The Mississippi Ethics Commission has dismissed an open meetings complaint filed against Lowndes County.
Steve Rogers, who was at the time the news director for the Tupelo-based WTVA television station, filed the complaint in September. The complaint revolves around private discussions Board of Supervisors President Harry Sanders had before the board hired Clinton-based RF Outdoor Consulting to study the local parks systems before Lowndes County approved its intention to split from the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority.
Supervisors hired the consulting firm for $4,000 in an open meeting on June 17, 2016.
Rogers’ complaint alleged supervisors divided themselves into three groups of two — less than a quorum each but constituting a quorum when counted together — to have separate discussions about whether to hire a consultant.
The complaint said Sanders “organized a number of non-quorum gatherings with the apparent purpose of keeping the discussions from being held in public in order that the stages of the deliberative process be concealed from the public in violation of the Open Meetings Act.”
First, according to the complaint, Sanders and District 2 Supervisor Bill Brigham interviewed the consultant, then divided the duties of individually, discussing the matter with the other supervisors before the hiring came to a public vote. The complaint also cites a letter Sanders wrote to Columbus Mayor Robert Smith before the June 17 meeting informing him the supervisors’ agenda would include discussion about whether to hire a parks consultant.
The MEC ruling focuses on four non-quorum meetings — two between Sanders and District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith, one between Sanders and Brigham, and one between Brigham and District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks.
In the ruling, the Ethics Commission notes that while some aspects of the conversations between supervisors were “troubling,” they did not violate the Open Meetings Act.
“The Lowndes County board of Supervisors did not purposefully arrange non-quorum meetings of board members so that a quorum of the board could meet and deliberate county business outside a properly noticed open meeting,” the ruling says.
Rogers, speaking to The Dispatch, said he does not plan to appeal the decision.
“I got what I wanted, which was clarity in differences,” he said. “The lines are grey and narrow, but I fully expected that. …I think it was a fair determination.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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