Cemetery committee chair refuses to comply with public records law, resigns
Dozens of cars sit on the grass at Green Hill Cemetery last Halloween.
Town of Waynesville photo
“This is notice of my resignation from the town of Waynesville Cemetery Committee effective this day. I hereby relinquish the chair position as well as a committee member,” Franks wrote in a letter dated March 31. “I appreciate the time I have spent on this committee and hope my service has been appreciated.”
In January, Cemetery Committee member Lisa Kay Cook sent a tip to The Smoky Mountain News about cars parking on the grass at the historic cemetery. At the time, Cook said she wanted to start a public conversation about what should be done about the cars, which could end up damaging town property.
The same day a story about the parking issue was published, Franks sent an email to Lisa Kay Cook, the committee member who first reported the issue, as well as other members of the committee. Franks chastised Cook for speaking out, and in the process made a number of troubling and incorrect assertions about North Carolina’s “sunshine laws” designed to preserve the principles of open government.
First, Franks said that committee members needed approval from town aldermen to speak to the media. Town Attorney Martha Bradley told SMN that no such policy exists, and if it did, it would “certainly be a violation of an individual’s First Amendment rights.”
Then, Franks said that a security camera photo of cars parked on the cemetery grass that Cook shared with SMN was private and “was not meant to be shared with anyone.”
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The photo is, in fact, a public record that was paid for by and belongs to taxpayers.
Franks also told Cook that the proceedings of the Cemetery Committee — a town-created public body — were “to remain in these meetings unless otherwise specified.”
Bradley dismissed the claim out of hand. Meetings of all public bodies are always open to the public except in very rare situations outlined in statute.
Franks continued to make several other patently false statements in the email regarding other public records laws.
Cook, who has worked in the funerary industry, said she was “dismayed” and resigned from her volunteer position on the Cemetery Committee.
The day after Franks’ Feb. 2 email, a public records request was filed with the town by The Smoky Mountain News, requesting copies of Franks’ communications.
For weeks, Franks failed to comply with the request, resulting in a memo from Bradley being sent to members of the Cemetery Committee on Feb. 21.
“The purpose of this memorandum is to advise you of laws concerning public records and requests for public records and how those laws apply to your work as a private citizen serving as a volunteer member of a municipal committee to assist you in responding to this request,” Bradley wrote.
The memo goes on to explain what a public record is, and that the laws concerning them are “designed to protect the rights of citizens to access records at all levels of government and to promote transparency and good governance across the state.”
The memo also explains the concept of an “illegal meeting.”
Any time a majority of members of a public body communicate with each other about public business, that constitutes an official meeting.
The Cemetery Committee has five members, so if any three members communicated with each other about Cook, that would meet the definition of a majority discussing public business and therefore would be an official meeting.
Official meetings are subject to laws that outline how members of the public are to be informed of the date, time and location of meetings.
Since no official meetings were announced to the public around the time of Franks’ email to Cook, any communications between Franks and more than one committee member about the situation would constitute an illegal meeting.
“If three members of the committee meet or have a conference call to discuss cemetery
business without providing the required notice to the public, then it is an illegal meeting, and the Town could be subject to harmful legal or political consequences as a result,” Bradley wrote. “Additionally, you, the individual members of the committee, could be required to pay the attorney’s fees of any person who files a court action against the Town due to the illegal meeting.”
Bradley’s Feb. 21 memo didn’t result in Franks producing the requested communications.
Franks subsequently canceled the March 21 quarterly meeting of the Cemetery Committee where the parking issue was supposed to be discussed.
Ten days later, and without delivering the requested public records, Franks resigned from the Cemetery Committee.
Franks’ resignation does not absolve her of the obligation to produce the public records requested by SMN. Furthermore, public records may not be destroyed without the consent of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The Cemetery Committee serves an important role in making non-binding recommendations to the Board of Aldermen on cemetery policy and operations and was created back in February 2020, after an emotional Board of Aldermen meeting where people with relatives buried in Green Hill lashed out at the town for conducting a cleanup of mementoes that some had left on graves.
Without a chair and without addressing the parking issue that sparked the resignations of Cook and ultimately Franks, the efficacy of the Cemetery Committee as an advisor to aldermen is now in jeopardy.
Of late, the committee has taken charge of regulating cemetery tours that some have called disrespectful and has publicized and streamlined the annual cemetery cleanups that necessitated the committee’s formation in the first place.
The committee’s next meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 18, at 2 p.m. in the training room of the public services building on Legion Drive in Waynesville.
Sharon Franks did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
