DOGTROT: Saltville revisited

By DIANE JOHNSON

Monday night the Saltville Town Council met supposedly to ‘reconvene’ the Sept. 9 meeting.  You can’t reconvene a meeting that was never recessed.  You certainly can’t reconvene a meeting that was adjourned. Mayor Jeff Campbell claims that he adjourned the meeting on the ninth.  No meeting can be adjourned while in closed session.  Any motion has to be done in the open for all to see and hear. Quite a dilemma for that Sept. 9 meeting.

Mayor Campbell wrote a piece for the Smyth County News and Messenger.  He complained that the paper had written an editorial about the council meeting fiasco and didn’t identify the writer.  It’s an editorial; therefore it was written by the editor.  Pretty simple. He also complained about “…a closed session that wasn’t all that discrete given the volume of the voices and the open windows through which peeked several citizens and members of the media with cameras posed and ready like paparazzi.”  I must reply to this.  I was there. No one was watching or listening through the windows. First of all, the windows don’t open. Secondly, no one had a camera, camera phone or similar device. But if someone had wanted to, it would have been just fine.  The Freedom of Information Act speaks specifically to this point; cameras, video or audio recording devices are allowed. Paparazzi?  Really, now. 

Mayor Campbell goes on to complain that the Freedom of Information Act does not have exceptions for emergency or exigent circumstances. This was neither. This was “boys behaving badly”. Robert’s Rules of Order, which Saltville claims to use, does address procedure and decorum. This was not akin to a fire breaking out as Campbell claims. As the moderator/leader of the meeting, Campbell needed to bang his gavel and call for order.  If that failed to work, he needed to ask the police to restore order. The police, and generally the police chief, are always at the meeting. They are there for the purpose of maintaining order. I dare say that a citizen would have been removed or arrested had they exhibited the same behavior as some council members.

The meeting Monday night had them going into closed session as usual. They discussed something that, in my opinion, was not a closed meeting item. They discussed adding an assistant town manager to their staff. They also discussed who they would appoint. Why couldn’t that have been done in open session? What was the need for privacy? And I said privacy, not secrecy. Big difference. Secrets are toxic and there is no need for secrets in government. 

It was wonderful to watch the council politely wait for the citizens to return to chambers before they began the open session. We all watched as they tiptoed through the mine field of certifying the closed session.  They had that section of FOIA down pat. Not one of them would attest that the subjects listed were the only things discussed. The cat had been let out of the bag and they really couldn’t answer any other way. Some read from prepared statements or used the expression, “as advised by my attorney” to explain their vote. The accountability was wonderful. There even was an apology or two.  The funniest was the one that claimed that he was sorry if he had offended any citizens but explained he had never called them….and he preceded down a list of offensive names and epithets.

The Mayor and some council members claim that they are not going into closed session anymore unless it involves litigation. When was this decision made? Certainly wasn’t discussed in open session and wasn’t on a closed meeting agenda. I haven’t heard any citizen say that they don’t want closed session utilized. They just want closed sessions done according to proper procedure and content. Very simple. Follow the law and the law is clearly written out in black and white. 

The eyes of many are on the Saltville government. They know they are being watched, talked about, and written about.  These are good things. No, these are great things.