The Commercial Dispatch filed a complaint today with the Mississippi Ethics Commission questioning whether Oktibbeha County supervisors violated the public records act by not releasing requested information regarding the potential purchase or lease OCH Regional Medical Center.
County voters will decide on Nov. 7 whether supervisors can sell or lease the county-owned hospital facility. Hospital trustees and its medical staff have already publicly come out against such a transaction.
Supervisors met in executive session on Sept. 26 to review proposals submitted from firms seeking to either purchase or lease OCH. After the more than two-hour meeting, supervisors issued a press release indicating they had viewed the proposals.
But upon verbal request, they refused to disclose the number of proposals they received, the identities of groups that submitted proposals and the dollar amount range of the bids. They based that denial on the fact they had signed confidentiality agreements to protect that information.
The next day, The Dispatch filed a written request for the same information, as well as copies of the full proposals and any contracts the board had already signed with the submitting firms.
The Dispatch received a mailed response Tuesday from the supervisors officially denying all tenets of the request, again citing the confidentiality agreements and a “competitive, sealed” bidding process that allows them to keep all the information private until after the Nov. 7 election. The letter also speaks to the proposals containing trade secrets protected by state law and confidential negotiations would continue with firms if the election rendered a “favorable vote” allowing a hospital transaction.
After consulting an attorney, The Dispatch acknowledged in its complaint to the Ethics Commission that supervisors have the right to protect the actual proposals from public disclosure until after they have issued notice of intent to award a bid — which cannot happen until after the election.
However, in its complaint, The Dispatch questions whether supervisors have the authority to enter confidentiality agreements to protect otherwise public information — specifically the number of proposals submitted and the identities of groups submitting them.
The newspaper’s complaint further asks if supervisors violated the “competitive, sealed” bidding process themselves when they reviewed the proposals, and if that means the proposals are no longer technically “sealed.”
Without disclosure of that basic information, the complaint contends there is no way to verify whether supervisors followed their own laid out procedure, such as adhering to the Sept. 15 deadline it set for firms to submit proposals.
Once the ethics commission receives a complaint, it reviews it and later issues a preliminary ruling whether there was a violation. After that ruling, parties can appeal for a hearing before the ethics commission. From there the appeals process enters the court system.
In September, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld an ethics commission ruling from a complaint a former Dispatch reporter filed against the city of Columbus in 2014. The court ruled city officials violated the open meetings act by holding two series of non-quorum meetings with councilmen in private wherein they made decisions about economic development and the Trotter Convention Center renovation project.
Other public records requests
On Tuesday, The Dispatch hand-delivered to Garrard two other public records requests.
The Dispatch has requested records of all county expenses for attorneys, consultants, studies, advertising and miscellaneous (travel, meals, etc.) incurred between Jan. 1, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2017, for business related to the potential OCH transaction. That request also seeks a copy of the county’s contract with Ted Woodrell, a consultant supervisors hired to guide them through the process of studying the hospital and requesting proposals.
A second request seeks copies of all email communication for Garrard and all five supervisors on their county accounts from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 of this year, as well as copies of all their communication through private email accounts during that time frame in which public business was discussed.
By law, the county has up to seven working days to respond to those requests. If they are denied, in whole or part, the law requires the county to cite statutes it feels justify non-disclosure.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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