Mike BabbDALTON, Ga. – A private meeting last week with four elected officials from three boards did not violate Georgia open meetings law, but a state advocate for open government questioned why the meeting was not public.
Whitfield County Commission Chairman Mike Babb, County Commissioner Robby Staten, Whitfield County school board Chairman Louis Fordham and Dalton city school board Chairman Steve Williams attended a meeting Aug. 29 to discuss various options about local sales tax increases, according to those attending.
Six other people attended the meeting, most of them county employees. They included William Bronson, publisher of the Dalton Daily Citizen; Whitfield County Schools Superintendent Danny Hayes; County Administrator Mark Gibson; Ron Hale, the county’s financial officer; county attorney Robert Smalley; and Kenny Sheppard, county school finance director.
Hollie Manheimer, executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, said Georgia open meeting laws do not address meetings among various agencies, unless a quorum of an individual public agency attends the meeting. But Manheimer said the public is best served by public meetings.
“The purpose of the open meetings act is to provide the public the opportunity to review the actions of its elected officials,” Manheimer wrote in an email. “To the extent any members of any one public agency meet with some members of another public agency, this surely seems like important public business in which citizens would have a keen interest.”