Tim Rogers: Getting under my skin

DALTON — Good morning.

There are few things in life that I really feel strident about. In fact, I tend to go out of my way to fix a problem or reach a compromise on some issue if I can.

I also care what people around me think about me, which is a strange quality for an editor, I admit.

We are, as a professional group, more noted for our rhinoceros-like hides than our willingness to walk a mile in your shoes.

Don’t like what I just wrote? “Tough,” we editors are noted for saying.

It is an attitude that serves us well when someone is seeking to intimidate us, but it is an attitude that tends to scare away or put off the average person who comes up to the newsroom to drop off a press release about what their church or social group will be doing next week.

As much as I like to be liked and try to make people feel at ease when they are talking to me, there are several areas where I am strident.

And at the top of that list is the issue of public access to information kept by public organizations.

To me, it is a simple equation. If what you are doing is paid for by public money, you should have no expectation that what you are doing will remain private. Or, put another way, if the people paid for it, the people have the right to know everything about it.

The same is true for anyone who gives money to a public agency or works with a public agency. Don’t expect your name to remain secret.

Most states reflect this expectation in their laws regarding public access to information and meetings, and many specifically state that unless otherwise noted, the expectation is for information to be open to public inspection.

That is why two small actions by separate school districts last week did not sit well with me.

The first was Murray County Schools spokesman Dean Donehoo telling Daily Citizen reporter Rachel Brown the district did not have a record of who gave it $200 to cover the cost of North Murray High School using Appalachian Community Bank Stadium to play its junior varsity baseball games.

In response to an open records request from us, Donehoo said the district had a receipt showing that the money was donated but not who donated it.

Beyond being a bad business practice to take money without recording the name, by refusing to name who gave it the money, the district is thumbing its nose at the public.

Why does it matter? After all it is only $200, hardly a sum that should be of interest to anyone.

The problem, of course, is that it isn’t the money, it is the principle. What if the money was given by someone with an extensive criminal record? Or had a connection to the superintendent and wanted a favor done in return?

The district has the obligation to tell the taxpayers of Murray County who gave it the money and let the public decide if anything untoward was done.

In this case, the $200 was probably donated by a good Samaritan, but we won’t know that until his or her name is released.

The second incident also occurred on Wednesday and involved Whitfield County Schools.

On Thursday, the board held a public hearing about disciplinary action that had been taken against two teachers. The hearing was open, but the day before the hearing was held, district spokesman Eric Beavers told The Daily Citizen that he wouldn’t provide the names of the teachers who had requested the hearing.

“We have been advised by our attorneys that we don’t need to release that information right now,” he said.

Beavers went on to say that the district would comply with an open records request for the names of the teachers within three days as allowed by state law. He said this knowing full well that the public hearing would be the next day, in effect thumbing his nose at the public, who deserved to know who the hearing would be about.

The district wasn’t protecting the two teachers’ privacy, it was intentionally trying to keep information from the public for as long as it could.

True, the district was following the letter of the law, but it was totally trampling on the spirit of the law and on the taxpayers it serves in the process.

As David Hudson, an attorney for the Georgia Press Association, commented about the situation, “The three-day response time for records requests is not intended as a stall device for the agency.”

There are well-spelled out, narrowly defined reasons why public documents or meetings can remain closed.

If a situation doesn’t fall under one of those specific categories, however, the public expectation is that the agency or organization will do its best to produce the information in as timely a manner as possible.

To do anything less is to hold yourself above the people you serve, and that is a condition that the public should not tolerate.

About this, I feel very rhinoceros-like.

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