Wednesday, October 9, 2002
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Wednesday, October 9, 2002 |
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Mastering open meetings, master annexers By CAL BEVERLY Odds and ends: Now the Georgia attorney general is wagging his finger at the Fayetteville City Council. Seems the annexing champs of Fayette County apparently tried to sidestep state law against creating unincorporated islands during an annexation of two parcels of land into the city. They did it by leaving two 10-foot-wide strips with the same owner as the annexed parcel connecting the now-surrounded "peninsula" to other unincorporated county land. That's each about the width of one lane of a two-lane road. Fayetteville's strip experts have honed down the state's "100 percent" annexation requirement of a one-owner parcel to a more-chewable "97 percent." The state's highest legal official agrees with the county commission: "No, no, boys, you went too far this time." The county wants Fayetteville to de-annex the land, located next to the Pavilion mega-shopping center. I suggest naming the slender stalks connecting the island to the rest of the county land as "Steele strips," in honor of Mayor Ken Steele, who protested in these pages recently that Fayetteville usually annexes only to protect our shared natural water resources. It seems the "Steele strips" were a little too narrow to fool the attorney general, but maybe they aren't so wide as to threaten our ground water resources in that area.
Speaking of island, look at the map on our front page. The "Steele strip" board wants to annex that southern island into Fayetteville and unleash its Southside Master Plan, much to the horror of residents of south Fayetteville and environs. Public outcry forced the Master Annexers into backtracking and appointing a task force to create some political cover for their traffic-busting master plans. But the map begs the question: How did such an island come about in the first place? Why did Fayetteville annex everything around that parcel in the first place, knowing master planners that they are that they were creating an unincorporated island in the middle of city land? Hello, is there anybody at home in the master planning department? By the way, look at the shape of Fayetteville on any map. That's master planning? It looks like a cancerous octopus.
The AG hath spoken in another interesting issue, this time pointedly against the Fayette County Commission and its practice of taking votes in so-called "executive" or closed sessions. Here at The Citizen, we call those events what they are: secret meetings. Despite years of court rulings directing local governments to err on the side of openness inside of secrecy, local elected officials continue to try to sidestep into the darkness and conduct business behind closed doors. Acting on the prompting of Tyrone Councilman Ronnie Cannon, Tyrone Town Attorney Brad Sears asked the AG's advice: Can we vote on real estate or legal matters in secret? Senior Assistant Attorney General Kathryn L. Allen wrote back: "This office continues to believe that votes on matters that may be discussed in executive session should be held in the open portion of the meeting, except where there is a specific statutory exception for the votes [emphasis mine]." She goes on: "The absence of a specific provision in the real estate or attorney advice exception does not mean that those votes may be held in secret." Cannon took the county commission to task last summer for repeatedly voting in secret session, in most cases not even revealing the subject matter of the votes nor who voted for or against. I agree with Cannon and the assistant AG: The county commission is wrong. It's following flawed legal advice that is going to cost the taxpayers a chunk of money when the secret voting finally gets a court test. Do the right thing, county commissioners. Throw the doors open wide on all your votes. What do you have to hide? Let the sunshine in. We lost our recent case against the county and the cities on opening up court-ordered secret tax-negotiation sessions. Ms. Allen was in the opposite corner from us, in opposition. This time she and we are in the same corner, and any court challenge is likely to be embarrassing for the commissioners.
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