RCT Makes Salt Lake Tribune News

By Paul Rolly, Tribune Columnist

Published: October 8, 2013 10:36PM

Could the Utah attorney general’s office just be consistent?

"Bobbie Coray — former economic development director and Chamber of Commerce president for Cache County, former state liquor commissioner and one-time congressional candidate — finally decided to get into an honest profession seven years ago.
 

She became a journalist, juggling numerous civic minded-projects with that noble First Amendment endeavor in her newly adopted home town of Garden City on the shores of Bear Lake, just to stay busy in semi-retirement.
 

Having a history as a Democrat in Republican northern Utah, she quickly made waves.
 

After years as a bureaucrat and policymaker, she found herself on the other side of the ledger, trying to find out what our stellar elected leaders are doing.
 

But, alas, the eager cub reporter for the Rich County Times weekly newspaper found that she and other probing journalists were locked out of staff meetings that preceded the public County Commission meetings, even though all three Rich County commissioners, all the other county elected officials and their paid aides were present.
 

She filed a formal complaint, alleging county officials were violating Utah’s open-meetings laws.
 

She won.
 

The Utah attorney general’s office compelled the Rich County Commission to open those meetings.

A few months later, though, the Rich County attorney’s office convinced the attorney general’s office that Rich was too small to be required to open staff meetings — even though Garden City’s even smaller meetings strictly follow the law and let in reporters and the public.
 

So for the past six years, Coray and her little band of First Amendment backers have sat outside the closed Rich County meetings.
 

Then, about a month ago, the attorney general’s office sent two attorneys to the Rich County Commission to discuss a water issue. When they asked the reporters why they were sitting outside the staff meeting and were told the media and the public couldn’t attend because they were closed sessions, the attorney general’s lawyers lectured the journalists on the law and said they had every right to be inside.
 

The attorneys were aghast that the reporters didn’t know that — until they were told it was the attorney general’s office’s ruling that kept them out."
 

prolly@sltrib.com

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ED Note:  Maybe we should try again to open our County Commission meetings now that the AG's office is being looked at more carefully?  We like being called a "little band of First Amendment backers"!  The Constitution is very careful to protect the press in efforts to report on government.

Joey Stocking of Garden City, alerted us to this article and said:

 

"You are absolutely right, Bobbie, that those staff meetings should be public. What does size of the county have to do with anything?  What does the county need to hide from the public in these meetings?  I do understand the reasons why a meeting can sometimes be closed to the public, but that list is very short.  For those interested here are the reasons a public meeting can be closed: http://le.utah.gov/code/TITLE52/htm/52_04_020500.htm

 

The county must state the reason they are closing the meetings.  What is the reason stated for these meetings being closed? "