MATTHEWS, N.C. — A Matthews town leader wants to make all public records more easily accessible to the community, but other officials say the plan is too costly and intrusive.
Commissioner Mark Tofano said total transparency is vital for the community to trust its local government. He wants to create a volunteer committee that would devise a plan to expose all town public records, including emails and transactions, through an online portal. The volunteers would have complete access to town records, including all staff and elected officials' emails.
However, other elected officials say Matthews is already transparent with its public records.
"The purpose of the task force is to determine what infrastructure we have in place in order to achieve this goal," Tofano said.
After Tofano presented his idea on Monday, the discussion led to a heated exchange during the town board meeting.
Mayor Pro Tem Gina Hoover questioned if public records included passed notes or text messages among commissioners during meetings. She then proceeded to accuse Commissioner Ken McCool of being on his phone during meetings too much. McCool fired back that his father is in the hospital and called her comments an "unfounded attack."
Mayor John Higdon spoke against Tofano's "transparency taskforce" proposal several times during the meeting, calling it intrusive.
Federal law allows anyone to request public records from a government entity. In Matthews, the town clerk is responsible for finding the documentation and fulfilling requests. State and federal laws do not have a time limit for fulfilling public records requests.
"It may take weeks, sometimes months, in order to get information from within the town," Tofano said.
He added that the clerk does amazing work, but the issue comes down to manpower.
Two commissioners supported Tofano’s idea, but other leaders think it’s unnecessary.
"We have nothing to hide," Mayor Higdon told WCNC Charlotte. "This just seemed like a bridge too far and too expensive and too radical."
In the past year, the town has received 51 total public records requests. Most were businesses looking into property records.
Higdon said implementing the online portal would be too expensive.
"We think we would have to hire two or three full-time employees to go through all those records and redact any personnel information that we legally can't release," he said.
However, Tofano thinks it should still be investigated.
"Why would anyone object to having total, complete, real-time transparency to their government agency," Tofano asked.
Tofano’s motion to create the task force failed by a vote of 3-3 on Monday.
Higdon said the town is looking into how it can speed up the records request process. It also has launched a transparency dashboard that publicizes all town financial records.
Contact Julia Kauffman at jkauffman@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.