County Commissioner Herb Frady did not mince any words at a June 28 concerning an ongoing controversy over the new minutes procedures for the county commission meetings.

“(Former attorney) Bill McNally ordered the tapes destroyed,” Frady said.

Executive Assistant Carol Chandler did confirm that the tapes were removed, but said the county was using them to tape the meetings over and over. She said a person would not be able to listen to a meeting from 1985, but noted there would be a 60- or 65-page detailed account of the meeting.

When questioned about the issue, McNally said it was not in his power to instruct the staff in anything, but said after the meetings were transcribed from the tapes, there was no need to keep the tapes.

“The written minutes are the official record of the county,” he said.

The issue of how the meeting minutes are preserved and recorded has been one of the talking points during the County Commission races this summer.

In June, residents learned the new procedure of recording minutes.

Chandler confirmed that no vote had ever been taken on posting an abbreviated form of the minutes. Instead, the “directive” came from the county’s new in-house attorney, Scott Bennett, when he came on board last summer.

“It was a staff directive, and we took it seriously,” Chandler said.

Previously, the county had posted a more comprehensive account of discussions relating to actions the commissioners took during meetings. Now, the minutes reflect how each commissioner voted, but leaves out the discussion part.

The new form has come under fire from letter writers to The Citizen, and from Commissioner Peter Pfeifer, who tried to get the commissioners to go back to the old way of recording minutes. On May 22, Pfeifer made a motion to go back to the old way, but was defeated by a 4-1 vote.

Still, Chandler maintains the information is still available to the public.

“We have audio CDs available, and are working towards putting a [audio] file on the website that will have the entire meeting,” she added.

“These meetings should be documented as rigorously as a court trial, and they should be readily accessible to all voters using the website, including attachments. After all, we are talking about decisions that are made concerning the taxpayers’ money and potential future tax liabilities. Citizens have a right to know what was said and who said it,” Pfeifer said in a letter to The Citizen May 13.

“I suppose an informal summary could be added as a preface to the recorded minutes, but it is not in the public interest to be vague about history,” Pfeifer wrote. “I don’t think it is their intent, but it suggests that the commission is hiding something from the taxpayers.”

But Chairman Jack Smith said the new minutes were quite appropriate and said the current County Commission had stopped the process of destroying audiotapes of the proceedings in 2007.

Smith added the mere fact that audio recordings of meetings were now available was evidence of the board’s position that citizen’s rights were being protected.

“To suggest otherwise is pure hogwash,” he said.