The Monticello News has implied on more than one occasion
that the BOC is meeting behind closed doors. Ms.
Mudd asked the BOC at their last meeting about going into
Executive Session. The County Attorney and the BOC
assured her that they were meeting about ongoing litigation
(2 active lawsuits) as well as threatened litigation (we
hear Mr.Denby’s zoning). In this week’s paper in
the article entitled “Officials
Discuss Sales Ratio”,
Ms. Mudd writes, “Supt. Jay Brinson sent a letter to the
county on April 29 requesting the meeting. The county
has not discussed the sales ratio in open meeting, although
a copy would have been sent to the county at the same
time as it was sent to the school.” What
is this suppose to mean, that the BOC met behind closed
doors? The sales ratio is the business of
the Board of Assessors, and they did meet openly and discuss
the problems, and it was reported by the Monticello
News on 5/5/05—“ The Board of Assessors handled the meatiest
portion of Jasper County's tax business at the top of
their agenda Tuesday by preparing for a sales ratio appeal
to the Georgia Dept. of Revenue (DOR).” In fact,
it is not the business of the BOC to interfere with the
BOA and their office except in extreme circumstances.
The BOA handled the problem, and now the Schools, City,
and County must act on the appeal.
If
the Monticello News is going to be fair and balanced,
then they need to report all violations of closed session.
The hospital board recently met in executive session
to discuss health insurance. This is not a reason
under “personnel” to go into executive session, but
they were not questioned. The JCWSA committee
that has been meeting with the City to work out the
“service contract” has been meeting illegally.
Those meetings were never posted or advertised as required
by open meetings laws, yet that was never reported or
questioned. We don’t like Executive Sessions of
any type, and especially when there is never any decisions
made or any votes taken after coming out of executive
session. Using the excuse of personnel for every
executive session gets old, too (it was used extensively
by the last BOC). We want the Monticello News
to report what is going on, not to imply something is
wrong just to try to make certain people look bad.
