By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Lots of rules and lots of money. Comparatively, county commissions yield a fair amount of power regarding local budgeting and lawmaking. That's why the Barton County Commission is taking steps to become more transparent. At Wednesday's meeting, Commission Chair Shawn Hutchinson discussed a new executive session item that will now appear on each commission agenda.
"It was brought to our attention that we were having executive sessions in study session," he said. "We are legally able to do that, but in the spirit of transparency, which is very important to all of us, that maybe we should have at least an opportunity to go into executive session during every meeting without having to do something like amending the agenda."
The commission agendas are typically made public each Thursday. Any non-elected personnel or legal items that came up between that publication and the Wednesday public meeting were typically discussed in study sessions, which are not recorded. With the new agenda item, commissioners will now have the opportunity to bring up these items in the recorded meeting.
"A lot of governing bodies kind of have it as a placeholder, so at the end of the meeting it's there," said County Counselor Patrick Hoffman. "A lot of times you leave it at the end because, of course, we have to kick the public out. We don't want to do that inconveniently, so we do it the last thing we have to. That's the concept here."
Per statute, any motion to go into executive session must include justification for going into executive session, the subject matter to be discussed, any individuals in addition to the commission that will enter the executive session, and the time at which the public portion of the meeting will resume.