer (3/18/09): For Sunshine Week, the Observer has asked public officials to discuss their views about open government. A different official will be featured each day.
Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity. See charlotteobserver.com for a full transcript. Today’s interview was conducted by county government reporter April Bethea.
Q. Do you support the concept that “in the fact of doubt, openness prevails” for your agency?
Yes, I do. I’ve always believed that transparency in government is extremely important, mainly because we’re stewards of the public’s trust. Transparency, I think, helps to build understanding of the services that are provided and how public funds are used.
Q. Do you agree that agencies should take steps to make information public and not wait for specific requests from the public? If so, what specific steps will you take? If not, why?
I think the best way to answer that question is what do we do in Mecklenburg County to make information available. Now making information available may not always mean that you’re providing all of the information that citizens or the media wants. But let’s just for a moment talk about how people want to access services. We televise our meetings. We video stream all our meetings. We archive all those meetings. Once we complete a board meeting, we also publish through our clerk’s office a statement, what’s called a commission capsule. In addition to that, what we as a staff do is to utilize our Web site to do a lot of what we call webcasting of services.
Q. What information should be withheld from the public?
The determining factor for what should be withheld from the public is determined by state law. We try to make sure we are following the law.
Q. What training do county department heads and other key employees receive about open records?
There is no direct training that I can speak of that we provide on providing open records other than what I do as a manager to speak to our county department directors and employees about the importance of transparency in government. It’s often a principle that I use when I develop the budget, so I think that the expectation is clear that open records and transparency in government is very important.
Q. You say the expectation is there, but do you think at any point that there ought to be formalized training so people know what exactly what you mean when you say you should be transparent?
There is no formal training … (but) here is what county employees and county department leaders do: they make sure that they are talking to the county attorneys office, our public information office, along with executive staff in the managers office to make sure that they are being consistent and that they are complying with my expectations to be transparent.
Q. A question was raised about whether commissioners discussed items in closed session last week that should have been aired publicly. How can the public be sure public officials use private meetings appropriately?
The county attorney is present during the closed session meetings. He has a legal and an ethical obligation to uphold the law. In the case of closed sessions, he advises the board about what it must, may and cannot discuss in closed sessions. And this advice that he gives to the board occurs actually prior to the meeting in terms of identifying the board items for closed session. And then finally, closed session minutes and now recordings are released to the public once there is no longer any need for the matter to be confidential. So the assurance I think is there for the public to know that we are following the law and that we use the private meetings appropriately.
Charlotte Observer Q&A