Some or all members of the Fort Smith Board of Directors often gather at a restaurant following their regularly scheduled voting meetings. The media has not received advanced notice of such meetings. To learn about these meetings, a reporter must attend the board meeting and then hope to be invited or overhear the board members discuss where they plan to eat.
The City Wire recently asked several members of the Board if they considered the restaurant meetings a violation of the meetings rules or a violation of the spirit of the rules. In his response, City Director Mike Lorenz acknowledged that 'some directors have dinner together after nearly every board meeting and have for at least the past year and a half that I have been a member of the board. Each time the media is invited and notified verbally in person when this takes place.'
The experience of The City Wire's two reporters who attend board meetings is that such an invitation is not always made. The only time reporters with The City Wire attended one of the restaurant meetings is when we overheard a discussion, and a board member who observed that we overheard the conversation offered us an invitation. On another night, a reporter by coincidence saw a group of board members at a restaurant. Only when the board members saw the reporter was he invited to sit with them. Continue>>>
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