BenjaminHodge.org. Hodge, Kansas economic conservative.

Right now at JCCC, what exists is leadership that refuses to learn a proper interpretation of the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA), even when it is clear to most people outside the college that the elected board leadership members have little clue about how to appropriately follow the open meetings law.

The Gardner News recently wrote a good summary of the recent rigidness by JCCC President Terry Calaway, Board Chair Shirley Brown-VanArsdale, and Board Vice Chair Lynn Mitchelson.  It has been over a week since the original publication date of Wednesday, March 18, 2009; I mention that because there are statements made by Calaway and Brown-VanArsdale that most public officials would be embarrassed to admit, and there has been no effort to retraction or correct.  During the board meeting on Thursday, March 26, Brown-VanArsdale even said that the particular article is well-written.

You can find the article on The Gardner News’ Web site, or on my Web site.

What the JCCC board chair and president state, with regard to their understanding of KOMA, is absolutely unacceptable for any local government:  the idea that open meetings laws only apply to verbal statements.

I will quote the article (the bold editing is mine):

Board of Trustees Chairperson Shirley Brown VanArsdale said the board followed the open meetings statutes, and the list, which was presented as part of college president Terry Calaway’s evaluation, was not discussed during the closed segment of the meeting.
“There was no discussion on the budget,” Brown VanArsdale said.

Later:

“We’re very careful about discussion in executive session,” Calaway said. “We have an exceptionally experienced board, most particularly our chair and vice chair. They truly understand the (KOMA) criteria. We’re very careful about it, which was why there wasn’t any discussion about this material.”

In other words: We know that we’re not supposed to talk about the budget in a closed session, so that’s why we choose to only distribute type-written budget information.  Rather than being careful that we’re adhering to the intent of KOMA, we are willing to bend the law, as long as we are confident in winning a hypothetical KOMA-related lawsuit.

This is embarrassing for these board members and for the JCCC administration.  For citizens and taxpayers, it is offensive.  Unfortunately, it is not entirely surprising, as the entire JCCC leadership team openly showed their ignorance of KOMA in December.

Just a few months ago, a majority of the JCCC Board violated KOMA.

In November, The Kansas City Star published a letter from me stating the budget reality at JCCC: a majority of board members were willing to increase taxes.  Well, some of the other board members were frustrated that I exposed this truth to the public, and so they issued their own letter to The Star on November 10, stating two incompatible ideas:

1. That my statement was unfair (that they were willing to consider raise taxes).
2. Yet:  “Whether or not the trustees decide to raise the mill levy for 2009-2010 has not yet been determined.”

That doesn’t make any sense, but my colleagues had the right to reply, and it didn’t bother me that they did.  In fact, I wish that more debate of all kinds would took place at JCCC before major decisions — and taxation should not be considered a small issue — were made.

But here’s where they erred:  four trustees — including Chair VanArsdale and Vice Chair Mitchelson — signed that letter published by The Star. They can’t do that.

In signing the letter, four trustees agreed to the policy discussion that takes place within the content of the letter.  The Kansas Open Meetings Act requires that policy discussion around budgetary issues — and, even more importantly, agreement on such discussion — take place during an open meeting. The law allows only up to 3 of 6 trustees to meet alone and discuss policy; a “meeting” must not necessarily occur in person (phones, Emails, etc., also apply).

Once that fourth board member agreed to be a co-author of the letter, a violation of KOMA took place.

After The Star published the others’ letter (in reply to my initial letter), I intentionally chose — for the sake of the “collegiality” theme that everybody talks about in government colleges — not to make the KOMA violation a public issue.  Privately, I did tell a couple of trustees about it.  I talked with the president, and I found out this:  the trustees didn’t actually author the letter.  Rather, President Calaway allowed one of JCCC’s employees to write the letter for Chair Brown-VanArsdale and Vice Chair Mitchelson.

That strikes me as odd, for two reasons:

1. The topic was a very, very general topic:  taxation.  Why the need for assistance in writing the letter?
2. Is this appropriate?  While it’s subjective, isn’t this a political debate — should a college employee be writing this?  The board does not have individual staff (as do many state and federal elected officials), and so should JCCC be employing a person whose job description includes “general political letter writer”?

I chose to leave the who-wrote-the-letter debate for another time.  But I did want to bring closure to the KOMA issue surrounding the knowledge that four trustees issued an agreed-upon statement as a result of a private (rather than public) meeting.

I asked our college attorney about this.  I will note that that not once in 40 years — certainly not during the decade-long tenure of the exceptionally experience board chair and vice chair — has JCCC’s legal counsel been required to submit a competitive bid for services at JCCC.  With my full support, that will change in the next year.

The college attorney took an unneeded amount of time to answer my request — I will assume he was attempting to avoid answering through Email as to minimize the embarrassment of those on the board with whom he has developed close friendships.  But he did eventually reply.  And he confirmed my suspicion:  JCCC board members had committed a “technical violation” of KOMA. If you ask the administration and board leadership, they will attempt to emphasize the “technical” in the “violation.”  They will likely tell you that it is almost irrelevant, given that they meant well and that the end product (the letter) was intended to be made public.

Now, to be fair, is the December 2008 KOMA violation, in the long scheme of things, THAT big of a deal?  As a one-time occurrence, one could certainly argue “no, it is not a big deal.”  Of course, one could argue that it is troubling that KOMA did not enter the minds of a veteran college president and four board members — the president frequently talks of the “exceptionally experienced board, most particularly our chair and vice chair.”

What is most concerning is the prominent mentality guiding JCCC’s leadership:  don’t ask questions.  Even easy questions.  And when somebody raises a possible mistake, don’t admit anything, but rather go on the attack - at the “accuser,” at the press, even at employees.  It was made clear in recent years that almost never did Brown-VanArsdale and Mitchelson question the former administration, or the costly process by which the former president was investigated.

Now, they choose not to ask questions with regard to open meetings laws.

The most recent KOMA-related “issue” should have been a non-issue.  To review — Budget information, in my opinion and in the opinion of the attorney for the Kansas Press Association, should not have been shared during a closed meeting, even when the budget information just barely related to an employee evaluation.  I decided to share the information at the request of a reporter, and JCCC leadership — rather than “agreeing to disagree” or deciding “let’s just move on” — began behaving as if it were a private company in full “protect number one” mode.  JCCC is not a private company, and we are obligated to show respect to the taxpayers.

While the past few weeks have been in many ways unfortunate, they have also been helpful: the events have clearly demonstrated to the public that JCCC’s leadership thinks far too highly of itself and far too little of the taxpayers.  As such, JCCC’s actions should be questioned at every opportunity by Johnson County taxpayers.