Tapes of closed Chatham sessions are murky

PITTSBORO -- Taped minutes from five closed meetings the Chatham County commissioners held to discuss a development moratorium are often hard to understand, and three of the edited tapes last less than five minutes.

In an interview Friday, commissioners' Chairman Carl Thompson said the board went into closed session because it was told to do so by its attorney.

There was a legal issue -- meaning the county could get sued -- if the commissioners did not exempt subdivisions in the sketch design phase from the moratorium, Thompson said.

The board also needed to discuss whether its reasons for temporarily halting growth met state requirements for a moratorium, Thompson said. And finally, the commissioners needed to discuss how detailed the public hearing notice should be or whether the details could just be announced at the public hearing, he said.

The tapes cover more than those three points, however.

Ambitious goals

In the first meeting April 2, the board discussed a draft moratorium document written by lawyer Jeffrey Starkweather, who is the chairman of the Chatham Coalition but who says he was acting as a consultant to the county attorney.

Jep Rose, the county's interim attorney, told the board the document's goals were too ambitious to accomplish in 12 months. The commissioners were looking a banning new subdivisions.

Commissioner Tom Vanderbeck then asked whether the Triangle J Council of Governments, a regional planning body, should be brought in to help with the moratorium.

Later, the board began to discuss the scope of the moratorium and whether to include commercial projects. Commissioner Patrick Barnes said he did not want to.

That same day, the board held another closed meeting. The taped minutes from it last just over a minute. Rose told the board that Planning Director Keith Megginson had found information in Starkweather's document that was incorrect, and the board then agreed to let Megginson change the document.

On April 16, the board held an hourlong discussion. Again, the commissioners talked about the scope of the moratorium. Commissioner George Lucier suggested exempting subdivisions of 25 or fewer homes. But Commissioner Mike Cross suggested fewer than 50 homes.

More meetings

The next two tapes, from meetings May 7 and May 21, total about five minutes, and the discussion is hard to make out.

The board passed the moratorium unanimously June 4, banning subdivisions of more than 25 lots for up to 12 months. The ban does not affect commercial developments or projects in Pittsboro or Siler City.

A board can go into closed session for specific reasons, including attorney-client privilege, which is what the commissioners cited when they closed their doors. The minutes of those proceedings are supposed to be released when the reason for the closure has passed, the state open meetings law says.