Attorney Advises Secrecy — By Tommy Purser

I was not a happy camper when I left Monday afternoon’s meeting of the Jeff Davis Hospital Authority.
I don’t normally cover Hospital Authority meetings but I learned Monday that was a mistake.
The authority voted to go into executive session to discuss strategic planning. There is no exception in the Georgia Open Meetings Law to allow public bodies to close their meetings to the the public for strategic planning so I spoke up.
I asked for clarification on why they were going into executive session. None of the authority members answered my question, instead deferring to Landon Chavis, who is the hospital’s Director of the Jeff Davis Foundation and performs other duties for the hospital such as marketing and physician recruitment.
He reiterated that the authority was closing the meeting to discuss strategic planning.
Later that day, I found out that was not exactly what the executive session was about — but more on that later.
On the meeting desk in front of Landon was a computer that was connected to Michele Madison, an attorney with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, a law firm with offices in 13 cities, most of which are in the southeast. They also have offices in Washington, D.C., Dallas, Houston, …. you get the picture. A huge law firm, oftentimes referred to as simply “Bradley.”
I couldn’t see Ms. Madison, who I understand works in Bradley’s Atlanta office, but I could hear her and she could hear me.
She explained that the authority was allowed to go into executive session for strategic planning, citing 31-7-75.2 of the legal code of Georgia.
I disagreed but, of course, I got nowhere.
I have been a big supporter of the Georgia Open Meetings/Open Records Law since it was first enacted by the Georgia Legislature some four decades ago. I have watched over the years how state legislators have poked and prodded at the law, added ifs, ands, and buts to its language. In short, do whatever they could to give public officials the ability to do their work in secret.
31-7-75.2 is a result of that hard work to enable officials to keep secrets from the people they serve.
When I left the authority meeting, I rushed back to my office to find out exactly what 31-7-75.2 says. Since that time I’ve read that code section over and over and over. I may not be an attorney but I am not stupid. And I see that code section for what it is — a loophole.
According to Merriam-Webster, a loophole is “an ambiguity or omission in the text through which the intent of a statute, contract, or obligation may be evaded.”
And that is what the learned attorney from Bradley was doing Monday — giving the authority a loophole so they could evade letting me or anyone else know what they were doing. In other words, to keep any citizen of Jeff Davis County from knowing what the authority is doing with the citizens’ hospital.
Most especially to keep me from knowing what they are doing lest I inform the owners of the hospital – the people of Jeff Davis County – what the authority is doing.
That afternoon, I was informed that the meeting was not for strategic planning at all. But, rather, it was a meeting to explain to some of our community’s health care providers — and no one else — how an action the hospital has already taken will affect those providers’ practices.
That didn’t sound to me like strategic planning. The planning was already over. The plan had already been approved by the authority.
And, according to 31-7-75.2, “This exemption shall terminate at such time as such … strategy has either been approved or rejected by the …. hospital authority.”
Let me give the members of the hospital authority an out here — elected officials, members of development authorities, other authority members, etc., all over the state are required by law to attend periodic training sessions. As a member of the Hazlehurst City Council for 8 years, a member of the Hazlehurst Downtown Development Authority, etc., I have attended many such training sessions. Among the things officials learn at such meetings is, “If in doubt, follow your attorney’s advice.”
At Monday’s authority meeting, Attorney Madison advised the authority that they could postpone the meeting to give me time to contact my attorney about the situation, after all I didn’t know about the meeting until 5 minutes before it began.
But that wasn’t my intention. I didn’t want to be a nuisance. I didn’t want them NOT to meet. I just wanted to hear what they were doing with our hospital. And I felt — strongly felt — that I and anyone else had a right to hear that.
So, I said, “Listen if you want me to leave, I’ll leave.” First, I asked that the authority members vote on whether or not to ask me to leave the meeting. I wanted to see who wanted me there and who wanted me gone.
That request appeared to make the group uncomfortable, something else I didn’t want to do, so I directed my query to Authority Chairwoman Shirley Maley. If I had had time to think about it, I wouldn’t have done that. The good wife and I go to church with Shirley and Jimmy Maley. We are all members of our church family. I very much like Shirley and Jimmy. I like their children. I watched them grow up in our church. My children grew up in that church.
Putting Shirley on the spot like that was the wrong thing to do. But Shirley’s a smart woman. She gave the best answer she could give. The only answer, really, she should have given. The correct answer.
She simply said, “I want to follow the advice of our attorney.”