A hiding habit...

While there are several reasons that boards across Wyoming may utilize executive sessions, the News Letter Journal has always maintained that closed meetings should be used sparingly. We also believe that excessive use of executive sessions by a board should raise concern for members of the public because it suggests that things probably aren’t going well for that entity.

The list of exceptions to Wyoming’s open meetings that allow for executive sessions can be found in Wyoming Statute 16-4-405. While there are several reasons that a board may use to shut the public out of a public meeting, it is important to note that those exceptions don’t require the board to go into excecutive session — they allow the board to go into executive session. In other words, the use of an executive session is entirely at the discretion of the board.

We also believe that in most instances, the board could choose to have these discussions publicly, but they choose to avoid transparency so they can discuss these issues privately.

We often preach that local governments should go above and beyond what the law requires when it comes to public notice and transparency — but far too often they choose to err on the side of secrecy and privacy.

This is especially true when it comes to personnel issues. Many of our local governments cite discussions about “personnel” as the reason for holding an executive session, but Wyoming law does not actually allow boards to close their meeting off to the public for all personnel issues — only specific instances that involve complaints against an employee or negotiations over salary.

There are also ways to discuss personnel and contract issues without allowing the discussion to become “personal,” and utilizing those techniques can eliminate any legal need for an executive session. Boards can — and should — discuss positions and programs openly in public meetings and leave names out of those discussions. Doing so focuses those discussions on the public’s interest instead of the personalities involved, and is likely to produce a more productive conversation and appropriate result.

On those rare occasions when an executive session is actually warranted, the board should also do everything in their power to keep those sessions as short as possible, and only discuss the specific information that is suitable for executive session before returning to open session to hold the rest of the conversation. There is nothing worse than watching a board go into executive session and then come out and hold a vote without any discussion or indication of what information was used to make the decision.

If an executive session is absolutely necessary, the board should also do everything in its power to schedule the executive session at a time that is most convenient for the public. That generally means that executive should be held at the end of meetings instead of the beginning, so the public is allowed to witness as much of the meeting as possible before being forced to wait until a board returns from a closed session.

Lengthy executive sessions that are held at the beginning of meetings discourage the public from attending and make it more difficult for the newspaper to cover the meeting.

We encourage every board in Weston County to carefully reconsider the use of executive sessions moving forward, and only use them when appropriate. When they are scheduled, it should always be done with the public in mind.