In a rush to set up a press conference after The Chronicle asked about ongoing reorganization of county departments Thursday, the Board of Lewis County Commissioners scheduled a meeting including all three commissioners with 15 minutes of official notice.
As state law generally requires 24 hours of notice for such gatherings of a quorum of public officials, The Chronicle questioned whether the law had been violated.
However, in a phone call recorded by county staff between The Chronicle and Commissioners Edna Fund and Gary Stamper Friday, Fund said the commission, per a 2009 resolution, considers itself to be in session continuously from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, unless otherwise noted on their schedule.
That fact has not been included on weekly calendars of planned appearances by the commissioners, and the current Chronicle newsroom was unaware of the resolution.
Fund explained that this means the commission does not have to give the required 24-hour notice for unplanned meetings, as required by the state Open Public Meetings Act, as long as the commissioners meet in the Lewis County Courthouse during those times.
“From 8 to 5 Monday through Friday, we are listed as being in session,” Fund told The Chronicle. “When we have a special meeting, when it’s outside of the courthouse, like we’re going to Napavine, we have to send a special meeting notice … The special meeting notice is if it’s outside of here, outside of these offices … This has been the process since 2009, and it was a state auditor’s recommendation at that time.”
Resolution 09-262 was approved Aug. 24, 2009.
Nancy Krier, open government ombudsman for the state Attorney General’s Office, said nothing in the Open Public Meetings Act prohibits such an arrangement.
“They can adopt a resolution saying, ‘We’re going to have regular meetings every day Monday through Friday. They can do that,” she said. “That’s permissible so long as they do it under whatever mechanism governs their entity.”
The commission is required to post agendas for the meetings, but can change those agendas, she said.
The commissioners’ scheduled a last-minute 2:30 p.m. Thursday press conference in which they, Central Services Director Steve Walton, Department of Emergency Management Director Steve Mansfield and other county staff laid out an upcoming reorganization placing the 911 communication center under Mansfield’s supervision.
The meeting was officially scheduled exactly 15 minutes in advance.
The commissioners’ office’s weekly schedule had no meetings scheduled Thursday afternoon. In fact, commissioners Fund and Stamper were not planning on being in Chehalis until the meeting was convened.
County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer told The Chronicle the commissioners can meet at any time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. regardless of whether the meeting is on their agenda. He said the public can find out what happened after the fact using meeting minutes.
Because all three commissioners were in attendance, state law would in many circumstances consider the Thursday conference a special meeting, and thus require the commission to give notice to members of the public and media organizations 24 hours in advance in order to allow the public to attend the public meeting, according to the Washington state Attorney General’s Office.
When asked about notification at the Thursday meeting, Fund said the commissioners are allowed to meet without 24-hour notice on an emergency basis if they need to get information out quickly.
“We didn’t want to wait until Monday for this,” Fund said.
The information on the 911 Communications Center was originally scheduled for a regular “press conference” held each Monday after the commissioners’ regular business meeting.
However, on Friday, Fund said she believed her response was a misunderstanding.
“I can understand that interpretation of that,” she said.
Stamper said during the conference that the commission originally intended to release information about the reorganization at the regular Monday press conference after its business meeting. However, he said the commission decided to move up the conference after he became aware Thursday morning, with a call from The Chronicle, that a member of the media was aware of the information.
This Chronicle reporter called Stamper at about 11:30 a.m. Thursday and left a message asking about the proposed reorganization after getting an anonymous tip.
Stamper said at Thursday’s conference that he called Fund on the phone after receiving that message, after which the commission decided to hold the press conference and directed Mansfield to inform the 911 staff of the impending reorganization.
Stamper called The Chronicle back at 1:45 p.m., and advised The Chronicle of the 2:30 p.m. meeting. Official notice did not arrive until 2:15 p.m.
Based on one interpretation of public meetings law, Stamper and Fund’s telephone conversation would appear to violate the Open Public Meetings Act, according to information on the state Attorney General’s Office website. A quorum of commissioners are not allowed to discuss county business outside a regular meeting, and both commissioners were not in the courthouse at the time, per the requirements of the 2009 resolution.
The commissioners deny they discussed business.
