Behind closed doors

In remarks to the Spokane City Council on Monday, a citizen activist urged the body to begin recording its executive sessions.

Executive sessions are closed-door meetings in which public entities such as city councils, school boards and boards of county commissioners may deal with certain sensitive situations that are spelled out by law. Personnel matters and strategy sessions about real estate deals and pending litigation are exempt from the general requirement that the public’s business be done in the open.

There’s a Catch-22, however. Because executive sessions are closed, citizens have no way of knowing whether the participants confine themselves to the exempt topics.

Legislation introduced in Olympia this year would have required audio recordings be made of such sessions. Then, in response to a legitimate challenge, a judge could review the proceedings and decide whether a violation had occurred. The measure had bipartisan support, but was shot down by lobbyists for, who else, local governments.

Donna McKereghan, a former City Council candidate and the citizen who offered the suggestion on Monday, got no direct response from any of the members, although Council President Joe Shogan mentioned the Legislature’s interest in the topic.

The fact is, McKereghan’s idea – along with a similar one we shared in an editorial in March – is probably unworkable. Assistant Attorney General Tim Ford, who oversees open-government issues for that office, says a local government that voluntarily recorded its executive sessions would be creating a public record which would be subject to public records requests.

That was never the plan. The proposed law would have required the recording to be maintained for two years, but would have made it accessible only to a judge and only if there was reason to believe misconduct had occurred. If the judge agreed, he or she could release only that portion of the meeting that was beyond the exempted discussion areas.

If Washington citizens wonder what local governments have to hide, they’re in good company. Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna and Democratic state Auditor Brian Sonntag both were enthusiastic backers of the plan. The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House co-sponsored it. But that lineup wasn’t enough to overcome the resistance of those whose openness could have been better monitored.

Don’t expect local officials’ attitudes to change. We asked Shogan and the other six Council members by e-mail how they felt about recording executive sessions. Only three responded – Shogan and Council members Bob Apple and Richard Rush – and none showed any sympathy for the idea. Shogan offered the most emphatic response. He likes things as they are now, he doesn’t want to count on a judge to make the right decision and he believes voters can remove public officials they don’t trust.

Those feelings should surprise no one. When sunshine laws were adopted in the 1970s, it was citizens, not public officials, who made it happen. If citizens want an extra measure of accountability in this arena, they’ll need to communicate it to their legislators strongly enough to offset the lobbying might of their local governments.