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Meetings moved to allow for recording

Westmoreland supervisors move meetings to building where recording will be allowed

Date published: 9/8/2009

BY FRANK DELANO

Westmoreland County supervisors have announced that all meetings of public bodies will be moved from courtrooms where cameras are not allowed to an auditorium where photography and video recording will be permitted.

The change of meeting sites follows an incident last month when sheriff's deputies barred Robert Quinn of Mount Holly from taking his video camera to a Board of Supervisors meeting in a circuit courtroom in the county's administrative building in Montross.

Virginia law says, "Any person may photograph, film, record or otherwise reproduce any portion of a meeting required to be open." But deputies and county officials said courtroom security practices bar cameras from the room even when court is not in session.

Quinn said the supervisors' announcement last week to move public meetings to the auditorium of the A.T. Johnson Alumni Museum "goes a long way to making Westmoreland supervisors and the county administration more accountable to the citizens."

Quinn said he plans to film the supervisors in the auditorium Monday. It is located at 18849 Kings Highway, about three miles east of Montross on State Route 3.

To make the change official, Board Chairman Darryl E. Fisher said the supervisors will likely pass a resolution Monday to require all county bodies to hold future meetings at A.T. Johnson, the county's former black high school.

Fisher said the order will apply to the county Plan-ning Commission, wetlands board and the boards of zoning and building appeals that have usually met in the general district courtroom at the county office building.

Fisher said the decision to move the meetings to the auditorium was made to uphold the law, as well as "to foster continuing good relations with the judges."

Quinn, who has led opposition to an O'Gara security-training facility under construction near A.T. Johnson, said he is now working with Assistant County Administrator Karen Lewis on where to place cameras and how to achieve better acoustics in the auditorium.

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Date published: 9/8/2009