To the editor:
I feel compelled to respond to Ray Gasperson’s letter to the editor in the March 12, 2014 Bulletin as again, he does not tell the truth.
Ray had admitted to the commissioners that he was not keeping closed session discussions to himself prior to the February 17 2014 meeting.  He admitted that he was sharing information discussed in these closed session meetings with others outside of the closed session meetings.
With Ray admitting this I felt that we needed to find a way to be able to conduct business that is legally allowed in closed session without Ray being able to tell the world what each commissioners’ comments were regarding the issues at hand, before we had even made a decision on what action to take.  Many times we do not come to a consensus during the first closed session on an issue, but only discuss and make our decision at a later meeting.  We were being questioned about comments we had made during closed session by the public before we had even made a decision.
I asked the county attorney in closed session if we could have her and the chairman discuss the issue at hand with each commissioner individually.  She stated that she had never encountered this request before or heard of anyone doing this.  She said she did not see a problem with it if all commissioners agreed.  All commissioners, including Ray agreed that it would be okay to proceed in this manner.  Ray was never asked by anyone to leave the meeting.  He agreed to what I had proposed, made a brief statement, got mad and just walked out.
The county attorney would not have let us proceed in this manner without all commissioners agreeing.
So now you can see that Ray has a hard time telling the truth.

– Tom Pack,
Columbus