The decision by Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards to ask the Georgia Attorney General’s Office to investigate the Dougherty County School Board’s decision to name a lone candidate for the job of superintendent was a wise move.

“This matter has caused intense public friction and controversy in the Dougherty County community,” Edwards wrote in his letter to Attorney general Thurbert Baker. “Having a detached, objective body determine whether or not the law was violated in this instance is necessary to restore the citizens’ trust and respect for the governmental processes involved.”

Baker, who is running this year for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, has long been a proponent of open government. “I’m no Johnny-come-lately to this whole question about open government,” Baker said responding to a question posed by WALB’s Dawn Hobby on Tuesday at the televised Democratic gubernatorial debate. “When I first became attorney general in 1998, the first thing I did was stress open government and the reason why — because people have a right to know what their government is all about.”

Baker got the Legislature to give his office the authority to mediate and deal with open government issues not only on the state level, but on the local front.

“I don’t think there is any more important right than your right to know,” he said Tuesday. “... We’ve got to be very aggressive in the office. We’ve got to be very aggressive in the governor’s office as well, because I think a lot of the tone that we see needs to be set by the governor.”

And that is what is needed in this case. Openness.

The simple fact is that the Dougherty County School Board was secretive and deceptive in its decision to name Joshua Murfree as its only finalist for the job that impacts 16,000-plus students, along with every taxpayer and business in Dougherty County. You don’t need have a child in the school system in order to have a vested interest in how the school system functions.

There are too many questions about who decided what and when they did it. There are too many questions about connections between board members and the job candidate. And there are basic questions as to why the school system would ignore the Georgia Open Records Law and refuse to name at least three finalists for the position. On Thursday, the School Board narrowed the field of applicants for two open head football coach jobs to four.

When these coaches are selected, citizens in the community will have information on the other candidates so that they can compare and decide for themselves whether the best individuals were chosen. That is how democracy works. A government agency run by a group of individuals who are afraid of being second-guessed and criticized for their decisions have no business serving in elected office. It is no place for cowards or those who can’t stand criticism.

How in the world can anyone argue that it’s more important to follow the law when filling coaching positions than it is to name the individual who will guide the entire system for the foreseeable future? It’s preposterous. If Murfree is truly the best candidate for the job, those who chose him should not be afraid for the community to see the next two best candidates. The backbone of a democracy is the right of the citizen to judge the work of those the citizen has hired to govern, and that cannot be done if the government illegally hides the information.

There has also been too many red herring arguments about race from both sides of the issue. If you applauded The Albany Herald for filing a suit so the court would halt this flawed process because you don’t want an African American to be named superintendent of schools, you are just as out of touch with reality as those who argue this appointment should go through merely because Murfree is African-American.

There are many reasons why it would be beneficial for an African-American man or woman to serve as superintendent. And if the law had been followed and three finalists were named with the subsequent interviews resulting in an African-American being selected as the next school chief, this newspaper would have supported the board in its choice.

But the selection process was flawed and it reeks of cronyism, and the best hope for this system is that the court or the state will step in and make the School Board do its job openly and in compliance with the law.