Approval before publishing

Alexis Barker
NLJ Reporter
 
The Weston County commissioners have decided to not publish minutes of their meetings in the Weston County Gazette, the county’s official paper, until after they have approved them.
The decision followed concerns raised at the last commissioners’ meeting over the accuracy and length of the minutes. The discussion continued on April 2 and the commissioners determined, after checking statutes, that they could legally wait to approve the minutes at their next April meeting, April 16, and have them published in the paper the following week. 
On March 19, both Commissioner Tracy Hunt and Bob Bonnar, publisher and editor of the News Letter Journal, raised the issue of accuracy of the minutes. Hunt also said that he believed the minutes were too long and contained too much “he said, she said.”
Hunt asked if there was a way for the commission to approve the minutes before they were published. County Attorney Alex Berger was asked to check the statutes to determine how long the county actually has to publish the minutes. The discussion was then tabled until the next meeting. 
On April 2, Berger reported that, according to state statute, the county has 12 working or business days to get the minutes to the official county paper and that the paper then had an additional nine days to publish the minutes. 
“The county must publish a comprehensive summary of the proceedings in the county’s designated official paper within 12 working days of the meeting,” Berger said of the statute. 
“You can approve at the next meeting and get it in the paper after that. There may be reasons that is not feasible for the paper, though,” Berger said. 
After checking the calendar and crunching the numbers, both Weston County Gazette Publisher and Editor Lisa LeVasseur and County Clerk Becky Hadlock determined that it was feasible to have the minutes approved before they are published. 
“We will make it work,” Hadlock said. 
LeVasseur clarified that this means the minutes from the April 2 meeting will not be published in the paper until April 25. 
Prior to the decision, Commissioner Marty Ertman argued that the county has had two sets of minutes, one unofficial and one official for at least the past two years and that she finds it interesting that it is now a problem. 
“I never liked having two sets, but we’ve had two – one version for the paper and a more filled version on the website,” Ertman said.  
LeVasseur noted that the minutes published in the Gazette were never “unofficial” until the News Letter Journal became involved and that before that the minutes were “official” even though they had not been approved by the commission. 
“Someone smarter than me should figure out how to do this without doing it twice,” Hunt said of publishing the minutes. 
“My over-arching concern is there is a lot of stuff in the minutes that frankly doesn’t matter to the motions we make and how posterity is going to read these minutes,” Chairman Tony Barton said. “I think it is an expense the county doesn’t need to take on.” 
He noted that he thinks the commissioners may try to “one up” each other, saying the smartest or meanest thing to get their quote or statement in the minutes. 
“It is tough without spending a lot of time. I think comments have been paraphrased, and I don’t think they are accurate,” Barton said. 
He said that he thought the minutes should contain the motion, whether discussion took place, the context of discussion and whether the motion carried or not. 
Hadlock said that as far as she is concerned the minutes should contain details for the public. 
“I can’t just do that. The public deserves to know what is going on in the meetings,” Hadlock said. “I can’t not let them (the public) know what is going on.” 
Hunt stated that if the minutes are considered the historical record, then what is important is the direction the commission took and not who said what. 
“In the age of social media, you can knock yourself out talking about what is in the minutes,” Hunt said. 
Hunt said that he would like the commission and Hadlock to work together to come up with minutes that make both sides happy. Commissioner Nathan Todd said that Hadlock is only 90 days into her term as clerk and that the commission is not “trying to diminish anything she has done so far” and that the minutes will evolve as the commission and Hadlock work through the situation. 
The new plan allows for the commissioners to review the minutes before they are published. Barton said that the minutes will be sent out before the meeting for review and the commission can make changes to bring to the April 18 meeting. 
“I assume once we are in the flow of things, the minutes will be done in 10 minutes and the unofficial publication will be appropriate,” Todd said.