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Our View: Century Provided Inadequate Public Meeting Notice

Letter-sized public notices posted on the door of the Century Town Hall and at the town’s Piggly Wiggly were the only prominent notices given of a public forum held Monday night by the Century Town Council.

The council held the one hour public forum at 6 p.m. to discuss qualification criteria for the town’s eligible citizens to apply for their fair share of a housing assistance grant.

NorthEscambia.com did not attend the public forum in order to report the events that transpired because we were not notified of the meeting. No other media attended the meeting. We learned of the meeting from a notice posted on the front door of the Town Hall as our reporter arrived for the council’s regular 7 p.m. meeting. We asked at the close of the public forum where public notice had been given that the meeting would take place.

“It was posted at the Piggly Wiggly and around town,” Mayor Freddie McCall responded.

The town typically places paid legal advertisements in the Tri-City Ledger announcing public meetings. The Century Town Council voted over a year ago to also run those announcements with NorthEscambia.com. NorthEscambia.com runs most meeting notices at no charge to the town as a public service.

McCall apologized for not notifying the media about the meeting.

One person attended the 6 p.m. public forum, saying he was informed by Council President Ann Brooks that the meeting would take place.

During the council’s regular 7 p.m. meeting, two resolutions regarding the housing assistance grant were approved — 0ne to authorize the town’s applications and one setting criteria by which citizens could apply for the grant money.

“This resolution has amendments that we discussed tonight to be added to the applications and the policies,” Council President Ann Brooks said as she during the regular meeting as read the resolution setting forth the citizen qualifying criteria.  The amendments were not discussed whatsoever during the regular council meeting.

It is not known if the two resolutions appeared on the council’s agenda Monday night; copies of the agenda were not made available to the public.

While it does not appear the Town of Century broke any laws, the Town of  Century provided inadequate public notice of the meeting in our opinion.

Florida’s Sunshine Law is fairly clear that posting a notice on the front door of the Town Hall (and perhaps even at the Piggly Wiggly), probably meets the law’s public notice requirements. But it is also obvious and clearly spelled out in the Sunshine Law that better public notice could and should be given.

“In some instances, posting of the notice in an area set aside for that purpose may be sufficient; in others, publication in a local newspaper may be necessary. In each case, however, an agency must give notice at such time and in such a manner as will enable the media and the general public to attend the meeting,”  Florida’s Sunshine Law states.

An Attorney General opinion included on the state’s Sunshine Law website states “the use of press releases and/or phone calls to the wire services and other media is highly effective. On matters of critical public concern such as rezoning, budgeting, taxation, appointment of public officers, etc., advertising in the local newspapers of general circulation would be appropriate.”

If Monday night’s public forum had dealt with an ordinary event that did not directly impact the town’s citizens, we would have taken less issue with the blunder.

However, Monday’s housing grant meeting dealt with setting criteria to provide assistance directly to Century’s neediest residents. They deserved the opportunity to attend the meeting and learn more about what criteria they must meet to repair their homes under the program. We are sure that the citizens who deal with rain falling into their living rooms, for instance, could provide great insight into how they could be best served with roofing assistance.

For the council to then approve two resolutions immediately after the almost non-pubic forum was also irresponsible. Perhaps the council was attempting to meet some deadline, but that was not mentioned during the regular council meeting. Again, we and the public can only guess what the council  discussed during the public forum.

In the interest of fairness, we should point out that council member Henry Hawkins did not attend the 6 p.m. ill-advertised public forum, but he did attend the regular council meeting and vote for both resolutions.

We also find it inexcusable that no agenda was provided at the meeting to the public or the media.

We were told that new Town Clerk Darlene Peters (pictured) was unaware of the public notices that should be provided to the media and unaware that she should provide agenda copies to the public.

The town’s advertisement for a town clerk stated: “The applicant will also be required to have working knowledge of state statutes and bylaws relating to the duties and responsibilities of the town clerk, local government procedures and office procedure requirements, as well as other office and financial record keeping experience.”

We do not mean to suggest that Century always pay for a public notice in the Tri-City Ledger or the Pensacola News Journal unless it is required by law. Finances are important. But why would the town not post a FREE ad, as they voted to do, on NorthEscambia.com to notify the public of a meeting? Why would they not request the Tri-City Ledger or the Pensacola News Journal run a simple, free announcement of an important public forum? Perhaps the Tri-City Ledger’s deadline for weekly publication had passed at the time the meeting was scheduled. But NorthEscambia.com and the Pensacola News-Journal both update web sites 24/7, and the PNJ prints a daily paper.

And why, especially in light of the Attorney General’s opinion stated above, would the town not call or email the press about a meeting?

We sincerely believe, and hope, that the Town of Century will take note of this blunder and prevent it from happening again. It’s not about providing a piece of paper taped to the front door of  Town Hall just to satisfy the law. It’s about providing the citizens of Century as much notice as possible about what their government is doing.