It would be so much more efficient and convenient if elected officials could simply do the people’s business in private.

And who doesn’t support government efficiency?

But time and time again, just when the electeds want to get in and get out without all the fuss and muss of open discussions and public participation, some good-government type starts squawking about open meetings and open records and doing the public’s business in public.

What a drag. Don’t these goo-goos understand that sometimes issues facing city councils and county councils and school boards and water district boards are difficult? Don’t they get it that it would be easier for the politicians if they could simply air all the ugly stuff behind closed doors? Isn’t it better if they don’t fight in public, but instead come out all smiles?

Take the Bethel School Board as an example. After a strike forced the board to squeeze blood out of the budget to increase teacher pay, things are a bit stressful. Then one board member had the gall to say – in public – that Superintendent Tom Seigel’s contract shouldn’t be extended.

Clearly, Ken Blair violated the supreme law of the Bethel board, which is to never express an opinion that differs from the majority opinion. And he’d done it before, disagreeing with Seigel before, which triggered an encounter session on interpersonal relations and conflict resolution.

That session didn’t work. That is, Blair kept voting no and telling the voters why he voted no. So the board went into closed session for a couple of hours and then came out and removed Blair from the mostly meaningless position of board vice president.

Who does Ken Blair think he is? An independently elected board member who answers only to the voters who place him there? If that’s what he thinks, then he can be a board member but not vice president. That’s the punishment for forgetting board policy that only the president can speak publicly about district issues.

At least we think Blair was punished for speaking out. That’s because the board retreated to the security of a closed session, relying upon a questionable interpretation of the state Open Meetings Act.

While there is a legal exemption to “receive and evaluate complaints or charges brought against a public officer or employee,” no one would say if such a complaint had been made. They also wouldn’t say if Blair was the subject of the closed-door session.

The exemption cited isn’t really designed to cover up a gripe session. It is for formal complaints or charges – serious ones, not petty grudges. And even then the subject of the complaint can request that the meeting be held in public.

But perhaps we need to think of the feelings of the rest of the board. If their main point is to present a false front of unanimity to the public, they can hardly complain about each other in public. That would kind of blow the whole ruse, wouldn’t it?

Perhaps Bethel could learn from the openness of their big-city brethren in Tacoma. There, School Board President Connie Rickman simply gaveled down a fellow board member. And what outrage had Kurt Miller tried to perpetuate on the body politic?

He suggested drawing up a schedule for the board to have public discussions about tough issues like lagging test scores and the achievement gap. He didn’t even want to discuss his idea then, just to put it on a future board agenda.

Rickman, of course, would have none of that. How dare an elected board member use a public meeting to discuss important policies that he had not yet cleared with her in private.

“End of discussion,” she told him when he persisted.

No word yet whether Miller’s attempt at an open discussion will cost him some meaningless title as well.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics