Sebastian County's prosecuting attorney has called out the Fort Smith School Board for violating the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
There's a lesson in what happened there for local governing boards, some of which just saw the election of brand new members.
Elected officials, whether new to public service or tenured in any of these posts of public trust, need to know and follow the Arkansas FOI Act.
Many will get some orientation before assuming their new duties. Others will find out the hard way that transparency really is required in public service.
In the Fort Smith situation, school board members exchanged email about the election of officers for the board rather than conducting that particular business in public.
The prosecutor there is Daniel Shue. He got involved after a citizen complained about the email. The citizen is Joey McCutchen, an attorney and a familiar figure in FOI matters in Fort Smith.
A former school board member himself, McCutchen is a regular critic of government there, most recently associated with litigation against the school board for another alleged FOI Act violation.
That case is related to the board members' discussion, arguably without proper public notice, about removing the Rebel as the Southside High School mascot and eliminating the fight song, "Dixie." The civil litigation is now before the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Significantly, McCutchen is contemplating another civil action against the school board for this latest apparent failure to do its business in the open.
Prosecutor Shue might have brought criminal charges against the Fort Smith School Board members for violating the FOI Act. He has not. McCutchen, the guy who called the matter to Shue's attention, specifically asked him not to pursue a criminal complaint.
Shue's letter to the school board members, asserting that they had violated the law, nevertheless served its purpose.
It elicited a promise from the school board president, Deannie Mehl, that the board won't do it again.
What had seemed to the board members to be an innocent exchange by email had effectively shut the public out of the governing process.
McCutchen himself recognized the situation when he observed the Fort Smith School Board's vote on Oct.24 to elect new officers.
There was no discussion. None. That made McCutchen suspicious. He found out board members had discussed the nominations. They just didn't do it in front of the public that elected them.
Their discussion had been carried out through a series of eight email, which were attached last week to the letter the local prosecutor sent to the board members.
Shue had himself reviewed videos of the Oct. 24 board meeting and of a Sept. 29 committee of the whole meeting and those eight email messages exchanged among board members in the interim between those two public meetings.
One of the board members brought up the election of officers in the earlier public meeting, but the board didn't discuss the election then either. The only discussion was in the email.
That set of facts led Shue to conclude the school board members violated the state's open meetings law.
In his letter, he quoted an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling from 1975 that the intent of the FOI Act is to let the people know not only what actions public officials take but also the reasons behind those actions.
"This letter should serve as a reminder that the public's right to know must remain inviolate and that the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act must be strictly complied with at all times and under all circumstances," wrote Shue.
That's the simple lesson that other local officials should take from the Fort Smith experience.
The FOI Act "must be strictly complied with at all times and under all circumstances."
Inconvenient though it may be, it is the law, which was passed for the benefit of the public, not convenience of elected officials.
Sebastian County's prosecuting attorney has called out the Fort Smith School Board for violating the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
There's a lesson in what happened there for local governing boards, some of which just saw the election of brand new members.
Elected officials, whether new to public service or tenured in any of these posts of public trust, need to know and follow the Arkansas FOI Act.
Many will get some orientation before assuming their new duties. Others will find out the hard way that transparency really is required in public service.
In the Fort Smith situation, school board members exchanged emails about the election of officers for the board rather than conducting that particular business in public.
The prosecutor there is Daniel Shue. He got involved after a citizen complained about the emails. The citizen is Joey McCutchen, an attorney and a familiar figure in FOI matters in Fort Smith.
A former school board member himself, McCutchen is a regular critic of government there, most recently associated with litigation against the school board for another alleged FOI Act violation.
That case is related to the board members' discussion, arguably without proper public notice, about removing the Rebel as the Southside High School mascot and eliminating the fight song, "Dixie." The civil litigation is now before the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Significantly, McCutchen is contemplating another civil action against the school board for this latest apparent failure to do its business in the open.
Prosecutor Shue might have brought criminal charges against the Fort Smith School Board members for violating the FOI Act. He has not. McCutchen, the guy who called the matter to Shue's attention, specifically asked him not to pursue a criminal complaint.
Shue's letter to the school board members, asserting that they had violated the law, nevertheless served its purpose.
It elicited a promise from the school board president, Deannie Mehl, that the board won't do it again.
What had seemed to the board members to be an innocent exchange by email had effectively shut the public out of the governing process.
McCutchen himself recognized the situation when he observed the Fort Smith School Board's vote on Oct.24 to elect new officers.
There was no discussion. None. That made McCutchen suspicious. He found out board members had discussed the nominations. They just didn't do it in front of the public that elected them.
Their discussion had been carried out through a series of eight emails, which were attached last week to the letter the local prosecutor sent to the board members.
Shue had himself reviewed videos of the Oct. 24 board meeting and of a Sept. 29 committee of the whole meeting and those eight emails exchanged among board members in the interim between those two public meetings.
One of the board members brought up the election of officers in the earlier public meeting, but the board didn't discuss the election then either. The only discussion was in the emails.
That set of facts led Shue to conclude the school board members violated the state's open meetings law.
In his letter, he quoted an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling from 1975 that the intent of the FOI Act is to let the people know not only what actions public officials take but also the reasons behind those actions.
"This letter should serve as a reminder that the public's right to know must remain inviolate and that the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act must be strictly complied with at all times and under all circumstances," wrote Shue.
That's the simple lesson that other local officials should take from the Fort Smith experience.
The FOI Act "must be strictly complied with at all times and under all circumstances."
Inconvenient though it may be, it is the law, which was passed for the benefit of the public, not convenience of elected officials.
Commentary on 11/20/2016