Globe right on MSSU open meetings violation

The Joplin Globe Editorial Board is right on the money when it says the Missouri Southern State University Board of Governors needs to go back to the drawing board and legally choose the search committee for a replacement for Julio Leon as university president.
Unfortunately for Globe editors, even when they are right, they have such a superior, holier than thou attitude about it, that people want to disagree just to irritate them.

I would prefer to see that very few things be done in closed session because most of the time it is the secrecy rather than the actions that come from the session that causes the problems.

Sunshine Law violations come from either arrogance or ignorance. Many elected or appointed officials get the idea that they have superior knowledge of a situation and that the public would not understand the truth. Others are genuinely of the belief that they can put anything that involves people in a blanket "personnel" category and put everything behind closed doors.

The way to solve the problem is for the legislature to do something that it will most likely never do- make it a crime to violate the open meetings law. Do not give officials a pass because "they did not know" the meeting was illegal, which is what we do. Under present law, you have to be able to read a person's mind in order for a person to be found guilty of a Sunshine Law violation. We don't do that for any other violation on the books.

If a violation is a violation, perhaps our elected and appointed officials will only put behind closed doors what can rightfully be put behind closed doors, instead of hiding anything that might be controversial or embarrassing.

Our elected officials seem to forget that the Sunshine Law does not even require that meetings be closed to discuss hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting of personnel. It says they "may" be closed.

Where the Globe and other media outlets have failed is in explaining to readers the importance of open meetings to them. In the case of the search committee, we know who was chosen, but how they were chosen is just as important. If the board does it in the open and had a reasonable discussion over various possibilities for the committee, it adds to the confidence in the committee. Odds are, that was exactly the kind of discussion that was held, but there will always be doubt. Were there political reasons behind some of the appointments? Why were other reasonable candidates overlooked or omitted from the list?

So, the Globe was right, but it is understandable that its voice of God-type editorial might turn off some of its readership.

One of the comments suggests that Editor Carol Stark might open editorial board meetings to the public. That is a capital idea and has been done successfully at other newspapers across the country. If the Globe editorials could say, "We do it, and it doesn't hurt us, why don't you?" they would have much more of an impact.