By: Dewey R. Wotring
The Courier-Journal Newspaper reported today that Oldham County Magistrate Scott Davis has filed a complaint accusing Judge Duane Murner of holding an illegal closed session meeting on September 16th. According to the agenda for the Fiscal Court meeting, the closed session was held to discuss “personnel” according to the guidelines set forth by KRS 61.810. However, Judge Murner seems to already be implicating himself in this matter. It appears that he told the Courier-Journal that the meeting was held to discuss the possibility of an outside company taking over the sewer district in addition to getting a sense of how Fiscal Court members felt about the possible takeover.
How does Judge Murner believe that discussion about such topics relates to “personnel”? It appears that Davis likely has a valid issue with the information from this closed session not being discussed openly in accordance with law. One should remember, that this is not the first time that Murner has been involved with closed meetings that he was a part of, which were questioned for legality. It seems that Murner has a penchant for secrecy. After all, he is the same person who has kept the identity of a large donor a secret from the public.
I certainly hope that all of the facts regarding this meeting do become public and likely the matter of whether or not this meeting should have been public will be decided by either the Attorney General or Circuit Court. It is well known to many that Judge Murner has a strong desire to control the sewer system expansion throughout Oldham County, as he strives to expand capacity for additional new residential housing development. Judge Murner took in thousands upon thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from developers who expect him to do whatever necessary to ensure sewer capacity for their high density developments.
