Blytheville-Gosnell Regional Airport Authority officials may have violated the state's Freedom of Information Act with three lunch meetings in 2011, and they may have failed to complied with FOIA on seven other occasions that year as well.
All 10 potential violations occurred during the first six months of 2011 as BGRAA president Barrett Harrison was getting acclimated with his new role.
Through an FOI request, the Courier News obtained records indicating Harrison had lunch meetings with select board members and charged the meals to the BGRAA.
The newspaper claims the BGRAA failed to notify it of the meetings -- the organization regularly sends meeting notices to the Courier News.
The state law reads: "In the event of emergency or special meetings, the person calling the meeting shall notify the representatives of the newspapers, radio stations, and television stations, if any, located in the county in which the meeting is to be held and any news media located elsewhere that cover regular meetings of the governing body and that have requested to be so notified of emergency or special meetings of the time, place and date of the meeting. Notification shall be made at least two (2) hours before the meeting takes place in order that the public shall have representatives at the meeting."
Harrison's February 2011 expense report shows he had lunch "with several board members" on Feb. 10, 2011, at Perkins Restaurant. On the $43.88 receipt, he lists BGRAA board members Becky Hawkins, Jerry Moore, Edward Regenold and Don Houseworth, who chairs the board and owns Perkins.
On May 18, 2011, Harrison and County Judge Randy Carney, a BGRAA board member, met for a $17.25 lunch charged to the BGRAA, an expense report shows.
Then, on June 1, 2011 Harrison met with Moore, Hawkins and Houseworth for an apparent lunch meeting at Perkins, also charged to the BGRAA, according to an expense report.
The $34.97 receipt refers to the lunch as a "board meeting."
Harrison's mileage reports indicate other potential violations:
-- Jan. 4, 2011, a meeting with board member and Blytheville Mayor James Sanders, at the mayor's office and with Houseworth at Holiday Inn.
-- Jan. 6, 2011, a meeting with Houseworth at Holiday Inn.
-- Jan. 7, 2011, a meeting with Moore and Houseworth at Holiday Inn.
-- Jan. 12, 2011, a meeting at the mayor's office.
-- Jan. 14, 2011, a meeting at the county judge's office with Carney, county economic developer Clif Chitwood, Rick Johnson and Bill Nelson.
-- Jan. 28, 2011, a meeting with Sanders and Harry Dixon at the mayor's office.
Harrison said at the time, he didn't think any of those were meetings because they lacked a quorum; there are nine total board members.
Courts have consistently ruled that even if a committee, board or commission lacks a quorum, its meetings are still subject to FOIA.
"Everybody was under the impression that as long as you didn't have a quorum and you weren't voting to change any policy or do anything then it wasn't a problem," Harrison said, noting the group didn't vote on anything, only offering suggestions.
He added any decisions must be made by the board.
Meanwhile, Sanders and fellow board members Oscar Ford Jr. and Don Prevallet said they weren't invited to any of the lunch meetings.
"I really can't tell you why we weren't invited as were apparently other members of the board," Prevellet said. "Obviously, they didn't want some of us there, which I think is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. It appears, from what you've told me, that they discussed board business. The only conclusion at which I can arrive is that they were trying to discuss items, make decisions about board business without all the board being there. Then, at the next meeting, whatever the issue was, there would simply be a motion, a second and a vote, which of course is totally contrary to the way the board is supposed to operate. But as to specifically why some of us weren't invited, you're going to have to ask the people that didn't invite us that question, because I don't have any information on that. Really, I'm surprised, and quite frankly, a lot more than that, that they would start having meetings that we wouldn't know about or be told or invited; I find that difficult to believe."
Ford said he may have been in the hospital at the time of the apparent meetings.
Harrison acknowledged some board members were not notified of the meetings, though they weren't trying to keep anyone from participating in discussions.
"I always call Don (Houseworth)-- he's obviously our board chairman -- and tell him what I've got on my mind," Harrison said. "I'd like to get together with some of the board members to see what they think before I waste everybody's time. He'll say, let's call this one or let's call that one. I'm pretty sure there were a couple of times when others were invited but couldn't come. Again, we always thought the key thing was the quorum, not what you explained to us the other day. We're going to make sure we go over that at the next board meeting (Thursday)."
Harrison said there was no intent to silence a board member, who can discuss issues at the regular board meetings.
"None at all," Harrison said. "Most of the time, when you're trying to get an opinion from a couple of those folks, you're looking for who's available and what their particular occupation was, if it allows them or gives them the time to do things like that. Again, they were all given an opportunity to discuss it at an official board meeting. And I think everything that we ever agreed to do in those board meetings was pretty much unanimous. Everybody agreed that that stuff was just being wasted, sitting out here. We've sold -- I won't get this exactly right -- but I'm going to say we've probably sold stuff that equalled, $20,000, $25,000 in income to the Airport Authority that we turned around and used to clean up and fix something or make another building available for somebody to rent."
Harrison was referring to selling of property.
He noted one of those lunch meetings focused on selling old equipment that had been unused since the Air Base closed, including an old Air Force wrecker that was too big for regular automobiles.
After showing board members photos "of stuff that was of no value to us sitting out here" they thought it was a good idea to sell the items and bring up the request at a regular meeting, Harrison said.
Messages left for Houseworth were not immediately returned late Tuesday afternoon or early Wednesday morning.
Other lunch meeting discussions centered around finances and accounting with a CPA from Thomas Speight and Noble present at one of them, Harrison said.
"I wanted to be sure they were OK with the way they were getting financial information," Harrison said. "I served on the board a long time and I discovered, after I got out of here, that some of that stuff maybe could be reported in a different way to give them a better understanding of revenue and expenses."
"Other than accounting stuff, selling old property, I can't think of anything else we were really talking about at those meetings," Harrison added.
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com