From the Greensboro News and Record (1/25/12): City Councilwoman Trudy Wade stood at the short end of an 8-1 vote last week. One of her colleagues even suggested she ought to give up her seat because of her opinion.
But she wasn’t wrong.
Wade defended an exceptional policy designed to prevent closed-door meetings.
It prohibited small groups of council members from meeting with city employees without giving notice and letting the media and public attend.
No other municipality in North Carolina “has anything like this,” Mayor Robbie Perkins said. It set a stricter standard than established by state law, which only says that official meetings attended by a majority of council members must be open.
The council returned to that standard last week as members complained they were prevented from having impromptu or informal meetings with employees to gain more information about issues.