ROCKINGHAM — The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality likely violated the state’s open meeting law during a public hearing last month.
The hearing, held July 30 at the old courthouse in downtown Rockingham, was regarding a pair of air quality permits for the Amazon Web Services data center complex south of Hamlet.
The main courtroom was packed with attendees, with many speaking out against the permits and data centers in general.
Following the hearing, David Komenas posted to social media that the rights of attendees who did not speak were violated for being made to sign in before entering.
Komenas said he was threatened with removal — after he was seated — and tried showing the deputy the state’s open meeting statute. He said he eventually signed in “as a cartoon character."
Shawn Taylor, public information officer for DEQ’s Division of Air Quality, told the RO that the agency “has always required attendees to sign in to enter our public hearings.”
“DEQ is responsible for providing a safe, respectful environment to the public,” Taylor said. “The policy ensures that DEQ can account for all attendees in the event of an incident and that the full attendance is entered into the public record.
“The information helps us document how well attended the hearing was and provides an official account of who was present and who spoke in case there are questions or discrepancies at a later date,” Taylor continued. At … (the) hearing, there was one individual who entered the hearing venue prior to our staff setting up or opening the doors to the public, and we required that individual to sign in as all other attendees were required to do.”
However, the N.C. Open Government Coalition said there appears to be “no legal underpinning” for DEQ’s policy.
N.C. General Statute 143-318.10 reads:
“All official meetings of public bodies open to the public.
(a) Except as provided in G.S. 143-318.11, 143-318.14A, and 143-318.18, each official meeting of a public body shall be open to the public, and any person is entitled to attend such a meeting. Remote meetings conducted in accordance with G.S. 166A-19.24 shall comply with this subsection even if all members of the public body are participating remotely.”
“NCDEQ has every right to ask for people to sign-in voluntarily, but they can’t require people to sign-in,” the NCOGC said in a statement to the RO. “Nothing in the (open meetings law) gives them that authority.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression also weighed in on the matter.
“...(T)he First Amendment generally protects not only the right to speak, but the right to receive information and, in many contexts, to do so anonymously,” said Aaron Terr, FIRE’s director of public advocacy.
“Requiring members of the public to identify themselves before attending a public hearing burdens those rights and can discourage attendance,” Terr continued. “The government would likely need to articulate a sufficiently important, viewpoint-neutral reason for imposing that requirement, and it's not immediately obvious what that reason would be.
“If the government were collecting attendees' identifying information in order to monitor or investigate people with certain views, or based the assumption that people holding those views are more likely to commit crimes, that would raise very serious First Amendment concerns.”
That concern was shared by Komenas, who said he believed “they used every name as a data base to keep of all who oppose the data centers … names to investigate in case of sabotage.”
Terr added that two of DEQ’s rationales “are pretty weak.”
“To document how well attended a hearing was, they can take a headcount without collecting names,” Terr said. “And to know who spoke, they can limit the requirement to people who participate in public comment. "
"We appreciate the public’s comments on these draft air quality permits," Taylor said. "A DEQ hearing officer is currently reviewing all comments that the Division of Air Quality received during the public hearing and the comment period.
"After 30 days (unless we need to request and wait for additional information from either applicant), the hearing officer will finalize his Hearing Officer’s Reports which will summarize all comments received and his responses to all comments," Taylor added. "The report will inform what final action DEQ takes on the draft permits."
