Our View: Boards need to be vigilant

Government entities need to be more vigilant in ensuring their discussions occur in public.

A recent example of how easy it can be to slip can be seen with Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County’s Board of Trustees. The board, with the exception of Richard Mathey, and the hospital’s CEO discussed pulling hospital funds from Bank of the West in emails sent amongst members of the board in late September. The board ultimately made a decision in October to withdraw those funds from the bank, with board chairman Mathey claiming the board broke the state’s open meetings act leading up to that vote.

We agree with Mathey. Nothing in the emails we’ve received shouldn’t have been discussed in an open forum. Yet, we also don’t think the board and administration acted in a malicious manner when they had that discussion. The fact the hospital released the trustees’ emails without a fight is proof of that.

With boards like the MHSC trustees, its members are appointed and serve as community volunteers. We believe the discussion started as the result of a comment sent to other board members, with discussion snowballing as a result. The members weren’t concerned about keeping the discussion from reaching public hears or anything of the sort. Members were simply discussing an issue that could impact the hospital when, before long, the idea of who supports what came into play.

This serves as an eye opener for any public board of how easy it can be to violate Wyoming’s Open Meetings Act. There isn’t any argument that any elected official should be keenly aware of what can and cannot be discussed in public. Likewise, we would hope they would be just as versed in the state’s public records laws. However, volunteer boards should have the same training and should feel comfortable enough around other board members to stop a conversation about upcoming votes and issues if they start outside of their meetings.

This is how corruption starts, when we slowly ease into thinking something is permissible because the people behind it weren’t acting in a malicious way. Text messaging, emails and other forms of instantaneous communication make it easy to share ideas with others. However, we hope the board at MHSC and others throughout Sweetwater County take this opportunity to realize their discussions are a part of performing their community service and doing so outside of their meetings is only a disservice to the people and place they love.