Oconee County Attorney Advised Development Authority And Other Committees On State Open Meetings Law

Oconee County County Clerk Jane Greathouse sent a memo to the county’s Industrial Development Authority and other county advisory boards and committees on May 8 requesting that they hold executive sessions as “a rare occurrence” and only after contacting County Attorney Daniel Haygood.

Rick Waller, chairman of the county’s Industrial Development Authority, discussed the memo as part of his chair’s report at the IDA’s regular meeting on May 12, saying the IDA had not “stumped our toes as far as we know, but we want to be sure that we don’t” in the future.

Haygood, who wrote the memorandum sent out by Greathouse, told me in an email message on May 14 that he was motivated to send out the memorandum “knowing that we needed to emphasize this to our citizen committees.”

The IDA, made up mostly of citizen appointees, had gone into executive session in two of the four meetings it held so far this year prior to the May 12 meeting. It did not go into executive session on May 12.

Haygood sent out a second memo last week elaborating on the state's open meetings law requirements.

For more on this story, go to Oconee County Observations.