Mayor Scott Coleman: Malfunctioning Keys or Deliberate Flouting of State Sunshine Laws?

I’ll leave it to you to decide.
The Charter Review Commission’s (CRC) first discussion meeting was scheduled for Wednesday February 16th at 7 pm in the City Hall Council Chamber.


The CRC’s work is very worthy of public attention, given the Charter’s important role in our city’s governance. Akin to a constitution, the Charter provides the legal and governmental framework for our city. In fact, all city rules, ordinances and laws are subservient to the Charter--they are illegal and unenforceable if they conflict with what the Charter says.


CRC meetings are public meetings. This doesn’t mean that the public necessarily has a right to speak, but members of the public certainly have the right to come and listen to the CRC discussion. That being said, it is a matter of common sense that a meeting can’t possibly qualify as a “public meeting” if public access is to the meeting is barred, impeded or denied.


Regular readers of this blog can probably guess what’s coming next....


I thought it might be interesting to sit in on the CRC meeting last Wednesday night. When I arrived at City Hall, shortly after 7 pm, I found that the doors to City Hall were locked up tight. The CRC meeting was held, but the public was barred from attending it.


It’s not like no one was there to let the public in.


Mayor Scott Coleman was inside the building before the CRC members arrived. As the only city official present, it was his duty and responsibility to make sure that the City Hall doors were unlocked and that the public was given access to the CRC meeting—in other words, to make sure that state Sunshine Laws were complied with. Naturally, Mayor Coleman has the keys to City Hall. But he didn’t unlock the City Hall doors at 7 pm. Instead, he hid out inside the building, keeping his keys firmly in his pocket.


And let me tell you more.

Not only was Mayor Coleman present in City Hall before the start of the CRC meeting, he actively participated in that meeting, as an ad hoc 10th member of the CRC .


How do I know that? After standing outside for quite some time---unsuccessfully pounding my fist on the City Hall front doors, ringing the City Hall door bell, calling the Highland Heights police non-emergency line to request entry into the building, and being ignored by Mayor Coleman and several CRC members, who stood inside the City Hall front lobby----I finally managed to get inside the building, quite by accident. 20 minutes into the meeting, one CRC member temporarily exited the building. I managed to grab the door before it shut tight behind him.


Ironically, after I succeeded in entering City Hall Mayor Coleman suddenly appeared, keys in hand. He unlocked the doors---so that the exiting CRC member could get back in the building.


Why the closed doors?


To answer that question we need to start at the beginning.


Charter § 13.01 states that the mayor is supposed to appoint “nine (9) qualified electors not holding other Municipal office or appointment” to serve on the CRC. The fact that CRC membership is limited to residents without any direct (appointed or elected) connection to the city is clearly aimed at ensuring the CRC 's independence from politics and direct political influence when reviewing the city Charter and making recommendations to change/update it.


Some long time residents told me that--in the past, at least—the CRC did just that. It operated as an independent citizens group. Neither the mayor nor council directly participated in the CRC. The CRC conducted its business free from direct political influence.


Not this time around. Mayor Coleman---a resident who holds not just “a“ municipal office” but the city’s top “municipal office”---not only sat at the Council table with the CRC members, he fully participated in Wednesday night’s CRC meeting.


Here’s another important fact to keep in mind. Charter § 13.01 also states that “Council shall submit, without alteration, to the electors any such proposed alterations, revisions, or amendments to the Charter at the next regular November election.” In other words, Council has no power to modify, alter or veto the CRC’s recommendations. The changes the CRC wants made to the Charter automatically get put on the November ballot.


So let’s turn again to Wednesday night, keeping § 13.01 in mind.


The mayor, who has the City Hall keys in his pocket, chooses not to unlock the front doors, thereby preventing the public from listening to the CRC’s first substantive discussion meeting---a meeting that the mayor not only attends, but fully participates in.


You might ask: “Doesn’t that violate both Charter § 13.01 and state Sunshine Laws?”
and “Why would Mayor Scott Coleman--our mayor---the mayor of Highland Heights, do that?” Those are good questions.


As always, you are free to come up with your own guess, but here’s one theory:


Imagine that you are a mayor who has to work with an independent City Council---a Council that doesn’t act as a mayoral rubber stamp. And imagine, too, that you are a mayor who has publicly admitted that he likes to “fly under the radar”---you are someone who prefers to do business behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of the public. And suppose, too, that you have a couple of things you want to see changed in the Charter. Given the fact that, by law, Council can’t mess with the CRC’s recommendations, you might see an opportunity for advancing your own personal and/or political agendas --- if you can get in and influence the CRC and its work. How to do that-- “under the radar” so to speak?
First you hand-select the CRC members, rather than soliciting volunteers from the community. Then you make sure to arrive at City Hall early on Wednesday night. After that, you simply “forget” to unlock the front doors. A police officer lets the early arriving CRC members in, but does not unlock the doors. The result? A "public" meeting is quickly and easily turned into a private discussion—one that you fully participate in, out of public view.


That’s just one theory, of course.


Another theory is that, despite his decade of experience as an elected Highland Heights official---Mayor Coleman was simply absent minded and “forgot” to unlock the City Hall doors on Wednesday night---even the persistent pounding of someone trying to get in apparently was not enough to remind him that he needed to unlock the doors.

Or, then again, maybe Mayor Coleman’s keys malfunctioned.  You know, in this high tech era, it happens all the time.