Executive committee recommends changes to GAC’s open meeting policy
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, September 28, 2006
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The General Assembly Council will discuss changes to its open meetings policy Thursday, following complaints by its ecumenical and corresponding members after they were kicked out of a private session at its April meeting.
The change, according to GAC attorney Eric Graninger, would simplify the council’s current policy by having only one type of closed meeting, which would include voting members only and those invited by that body to attend.
Currently, the GAC’s Manual of Operations lists two types of closed meetings: An executive session where all members – voting and corresponding – are included and a private session that only voting members attend.
LaVert Jones, who, along with Graninger, presented the recommendations to the GAC’s executive council Tuesday, said the three-member committee that developed the recommendations received “valuable input from Mark Tammen in the stated clerk’s office. … A lot of what we give to you is from him.”
Currently, the GAC has 15 nonvoting members. Under a restructuring that will take effect in June 2007, the GAC will have nine nonvoting members, including two ecumenical advisory members and seven corresponding members.
Graninger said that under the new provision, the council could vote to enter into a private session, then list which nonvoting members and PCUSA staff would be able to participate in it.
At its April 2006 meeting, the GAC voted to enter into a private session to discuss personnel matters, which included staff terminations. It excluded all nonvoting members (including advisory and corresponding members).
Those members wrote a letter in May expressing their concerns about the private session, including their thoughts that it violated the PCUSA’s Constitution. The letter was signed by Zane Buxton and Robert Brink, synod executives, James Collie, Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, Robert Bohl, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, and Douglas E. Theuner, ecumenical advisory member.
The three-member committee agreed that by excluding Theuner from the private session, the GAC had violated the constitution. The position of ecumenical advisory delegate is designated by the Book of Order, so he should have been included in the private session. The other corresponding members are listed in the GAC’s Manual of Operations.
The GAC executive committee will recommend to the full council that it write a response to those who signed the May letter, thanking them for their concern and acknowledging that there were irregularities and that the nonvoting members should have been informed of the possibility of a private session before they traveled to the GAC meeting.
Another recommendation to be considered is that the GAC executive director and chair who prepare the meeting agendas notify members beforehand if they think a closed meeting will be needed.
Manley Olson, a member of the GAC executive committee, said that he hoped “we take as a premise that we operate with basically the assumption that we have open meetings, and closed meetings are exceptions.”
It was mentioned in Tuesday’s meeting that the Office of the General Assembly may initiate a review of the PCUSA’s open meetings policy. The GAC executive committee said it would like to be a part of those discussions.