Columbus kerfuffle another example of public’s right to know
The Columbus City School Board is relaunching its search for a superintendent, squandering money and voter trust in the process.
The entire ordeal is yet another example that governmental groups should go above and beyond to conduct their business in the open.
Basically, the Columbus School Board was called out by state auditor Dave Yost, who accused the members of violating the Ohio Open Meetings Act by making decisions in private.
Yost essentially told the board if it went forward with a selection resulting from a closed meeting, members could be held individually liable for any financial losses caused by the candidate they were prepared to employ.
The Columbus board apparently was also given bad information by its legal team, but that still reflects back on the group. Newspapers run into these types of situations all the time. If a board desires to work in private, its attorney can craft a reason to make that seem possible – even if the law wouldn’t agree.
Trust me. It has been done in this county. Area boards have closed meetings inappropriately and the reporters of this newspaper have objected. The bottom line is, a board’s attorney will try to keep the members happy and if they want to hold a closed-door meeting the legal representative will often try to make it happen.
Whether closing meetings or denying requests for public documents, why do they do it? Instead of trying to find ways to keep the public in the dark, why not err on the side of being open?
Just recently, one of our reporters requested the names of finalists for an administrator job in a local village. He was told the village did not have to supply the names and that the solicitor agreed. This doesn’t follow the law. This newspaper routinely requests the resumes of finalists for high profile positions within the city, county and schools.
We choose to wait until original lists of applicants are whittled down to finalists before making such requests, but we could ask for the name of every person applying for a public position. Once a resume is received by a governmental agency, it becomes a public record.
Why push for such secrecy? If public officials are truly working in the best interest of citizens they should have no problem allowing the taxpayers to glimpse the thought process involved.
Many of our local officials know the Sunshine Law and Open Meetings Act front-to-back and do an exceptional job providing any information which is appropriate. We applaud those decision-makers.
But to those who would rather say “no” and close a door we ask them to remember who they serve. They are in place because of the will of the public and operate on funding provided by the people.
They owe transparency to those who pay the tab.
-Chad Williamson is the managing editor at the Journal-Tribune.