Georgia fines public board for private meetings

Published 9:10 pm Sunday, April 3, 2016

VALDOSTA – The Georgia Attorney General’s Office has fined the board of a local hospital $500 for violating the state’s open meeting law by operating behind closed doors and deciding public business in private.

The sanction also included a requirement members of the Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County undergo training to understand the state laws on transparency covering public agencies, and acknowledge their unlawful conduct at the next scheduled meeting of the authority.

The punishment, announced this week,  is considered significant because rarely does Georgia, or most other states, levy fines when public agencies unlawfully meet in private and make decisions. Georgia law allows for fines of an agency or each of its board members up to $1,000 for the first violation and $2,500 for each subsequent offense.

The local hospital authority oversees the public South Georgia Medical Center. It had been conducting closed executive sessions prior to open public meetings on hospital issues.  The Valdosta Daily Times reported the sessions violated state law. The hospital promptly cancelled its advertising and banned the newspaper from the facility.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Colangelo investigated the case and concluded the hospital board acted illegally because Georgia law requires notifying the public in advance of items to be discussed and convening in open meeting before going into closed session to talk about specific items exempt from public discussion.    

She found, in effect, that the hospital authority was doing the opposite: meeting first in closed session, making decisions and then approving them in the public session without properly notifying local residents of matters being voted on.

Walter New, the attorney for the authority, admitted to violations of the law but contested some of the private discussions, saying they referred to “a number of matters which can be easily classified as operational to which the Act (law) does not apply.”

Colangelo found the response insufficient, and gave the board the option of fighting the case in court and thus facing the possibility of even heavier sanctions or admitting their violations, accepting the $500 fine and undergoing open government training.

 “If we were to proceed to ligitation or prosecution,” she cautioned, “we would expect fines to be levied against any public officials who participated in these alleged violations should they prove to be true, as well as (legal) fees and costs against the hospital authority.”

The state has given the hospital board until April 10 to accept the sanctions or face a lawsuit. Publisher Jeff Masters said the dispute cost the paper several thousand dollars, but fighting for the public’s right to know about the hospital’s business made it worthwhile.

Details for this story were provided by the Valdosta, Ga., Daily Times.