Augusta County "operating in the dark"?

[UPDATE: Follow-up article in May 13, 2010, Waynesboro News Virginian.]

Open government, sunlight, equal treatment of all ... these are tenets of government most agree with.

A lawsuit questioning those tenets has been filed by Augusta County citizen Thomas Cline against the Augusta County Board of Equilization charging that decisions were "not conducted in the manner of a public meeting."

Mr. Cline's charge is that his assessment appeal meeting was held behind closed doors even though it was supposed to be open to the public, no minutes of the meeting were recorded, and he was not given the required 15 days notice of a meeting, instead receiving a letter dated Nov. 9 for a Nov. 18 hearing.

As reported on Tuesday's News Virginian:

Cline, put on edge by the secrecy he sensed, arrived early for his hearing and found the meeting room door closed with a note for people to wait outside until they were called.

Once inside, Cline said he asked about meeting minutes, but was rebuked and told to stick to presenting his case.

“‘We’re not here to be interrogated,’” Cline said board officials told him. Within minutes, Cline was back in the hallway.

Questions are being asked by the Waynesboro News Virginian, too, asking if Augusta County government is "operating in the dark." In today's editorial, the NV reveals it asked for information concerning this case and did not receive what they expected:

We asked for minutes and received what Cline did, a record of the value adjustment but no accounting of the attendees, discussion and vote, all mandated by law.

Board Secretary Martin Lightsey acknowledged that it was “definitely possible” that the law was not followed. He said he did not “keep the sort of notes that one would take if you were trying to record minutes of a board meeting.” He admitted votes happened after property owners left the room. Meetings, he said, felt more closed than open.

Well, if a sign on the door directs people to wait outside until called and neither property owners nor the public witnesses votes, that would feel more closed than open, wouldn’t it?

Last year, the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, a state agency, admonished that a board of equalization is a public body required to hold open meetings and keep minutes.

“A record of the vote must be included in the meeting minutes,” the council wrote. “And the vote must be taken during an open meeting conducted in accordance with FOIA.”

Further, the rule of thumb in government is that meetings are presumed open.

Interestingly, the 2009 reassessments were protested by thousands when 10,500 Augusta County residents signed petitions requesting the Board of Supervisors and Commissioner of the Revenue Jean Shrewsbury roll back what many felt were outrageously inflated real estate assessments. The largest crowd in history, over 1,000 residents, attended a March 2009 Augusta County Board of Supervisors meeting addressing the assessments.

Others have run into issues with the Government Center over lack of minutes or recorded minutes concerning meetings. In the Rocket Boy case, now under appeal in Augusta County, a request for the audio tape minutes from a Board of Zoning Appeals meeting was denied and a hard copy version was found to have numerous inaccuracies and omissions. When the Rocket Boys pressed for the audio tape so direct comparisons could be made, they were denied by the county.

Meanwhile, the News Virginian editorial concluded:

If the board followed similar patterns on openness, the keeping of minutes and notification in other cases, the legality of its actions in all is cast in doubt.

An interrogation of the board, indeed, is warranted. These are serious questions that demand answers and in their absence, a swift redress.

We applaud the News Virginian for asking hard questions on behalf of the citizens. Read more about Mr. Cline's lawsuit against Augusta County.