From the Raleigh News and Observer (2/21/10): Two town commissioners who met last month with a Wake County economic development official held another closed-door meeting this month, this time with property owners who own land in an area the town wants to turn into an office park.
Unlike the Jan. 22 meeting, the Feb. 11 meeting appears to fall within the letter of the state’s open meetings law, but there are questions about whether recent changes by the board meet the spirit of the law.
That’s because Commissioner Sid Baynes formally enlarged the size of the town board’s economic development committee to include all five town commissioners.
With that move, Baynes and fellow Commissioner Carol Hinnant, the two who met with Wake County economic developer James Sauls last month, could avoid running afoul of the state’s open meetings law. They met Feb. 11 with Town Manager David Bone, Planning Director Teresa Piner, Sauls and about 15property owners and representatives.
John Bussian, a First Amendment lawyer who lobbies for the N.C. Press Association, said enlarging the committee membership to enable two town commissioners to meet legally behind closed doors amounts to a deliberate effort to skirt the state’s open meetings law.
“If there’s a systematic use of just less than a majority, then that suggests to me that someone’s trying to pull a fast one,” Bussian said.
The state’s open meetings law says that if a majority of a board of commissioners or a town board committee meets, the meeting is subject to the state’s public notice requirements. By upping committee membership to five, the town sidestepped those requirements when just two commissioners were present at the Feb. 11 meeting.
Bone told a reporter to leave the meeting because it was not considered public. Bone offered little explanation for closing the meeting. Baynes had said previously such meetings should not be public because they put too much pressure on land owners to sell their property.
According to a letter sent to property owners Jan. 27, the meeting was called to explain the Shovel-Ready site program. That program is a joint venture between the town, the county and the property owners to market and develop property for a certain purpose.
Town leaders have singled out an area around the U.S.64-264 Bypass as a prime location for an office park. It is the same site the town was hoping to lure WakeMed to before Wendell Falls developers made a successful pitch to locate the facility there.
Several parties own the 250-acre site.
by Johnny Whitfield, Raleigh News & Observer Staff Writer