"Nothing so diminishes democracy as secrecy."
-- Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, 1967

Here's a guideline for public officials to follow about whether a meeting should be open to the public.

If you're conducting the public's business, it should.

What happens in county budget workshops is the public's business. And despite Washington County Budget Officer Gayle Hall's discovery of a loophole in the state Open Meetings Law, these meetings should be held in the open.

Supervisor Hall -- who has a history of flouting the Open Meetings Law in the aftermath of the Hadlock Pond dam collapse -- has stumbled upon a practice known as "walking forums." And she's taking full advantage of it to shut Washington County citizens out of the budget process.

In "walking forums," public officials get around the Open Meetings Law by splitting up their committees into small groups in order to conduct business. Since none of these little groups constitute a quorum of the full committee or board, these meetings can legally be held without notifying the public and without opening the meetings to the citizens.

In March, the attorney general of the state of Illinois, where the practice had become commonplace, sent out a strongly worded letter reminding government boards of their obligation to follow not only the letter, but the spirit, of the Open Meetings Law.

Yet Supervisor Hall has decided to apply the concept of walking forums to county budget workshops and any other meeting in which the budget is discussed -- including health, human resources, government operations, public works and public safety.

Meetings are deliberately scheduled and supervisors specifically assigned to assure that no quorum is reached, and therefore that the discussions can legally be held in secret. On Thursday, seven of 11 members of the county Finance Committee supported this tactic. (See their names and contact information in separate box.)

If you're a citizen in Washington County, particularly one who's read their tax bills the last few years, you should be outraged that your county representatives would attempt to build the new budget in secret.

Ms. Hall tried lamely to justify the practice by saying that the workshop meetings should be kept closed so she could discuss hiring and personnel issues in various county departments without public scrutiny. But that's not how the law works.. The law is not designed to make it easier or more convenient for elected officials to conduct the public's business. And it's not designed to protect public employees from unpleasant discussions about their fate.

The supervisor has no right to keep that information from the public, even if it means the employees affected could find out and be upset. Discussion of individual personnel records is already protected from public scrutiny under the Open Meetings Law. But discussion about the creation or elimination of the job titles held by those employees is not.

Walking forums represent a cynical manipulation the Open Meetings Law, and legal or not, they violate the spirit of government of the people and by the people.

We urge the full Board of Supervisors to reject this practice and to restate its support for open and honest government.

Local editorials represent the opinion of The Post-Star editorial board, which consists of Publisher Rick Emanuel, Editor Ken Tingley, Editorial Page Editor Mark Mahoney and citizen representative Robin Temple.