From the Macon County News (8/27/09): Alarm bells went off when it was learned that an unannounced, closed meeting had been held with representatives of the county Airport Authority, the state Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration in attendance.
Both The Macon County News and its local rival were tipped about the Aug. 19 meeting at the county airport, and were concerned that it represented a violation of the state’s Open Meetings law, as no public notice was provided and thus the public was prevented from attending — or trying to.
Authority Chairman Milles Gregory and counsel Joe Collins acknowledged the event, but denied it was a meeting of the Authority at all, much less an official meeting subject to the law.
“I’m not going to agree with that,” said Gregory, when asked about a meeting that, per the tip, had effectively been held completely in closed session. He referred the matter to Collins for clarification.
“The very short answer: It was not a meeting for which public notification was required. That absolutely is true,” Collins said. “The only representative of the Authority that was there was Milles.” He said the meeting was not held at the time designated for any regular meeting of the authority, and the Authority’s clerk, Teresa McDowell, said no notes had been taken.
The issue was addressed again during the opening public comment segment of the Authority’s Aug. 25 regular meeting. There, Gregory characterized the event as primarily a site tour by officials from the other agencies, adding that he was the only Authority member present. Member Tommy Jenkins then pointed out he had been present for about 20 minutes, but before the commencement of the meeting, by which time he’d left.
Eric Rysdon, of public infrastructure consultancy W.K. Dickson, said the event was held for the benefit of FAA and DOT, who are funding the airport’s runway extension project. He said they separately conferred over business that had nothing to do with Macon County, as long as they happened to be here together from Charlotte and Atlanta.
Gregory called it more of a “gathering, not an official meeting.” There was no quorum of the Authority, he said.
Professor David Lawrence of the University of North Carolina School of Government at Chapel Hill agreed that, as described, the event seemed not to constitute a violation. Lawrence has written a short book on the state’s Open Meetings Law.
“I don’t see how the Open Meetings Law is implicated. To have an official meeting of the Authority, you have to have a majority of its members,” he said. “And even if they appointed [Gregory] a committee of one, you have to have at least two members” present to have an official meeting of a public body, he said.
Asked whether a meeting of officials from various bodies could conduct public business — sharing information and making decisions, even while none of them individually have a quorum present — thus frustrating the purpose or intent of the law, Lawrence said the statute as written doesn’t address such a situation.
“The law really deals with meetings of boards and commissions,” he said. “In a few states I’m told the law applies to single officials, but here the legislature did not see fit to write it that way.”
That said, some officials said they regretted not inviting the press and public, because the tour portion would have offered great PR. That jibed with the report given by Rysdon at that Aug. 25 meeting, where he cited progress toward important milestones for the runway project. Based on work now done, “I’m hoping end of next month they’ll say, here’s a set of plans, let’s go out to bid,”Rysdon said.
He said that while the wet summer had held up some site work, it had moved forward to the point that he envisioned “stripping by the middle of next month, mapping by the middle of October” — final steps in the archaeological survey mandated by the discovery of Indian remains on the site. There were graves found, as well as two apparently separate townsites offering great research opportunities.
Based on those discoveries, the Authority had to work out a sometimes difficult, detailed memorandum of agreement with the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians (EBCI) in pursuit of the project.
As part of the virtual lovefest the site tour was described as having been, participants said EBCI Historic Preservation Officer Russ Townsend was also impressed by the progress as well as the comprehensiveness of the site survey.
Chairman Gregory said archaeologist Larry R. Kimball, of the Department of Anthropology at ASU, was aware of the project and urged that a day for the public to see and learn about the site be held before the archaeological finds and features are canvassed and then restored out of view.
Authority counsel Collins said he believed the EBCI is now amenable to that. The Keetoowah branch of the tribe in Oklahoma had persistent doubts, but Collins said he believes they have delegated the decision to EBCI. However, Authority members were concerned to handle the event as sensitively as possible, in order not to violate the MOA and damage the relationship with EBCI.
The Authority took one action at the Aug. 25 meeting: to request that the County Board of Commissioners offer them use of excess dirt remaining at the county library, in order to grade part of the runway extension for the necessary leveling. With the archaeological finds and other factors, dirt cannot be moved from elsewhere at the airport.
Gregory characterized the idea as winwin, enabling the county to get rid of the dirt, and the airport to use it. He said it is clean red dirt, with a clay content that lends to good compacting. Rysdon said minor tests would have to be conducted on the dirt’s quality and composition, and on the sending site, to make sure the latter is not left with erosion and runoff problems. But he didn’t anticipate any problem with the move.
The motion passed unanimously.
by David Tell, Macon County News Staff Writer