Peabody terms violation ‘technical’
Staff writer
Peabody Mayor Catherine Weems responded Monday night to a Kansas attorney general’s ruling that her council violated state law when conducting a closed session Aug. 11.
Weems shifted back and forth in accepting responsibility and in saying the violations were only technical in nature.
“I don’t agree with some of the things in this letter that simply did not happen,” she said. “It is easy to point out all the little things that went wrong,” she said. “We did get some technical violations we are going to fix. One of the important things to understand is the AG office clearly said it was technical.”
There was nothing to suggest the council discussed anything they were not permitted to do, she said, adding that it did not hide anything and that all actions taken were conducted in open session.
She also said this can be a learning tool.
“We have to understand we all can use some improvement,” Weems said. “I learned some things through this. We are going to go through training in a week.”
The one-hour session is scheduled training required by the AG’s office.
“We are human, and we do make mistakes,” Weems said. “We were working in good conscience, and I am very proud of our town council despite that.”
Weems urged the public to read the ruling in its entirety.
“I think it was fair. I think the judgment was fair,” she said. “Obviously, I wish we had done it perfect, but we didn’t.”
The council will discuss what happened, and what it is going to do to fix it, she said.
According to the ruling, the council failed to adequately summarize what would be discussed when it went into executive session to discuss non-elected employees.
Investigators concluded Peabody also failed to adequately record its minutes in the motion to go into executive session and failed to state in its minutes exactly when and where an open session would resume.
All three failings violated the Kansas Open Meetings Act, the AG’s office ruled.
The executive session was about personnel matters, and Weems said it was appropriate to have said what was said during the session behind closed doors.
She said when the reporter asked for information about an employee she was not going to divulge what was requested.
“I was not going to elaborate,” she said. “We keep things like that private.
“They are not public officials where their dirty laundry can be aired where other people can put it out there as a news story,” she added. “It just doesn’t happen. I don’t tell my neighbor. I don’t tell my husband. It’s a personnel thing.”