Breakfast with Mike Barber, Linda Miles and Pat Boswell

I had breakfast with Greensboro city councilor Mike Barber, city attorney Linda Miles and the city's director of public affairs, Pat Boswell today to discuss the status of the November 6th, 2007 public records request made by Sam Spagnola, Joe Guarino and me. (Sam and Joe were invited but couldn't make it.)

The meeting was Mike's idea when he heard that the response to our request had been slow and narrow and that suing seemed to be our only remaining option. Mike originally suggested a meeting with the newly formed City Council Subcommittee for Legal Affairs, but when it became apparent that such a meeting couldn't happen swiftly, Mike set up this breakfast at Tex & Shirley's.

Upon arriving, I found Linda and Pat already there and they greeted me with two hefty reams of documents -- I'm guessing close to two thousand pages. I've only given them a cursory glance, but I think they are the kinds of records that will go a long way towards giving the public significant insight into what happened with the "Wray affair," answering some lingering questions and dispelling suspicions that the City has something to hide.

There are still some important parts of our request that remain unfulfilled, but we had a frank and productive discussion about how and when those will be addressed and why some documents simply are not available, either because they do not exist or because they cannot be released until after certain criminal proceedings have concluded.

I learned, for example, that there is nothing in writing that can be provided regarding the results of the polygraph tests administered to city council members. Apparently, each city council person was told his or her results by the examiner and then self-reported those results to then-Mayor Keith Holliday. It was a silly, expensive waste of government funds: A dead end road to "truthiness" as N&R editorial editor Allen Johnson put it that raised more questions than it answered. And wasteful. Did I mention wasteful? Wasteful and un-documented in a way that just adds to my final perception of it as a futile exercise.

I was also reminded that the city has received requests from a US Attorney and state prosecutor not to release information that is part of an upcoming trial. These requests do not carry the weight of law, but it is unlikely the city council would acquiesce to a request for the release of such documents. There remain three options for the release of documents of this kind, appeal to the city council to release them in the interest of restoring public confidence, file a motion with the trial court judge for their release, or wait until the trials have concluded. I think it would be prudent to wait and see just what gets denied by this rationale before deciding how to proceed. Of course, Sam and Joe will have something to say about this too. (The "black book" has been denied by this rationale and Sam and I agree that it is probably reasonable to wait and ask for this again later.)

I presented our opinion that the RMA report is not protected by state personnel privacy laws because any information given by the city to RMA constitutes a release of the information and, because RMA is not a public employer, anything they collected is not protected by personnel laws to begin with.

This opinion is guided by the North Carolina State Supreme Court case of N&O v. Poole in which the News & Observer successfully sued the Poole Commission (a UNC-appointed commission looking into wrongdoing among college athletes) for the release of its records. Pertinent to the RMA report, the Court decided that even a limited release of personnel information to an outside party constitutes a forfeiture of privacy protection for that information. In the Court's words, one cannot "unring a bell." The Court also noted that privacy protections apply only to information first gathered by the employer, that a public employer cannot claim for itself privacy protections for information gathered by another entity.

Ms. Miles said she would re-acquaint herself with Poole, discuss it with staff, and let us know by next Friday what she thinks after reconsideration.

The other areas of our request that remain unaddressed are going to be reviewed and we'll have a response by next Friday of either acknowledgment that the information is coming or specific legal justifications for continued confidentiality.

I'm hopeful that we've turned a corner on lifting the veil of secrecy that has shrouded this affair. I thank Mike, Linda and Pat for a sincere effort to address this cooperatively. (And an additional thanks to Pat and other city staff for doing the heavy lifting of retrieving and compiling these documents.) There are significant issues yet to be addressed and even if our request is answered to our satisfaction, that will be just the beginning of what will likely be a loud and rancorous discussion as the community digests what is revealed. But the good news? We will have begun the ending. Maybe, just maybe the biggest questions will have answers so clear and compelling that we will finally be able to move forward, confident that we know what really happened. We'll see.