Attorney: Fair board's vote broke open meeting laws

The Great Northern Fairboard’s failure to publish an agenda notifying the public about holding a vote on hiring a fairgrounds manager violated the state’s open meeting laws, attorney Mike Meloy with the Freedom of Information hotline said Friday.

Fair board Chair Paul McCann said today he will talk with the Hill County commissioners about whether a law was broken when the board hired Dave Brewer as the new Fairgrounds Manager. If so, the board can vote again at its next meeting April 18.

The state’s right-to-know laws require a board publish an agenda 48 hours prior to a vote being cast.

Tyler Smith, chair of the board’s three member hiring committee, said last week that the committee interviewed three candidates then presented their findings to the entire board when they went into a closed session at their March 21 monthly meeting.

After having the chance to visit and talk with each of the candidates a vote was then cast by email March 22, he said.

“The proper procedure should have been to have exited the closed session and voted in open session” Meloy said. “If they did not do that, instead deferred voting until later but did not publicly notice a time to vote and then voted by email, they violated the open meetings law.”

McCann said today that the intent was to hire someone to manage the fairgrounds and get them employed after four months of not having one.

The position of fairgrounds manager had been open since November, after manager Bob Horne resigned.