Task force shuns bill on closed meetings
The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act Task Force on Friday voted against recommending a bill filed in the state Legislature that would allow local governments to discuss economic development projects in closed meetings.
House Bill 1280 would amend the state public records law to allow a municipality’s consideration of an economic development project under the Local Job Creation, Job Expansion, and Economic Development Act of 2017, or any other economic development project or investment opportunity, in an executive session, and would permit the governing body’s attorney to attend those closed sessions.
Currently, state law allows for governing bodies to meet privately “for the purpose of considering employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining, or resignation of any public officer or employee.”
The bill’s proponents say it would allow for negotiations to be worked out without ideas being divulged, while task force members and others who were opposed say having those discussions behind closed doors wouldn’t be beneficial to the public.
Siloam Springs City Administrator Phillip Patter
son said discussing negotiations and incentive packages during open meetings can give the advantage to developers rather than municipalities.
“If they’re going to say in an open meeting that they’re willing to offer $100,000 or whatever the case may be, but Phillip as a negotiator started out with $50,000, well, it’s in the public record. We know, the developer or the manufacturing company that we’re trying to move in, that they’re going to ask for $100,000 because it’s in the public record that that’s it,” Patterson said.
Any vote on expenditures would still have to take place in public.
Rusty Turner, president of the board of directors of the Arkansas Press Association and editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said the Natural State is fortunate to have a strong open meetings law that “ensures the public’s ability to observe not only the decisions but the deliberations of government agencies,” and that its existing exemptions protect individuals and aren’t for convenience.
He noted, as Patterson had, that mayors and city administrators can discuss economic development prospects with board or council members individually. Documents that could give an advantage to competitors or bidders if disclosed are exempt from the state open records law.
Turner added that the exemptions HB1280 would allow appear vague and “could be stretched to include a myriad of topics that should be discussed in public.”
“If you have a very vague law like this one, I think the likelihood for abuse increases dramatically,” he said, calling the bill “unnecessary and extremely damaging.”
The bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Delia Haak, a Republican from near Gentry, said the bill would allow municipalities to discuss critical information within projects’ time frames, and those discussions would be limited to that project. She declined to cite a specific example of a project or a municipality that the bill would have affected.
Task force member Neal Gladner said the bill seemed to be a “solution in search of a problem.”
“The deals are getting consummated across the state on a regular basis,” he said. “I’m not familiar with any cities or counties that have lost economic development deals because they could not talk about them in executive sessions.”
Justin Wilkerson, general counsel for the Arkansas Municipal League, said the legislation would be another tool for cities to take advantage of the 2017 job creation act, hopefully streamlining the economic development process and preventing ideas from being divulged.
Haak added that she didn’t see the legislation as precluding public accountability, and that she found it frustrating that there are things cities and businesses aren’t allowed to do in Arkansas that they have the ability to do in border states such as Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas.
“I don’t understand why this is a private-public issue for the press association when these cities are making decisions every day, what’s in the best interest of these cities. They’re only asking for the ability to make better decisions for their citizens,” Haak said. “It’s not like any of this information, should it proceed, would not become public, but there’s a certain point in time where it doesn’t need to be public.”
Task force member Wesley Brown, publisher of the Daily Record, said large economic development projects in the state that have fallen through have left the public with lots of questions.
“I know when people get in rooms they’re going to talk about whatever,” Brown said.
The task force’s vote was 6-2, with Saline County civil attorney Will Gruber and former state Rep. Prissy Hickerson, R-Texarkana, casting the dissenting votes.