House committee bars reporters from posted meeting and tour of fuel facility
By STEVEN FALKENHAGEN and AMBER DIXON
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX (Tuesday, March 3) _ The head of a House committee denied reporters access Tuesday to a posted meeting and tour of a fuel terminal that included briefings by the state Department of Homeland Security and representatives of companies that use the plant.
A House Republican spokeswoman later apologized, saying lawmakers shouldn’t have excluded the public from the briefings.
The House Committee on Military Affairs and Public Safety posted a special meeting agenda for a tour of the Phoenix Fuel Terminal in west Phoenix. Before excluding two Cronkite News Service reporters from briefings that preceded the tour, participants distributed an agenda that included discussion of a bill dealing with fuel facilities.
Tim Grubbs, a legislative liaison for the state Department of Homeland Security, initially said reporters could attend his presentation but then told them to leave because the discussion involved sensitive information. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerry Weiers, R-Glendale, noting concerns raised by Grubbs, said the meeting wasn’t public because there was no quorum and asked the reporters to leave.
Two others on the eight-member committee, Reps. Ray Barnes, R-Phoenix, and Patricia V. Fleming, D-Sierra Vista, were in the conference room before the reporters were told to leave, as was Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, who isn’t on the committee but is the primary sponsor of the bill that was to be discussed.
In a telephone interview later in the day, Weiers said he didn’t know beforehand that the meeting would include sensitive information. He said allowing the public at the briefings would have stifled what presenters could have said.
“I have no doubt in my mind that it would have been a total waste of time,” Weiers said. “It would have been an informational meeting without information.”
Weiers said he didn’t expect a quorum, which requires five members, but posted the meeting in case there turned out to be one so the committee would be in compliance with the Arizona Open Meetings Law.
Cronkite News Service protested the removal to the House Republican leadership, noting that the proceeding was posted and that the agenda distributed before the briefings included discussion of legislation before the committee.
Craig Morgan, an associate attorney for Perkins Coie Brown & Bain, a law firm that advises for the Arizona First Amendment Coalition, noted that a state Attorney General’s Office opinion says governments shouldn’t hold discussions with less than a quorum when the objective is excluding the public.
“It is fair to say that this was improper conduct by the committee,” Morgan said.
David Cuillier, a University of Arizona associate professor of journalism who specializes in open-government issues, said that since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, public officials have often cited national security to block journalists and the public from information that should be open.
“There’s a lot of times the government says they gotta keep a secret to protect us from terrorists, and I don’t believe half of it,” said Cuillier, who is chairman of the national Freedom of Information Committee for the Society of Professional Journalists.
Amy Bolton, public information officer for the state Department of Homeland Security, called the incident a misunderstanding and said the agency is committed to transparency.
“It was an error if our employee asked reporters to leave an open meeting,” Bolton said.
Becky Blackburn, a spokeswoman for the House Republican leadership, said lawmakers should have canceled the briefings when there wasn’t a quorum and moved on to tour the facility.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” she said of the removal.
Blackburn said part of the reason for the incident is confusion over how to handle fact-finding trips by lawmakers. She said legislative staff would develop procedures to balance the public’s right to know about the visits with the needs of lawmakers seeking information.
According to the agenda distributed at the meeting, lawmakers discussed HB 2548, sponsored by Campbell, the House minority whip. The bill would require owners of fuel facilities to update an automated critical asset management system maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Arizona Counterterrorism Information Center.