It’s ironic that Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Paul Smith said at a recent meeting that he was pleased the press wasn’t there so party members could talk privately about sensitive issues and avoid “a big brouhaha.”
By keeping the meeting secret and barring a reporter who wanted to cover it, he created an even bigger brouhaha than if he’d just welcomed the reporter in the first place.
Smith closed the Jan. 24 meeting to the media and told Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Chris Carroll that the meeting was “confidential.” In the end, being barred from the meeting didn’t matter because Carroll was given an audio file of the meeting and wrote a front-page story about the incident and what was discussed in the closed session. (Note to other officials considering closing your meetings: In this day of apps and gadgets, secrets are far harder to keep).
The party wrote a Letter to the Editor that stated closing the meeting violated none of the party’s bylaws because it was an executive session. The letter even said party officials had consulted with “experts and a member of the Democratic National Committee” and found that “indeed we can conduct such a meeting without it being open to the press.”
Problem is, they were wrong. Smith never adjourned the regular meeting and opened the executive session. To their credit, party officials quickly admitted their mistake after a Tennessee Democratic Party official told Carroll the party encourages and requires open meetings on a local, state and national level.