After debating a firing in public, Corporation Commission voted to hide the record

The Arizona Corporation Commission voted unanimously this week to redact parts of a public meeting, including the transcript and the video recording, to remove references to a former employee whose firing was the sole topic of debate, seemingly in blatant violation of the state’s open meeting law. 

The commissioners had been debating what authority the executive director of the commission has over firing decisions after ACC Executive Director Doug Clark fired Laurie Woodall, Commissioner Lea Márquez Peterson’s policy advisor, without notifying her. 

When the discussion had concluded, Tom Van Flein, the Corporation Commission’s general counsel, told the five commissioners that the discussion should have taken place behind closed doors and not in public,

“It wasn’t part of our notice and it is a personnel matter. It shouldn’t be part of an open meeting,” he said. 

“Thats the reason why we probably should’ve gone into executive session,” Commissioner Kevin Thompson said in reply. 

At Van Flein’s urging, the Commission then voted to retroactively deem references to Woodall private content and redact all mentions of her from the meeting transcript and the video that was published online on Friday.

First Amendment attorney David Bodney said doing so flies in the face of Arizona’s open meeting laws, which require that government bodies conduct their work in public view in nearly all situations. 

“One is hard-pressed to imagine a rationale for redacting Laurie Woodall’s name and her ‘situation’ from ‘the record,’ unless it’s an attempt to protect Ms. Woodall’s privacy,” Bodney told the Mirror. “If so, it would seem to be too little, too late – that is, if the proposed redaction occurred after this information had already been discussed in public session.” 

The agenda for the session also did not mention any of what was discussed. Bodney said that agendas for public meetings must list the “specific matters” to be discussed. Choosing to list citations to a handful of Arizona statutes, as the Corporation Commission did for this meeting, falls short of that requirement, he said. 

“The agenda for the public meeting does not list ‘the specific matters’ to be discussed, considered or decided, as the law requires — rather, it’s just a jumble of citations to a half dozen Arizona statutes and ‘Related Statutes,’” he said. “And the executive session agenda is ‘just a recitation of the statutory provision[ ] authorizing the executive session,’ contrary to the law’s requirement for something more.” 

When asked by the Arizona Mirror on what legal authority the Commission relied on for retroactively redacting a meeting, spokeswoman Nicole Garia said that Van Flein said that the information discussed was “potentially confidential,” citing state regulations on records of employees. 

However, the administrative rule Garcia cited specifically states that the name of an employee can be released via a public records request. Additionally, all of the commissioner’s policy advisors’ names are readily available on the ACC website. 

“As such, (Van Flein) recommended the redaction of the employee’s name from the record as he considered the topic of discussion in parts to be a personnel matter,” Garcia said.  

But discussion around the redaction at the meeting Wednesday also included removing other items from the public record. Márquez Peterson suggested that mentions of sexual harassment, used during discussing hypothetical scenarios in which the executive director may have authority over hiring and firing, should be removed as it could lead to someone making an “assumption” about why Woodall was fired. 

“We are sort of in a grey area here. It is appropriate if you say it is,” Van Flein said with a chuckle in response to the commissioners asking if they had that authority. 

Van Flein encouraged the commissioners to make the motion so his office could review the transcript and video for possible redactions. 

At the start of the meeting, Chairman Nick Myers attempted to move the discussion to executive session. But Márquez Peterson objected and said she did not believe it to be something that required the additional privacy. 

“This isn’t really a personnel item or legal advice. This is more discussion among us around a policy statement potentially and clarification of our existing rules,” Márquez Peterson said. 

“Interesting, OK,” Myers said back. 

“I don’t think we need an executive session for us to discuss state statues,” Commissioner Rachel Walden said, adding that personnel issues were unlikely to come up. 

“We’ll see,” Myers said. 

The Attorney General’s Office, which enforces open meetings law violations in Arizona, said it was “aware of the matter at the ACC this week” but had not received an open meeting law complaint. A spokesman declined to comment further. 

The Corporation Commission did not respond to follow-up questions about what state law it relied on to retroactively apply redactions to the public meeting. 

It is still unclear why Woodall was fired. The commission approved Márquez Peterson’s motion to seek additional outside counsel to get a legal opinion on if the firing was just or not.