COLUMBIA — A Richland County judge found March 8 that a vague vote taken by Richland One’s school board following a closed meeting violated South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act.
That initial order by Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman came in a lawsuit against the Columbia school district by parent and law professor Clint Wallace. He asserted Richland One broke the state law when it voted Feb. 1 to approve the district’s recommendations about its under-investigation early learning center without publicly disclosing what those recommendations were.
“Defendant Richland County School District One violated the Freedom of Information Act as alleged in the Complaint,” Newman’s order said.
The brief initial order did not include any details of the judge’s reasoning or what, if anything, the court would require from the district. Those details will likely come from a more detailed order that Wallace’s lawyers will propose to the court within 15 days.
In his initial Feb. 7 complaint, Wallace asked the court to “invalidate the School Board’s unlawful vote” and to stop the district from taking action on the issues raised in the executive session “unless a lawful public meeting and vote of the School Board occurs.”
The initial court order followed a Feb. 16 hearing where Wallace’s lawyer Christopher Kenney argued the district hadn’t provided enough legally required detail to the public before entering the executive session. The alert was that the discussion would involve legal advice related to a construction project and the state investigation into the now-halted Vince Ford Early Learning Center.
Richland One’s lawyer argued during the hearing the board wasn’t able to disclose the details of the recommendations they were voting on because it was legal advice, which FOIA protects under attorney-client privilege.
Kenney conceded the legal advice itself was privileged but said the recommendations based upon that advice were not. Ruling that governmental bodies are allowed to take a vague public vote in reference to an entirely private conversation would effectively nullify the law’s requirements that decisions be made in public, the plaintiff’s lawyer argued.
And while the initial ruling found for his client, Kenney told The Post and Courier that “nothing is set in stone,” pointing to the district’s ability to file a motion for the court to reconsider. The district’s lawyers will have 10 days to responded to the proposed order.
Richland One spokeswoman Karen York said in a statement that the district looks forward to receiving the proposed order, but did not comment further.
Board chair Aaron Bishop, who testified in the Feb. 16 hearing, did not immediately respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.
During a Feb. 13 board meeting, Bishop gave some additional detail about what the board voted on weeks earlier, saying the board “voted to authorize the administration to continue exploration of all contractual and legal avenues in an effort to mitigate costs created by the project’s work stoppage, and to address any concerns related to the scope of the project by governmental entities … including the Department of Education and the inspector general.”
