“I come from private business, so my understanding of personnel is anything that impacts personnel — a description of what their job looks like and how we weigh them and all those kinds of things,” Bobby McKinney, Interim President of the EDC, said after the 10 a.m. meeting.
Discussion at the meeting, attended by a quorum of EDC board members and members of an EDC search committee, was clearly audible to members of the local media, The Albany Herald and a television station, who were denied access.
At the meeting, consultant Tim Chason presented results obtained through a survey of Chamber of Commerce members and local stakeholders of what is sought in a new EDC president.
Chason, of The Chason Group, said as of July 31 the firm had mailed more than 300 letters of interest to organizations with which potential candidates might be affiliated, and advertised the position with state and national economic development organizations.
Both the EDC and Albany Area Chamber of Commerce have been without permanent chief executives since the April 1 resignation of Tim Martin, who served as head of both.
Since then, officials with each have announced plans to hire individual leaders for both organizations, and McKinney said later Friday he was not interested in the job.
Chason noted before the meeting was closed that his firm was responsible for placing former Albany Herald Editor Kay Read in her new position, as president and CEO of the Cartersville-Bartow County Chamber of Commerce.
Chason said Read would not be returning to Albany from Cartersville, his hometown. “I won’t let her,” he said.
His firm also has conducted searches to fill economic development positions in Whitfield, Tift, Polk, Jackson, Pike, Upson, Forsyth, Laurens and Gilmer counties, according to its Web site, www.thechasongroup.com.
During the closed meeting, Chason described what the survey revealed to be qualities sought in a new leader: team-building and interpersonal skills, and an understanding of economic development, though not necessarily a “traditional” education background in the subject.
“Based on the survey and based on the community feedback, we can put together a rating chart” against which applicants can be measured, he said.
He also discussed the position’s salary, “up to $120,000,” plus membership dues at local clubs and moving expenses.
Chason said he’d already received “12 qualified resumes,” including three from Georgia and “one local candidate,” but the individual candidates were not discussed.
Resumes will be accepted through Aug. 29, and the committee will meet again Sept. 23, he said.
“And that’s the information I have for you today,” Chason said, about 70 minutes after the meeting began.
Poking his head out the door, Chason noticed a Herald reporter was waiting.
He went back into the meeting and told the group, “We’ve got a reporter out there who knows we haven’t talked about personnel.”
The Georgia Open Meetings Act allows public agencies to close meetings for “personnel” matters only to discuss or deliberate the hiring, discipline, dismissal or evaluation of specific named personnel.
Participants at the meeting included John Culbreath, Don Barfield and Albany City Manager Al Lott, who told the Herald recently the EDC “is funded through taxpayer money, so its activity and budget should be open. Things should not happen in a vacuum.”
After the meeting, McKinney apologized and said he’d misunderstood the definition of “personnel” when he told EDC member and Dougherty County Administrator Richard Crowdis, who made the motion to close the meeting, that it needed to be closed.
He and Chason provided the materials distributed at the meeting: a folder containing a position description, a proposed weighting scale, a timeline, the survey results and proposed application questions to The Herald.
An expert in Georgia open meeting laws said the apology was a good start.
“There’s no way to rectify something like this once it’s done,” said Johnny Edwards, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine Chair for Georgia.
“They’ve committed a misdemeanor, and an apology wouldn’t get me out of a speeding ticket,” he said. “These people who are charged with the public trust need to remember who they work for and cease with this arrogant posturing of secrecy.”