What is the Attraction of Closed-Door Meetings?

Once again, we find it necessary to take a local elected body to task for its love of closed-door meetings that are barred to the general public.

And once again, we ask, “What is it about doing the public’s business in the open that politicians fear?”

Up for chastisement this time, it’s the Bedford County School Board.

In Bedford, as in much of Virginia, the School Board is elected by the public. District 3 representative David S. Black, who had served on the board since 2002, stepped down recently, creating the vacancy the remaining six members tapped Forest resident Cheryl Toler to fill.

County residents could apply to fill the vacancy, and the board decided to interview five applicants: Toler, of Forest; Thomas Keene, of Bedford; Robert Whorley, of Goode; Robert Ashwell, of Huddleston; and Walter Nichols, of Bedford.

The interviews were held in executive session Thursday during the board’s regular meeting. Away from the public, behind closed doors, out of the public’s eyes.

Here’s how board Chairwoman Debbie Hoback described the process to The News & Advance on Thursday night: “It was a very difficult decision. We had excellent applicants who all interviewed well.”

Except the public would never know that for sure.

The board’s reason for holding the entire process behind closed doors? Well, they said, it’s how we’ve always done things, plus state law says we can.

Come again?

“Standard procedure.” “State law.” What are they talking about?

This is an elected body of public officials chosen by the voters of Bedford County. And it’s standard procedure to fill vacancies with the public shut out of the process?

Last year, Lynchburg City Council had a vacancy to fill when Councilman Scott Garrett was elected to the House of Delegates and resigned his council seat.

Initially, the remaining six members of council were going to fill the vacancy in exactly the same way as the Bedford School Board did: private applications, closed-door interviews and closed-door deliberations.

But an outpouring of opposition convinced the majority on council to stop and reverse course. To their credit, the six council members conducted a majority of the appointment process right out in the open, where it belonged.

Would that the Bedford School Board were so concerned about the public and openness.

The Bedford school trustees used the same, tired argument elected officials have used for years in cases such as this: that it’s the same as hiring someone, that it’s a personnel matter that state law requires be held behind closed doors.

If they were hiring an assistant superintendent or a principal, they would be absolutely correct, and we would not be excoriating them.

But they’re not; they’re replacing a fellow elected official, a person placed in office by the county’s voters. That they would conduct the public’s business, out of public view and behind closed doors, and say they’re just following standard procedure and the state law is just wrong.