The Little Rock housing authority board met for about seven hours in private and about 40 seconds in public Tuesday while interviewing a job candidate for the authority's top position.
The meeting skirted state law regarding notification of public meetings, as well as limits on closed sessions, and board members initially told a reporter that the gathering wasn't a meeting.
Board members interviewed Kimberly Adams, a former Little Rock city employee. When Adams left the housing authority, she didn't turn around when a reporter repeatedly called her name in an attempt to get comment about her plans for the agency.
She is one of three finalists for executive director of the Metropolitan Housing Alliance, the city's largest rental subsidy provider. The previous director, Rodney Forte, resigned in November and was paid $133,000 a year.
An email about Tuesday's job candidate interview from board chairman Leta Anthony was sent to a general Arkansas Democrat-Gazette email address and four other news outlets on April 2. Usually, notice of housing authority meetings is sent by a staff member to more than 30 email addresses.
Last week's email notice was captioned "Memo," a break from the usual notification label.
The reporter who regularly covers the housing agency did not receive the notice, although she has specifically requested notification of its meetings.
The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act defines public meetings as any gathering of two or more members of a governing body to discuss public business. The law requires that notification of special meetings be sent to "representatives of the newspapers, radio stations, and television stations," within the county, as well as any news media that have requested to be notified.
"They didn't comply with the notice requirements is the short of it," said Robert Steinbuch, who teaches at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's W.H. Bowen School of Law.
If specific reporters have asked to be notified, it is not enough to simply notify their employers of a meeting, said Steinbuch, a co-author of the sixth edition of The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act reference book.
The other two candidates for the alliance's top job are Nadine Jarmon of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and R.M. Jackson, who last worked in Spartanburg, S.C. They are scheduled to visit the housing authority Friday and Monday.
Adams, whose resume says she now lives in Houston, was terminated from her position as an assistant director at the city of Little Rock's Housing and Neighborhood Programs in 2018 after less than a year. She was fired for breach of confidence or security, insubordination and conduct, according to a letter from City Manager Bruce Moore denying her appeal of her termination.
Adams worked until 2017 for the city of Houston as a staff analyst in the Housing and Community Development Department and as a grants analyst in the Department of Neighborhoods.
Her resume says she is an "executive community developer."
Adams has a bachelor's degree in marketing from Southern University in Baton Rouge and Texas A&M. She has a master's in business administration from Jackson State University in Mississippi, and a doctorate in urban planning and environmental policy from Texas Southern University.
Commissioner Kenyon Lowe said in a later interview that she was a good candidate and that he doesn't think her firing was a "black-and-white issue."
"That's neither here nor there," Lowe said when asked about the circumstances of her dismissal. "There are situations that come up where people's integrity is everything."
During the seven-hour private meeting, members of the five-person board drifted in and out of the fourth-floor conference room -- some through the lobby and others down a fire escape.
When a newspaper reporter found out about the meeting after it had started and went to the fourth floor where at least two members of the board of commissioners -- Lowe and Lee Lindsey -- were interviewing the job candidate, interim director Marshall Nash said it wasn't a meeting.
Nash and other staff members were at the meeting as well, standard practice at regular meetings.
More commissioners joined as the day wore on.
When questioned by a reporter, commissioners said throughout the day that the gathering wasn't a meeting because not enough board members were present.
When the reporter asked to stay on the fourth floor outside the conference room until they were finished, Nash walked the reporter back to the elevator and said to wait in the lobby.
"I'm almost sure that it's not [a public meeting]," Lindsey said when pressed by a reporter about why notice wasn't sent as normal.
He added that when a final decision is made on the new executive director, "that'll be public."
Steinbuch said that a quorum of members does not have to be present for a meeting to be public.
"That was a meeting because they had called it as a meeting," Steinbuch said. "They didn't have a quorum. That's not a basis to keep you out of a meeting."
About 4 p.m., all five board members went into the first-floor conference room, where they usually hold their public meetings. About an hour later, Lindsey came out and said the board was now in session.
"We are coming out of the executive session," Anthony said to the room. "The recommendation from the executive session is that we continue the interview process for the next two candidates."
After about 40 seconds, the board meeting was over.
When Lindsey was asked why he had initially said the daylong gathering was not a meeting, he responded:
"What did I say?"
He then went on to state that the only meeting was at the end of the day.
Steinbuch said it sounded "like a bunch of problems going on there."
"They still didn't let you in on the meeting, and then they claimed after the fact that it was a meeting," he said.
The commissioners chose the three finalists during an executive session on the fourth floor on March 21. When the board members came out of the closed meeting, they did not vote to ratify the finalist choices, as required by the state's public meetings law.
The agency has also met twice on Saturdays for marathon executive sessions with no decisions made -- one meeting lasted over three hours and another for two. Each time, board members cited personnel matters as the reason for the closed session.
The law states that personnel matters that can be discussed in executive session include employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining or resignation of a public officer or employee.
Among those who regularly receive notice of the housing board's meetings but who did not receive the memo from Anthony were: Metropolitan Housing Alliance staff members, a journalist with an Associated Press email address, individual Democrat-Gazette editors and reporters, the Arkansas Times and City Director Ken Richardson.
Richardson, director for Ward 2, is the city board's liaison for the housing authority. He was not available for comment by press time.
Tuesday's job interview with Adams was apparently designed as a full day of meetings with housing authority employees, a tour of its properties and meetings with city directors, according to a schedule attached to Anthony's memo.
Stephanie Jackson, a spokesman for Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott, said he wasn't aware of Tuesday's meeting and was calling Anthony to learn what had occurred. Scott, along with city commissioners, is in charge of appointing board members.
He has touted transparency as one of the priorities of his term as mayor. Scott wasn't available for further comment by press time.
A Section on 04/10/2019