Lynchburg City Council won't follow school board procedures in replacing Garrett

The reticent approach Lynchburg City Council is taking to its pending vacancy appointment has been its standard practice for a number of years, officials say, although it is a marked departure from the new school board procedures put in place just last year.

A sharply divided council decided last week that all elements of the selection process — from vetting candidates to debating over the final pick — will be carried out behind closed doors.

Under the system, which council chose on a 4-3 vote, no formal list of candidates will be released, no official interviews conducted and no public hearings held.

This is considerably different than the steps taken when council selects school board appointees, a process that was revamped last year to create greater transparency in response to the controversial replacement of a popular board vice chairman.

Council is choosing a replacement for at-large member Scott Garrett, who is resigning to assume his new seat in January in the Virginia House of Delegates. That person then will serve until the term expires on June 30; the next four-year term will be decided by the spring elections.

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government, a Williamsburg-based nonprofit, said, “in general,” government leaders should always strive to make their decisions in as open a manner as possible.

“Public scrutiny doesn’t equal bad,” said executive director Megan Rhyne. “The argument for not doing it is often that it might get messy. But politics and democracy can be messy. One of the reasons we have the system we do is so people can consider choices, discuss things and express preferences.”

“It isn’t always neat, but hopefully we come up with the best decision because we’ve given everyone a chance to weigh in,” she said.

The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, a state agency, noted that City Council has the legal right to retreat behind closed doors for these proceedings. Making appointments to public bodies is one of the permitted exemptions carved out in Virginia’s sunshine laws.

“There’s nothing that says they have to meet in closed session, but this is a proper exemption they can use if they choose to do so,” said executive director Maria Everett. “That’s clearly spelled out.”

Everett said the most common rationale for closing these discussions is to protect the privacy of prospective appointees.

“Before your dirty laundry is aired out in public, you want to know if you’re going to get it,” she said. “ … It’s just like when any of us apply for a job.”

City officials say council has traditionally opted for the tight-lipped route when appointing an interim member to its own ranks. The last two council members to leave mid-term for a seat as a state delegate — Preston Bryant in 1995 and Steve Newman in 1992 — were both replaced in closed-door processes.

In 1995, council did require candidates to formally apply for the vacant spot, a stipulation it now imposes on the 22 different local boards and commissions it makes appointments to.

Members of volunteer city bodies ranging from the planning commission to the museum advisory board all are asked to fill out applications signaling their interest and specifying qualifications in order to be considered for service.

Of the city’s various appointed bodies, the greatest attention is traditionally given to the Lynchburg school board, which oversees a now-$93 million operating budget. In addition to application requirements, the names of all school board candidates are publicly announced and a series of hearings is then convened to solicit citizen comment and allow applicants to make statements if they wish to.

Finalists are later invited to private interviews with the full City Council.

Last year, in response to a lingering controversy surrounding a 2007 appointment vote, City Council agreed to open up that process further by recording all school board interviews and releasing the tapes to the public afterward.

They also agreed to release the candidate applications, which had previously been deemed confidential “personnel” documents.

This new system, approved by council in April 2008, was described as a “hybrid” model developed as a compromise between complete openness and the status quo.

Rhyne, of the open government coalition, said naming an interim council member is a particularly critical appointment. The public has an interest in being able to assess for itself a candidate’s qualifications and witness how the final decision is made, she said.

The vetting process reveals something, not only about the appointee, but about the other council members as well, she added.

“By the questions they ask and the way they narrow down the search, you get some sense of what characteristics are important to the council and what priorities they’re setting,” Rhyne said. “I think it’s important for the public to know that.”

Everett, of the state’s FOI advisory council, declined to offer an opinion on which method was preferable.

“We’re not here to sit in judgment of how they do things, as long as they comply with the law,” she said, adding, “Sometimes the government wants to hold things close to the vest.”