SGA Executive Board meeting to discuss Kressel impeachment illegally closed to press, public

The Student Government Association Executive Board illegally entered into an executive session Thursday, comments from the George Street Observer’s consulting attorney reveals. The meeting was held to discuss a letter from Treasurer Luke Rozansky that would begin the impeachment process of President Ross Kressel

Chief of Staff LaQunya Baker, who was among those who brought charges against Kressel earlier this week, chairs the weekly SGA Executive Board Meetings.

State law requires a stated specific reason for an executive session. When pressed for a specific reason, Baker said “members outside the board could influence, hinder, or cause disruption during sensitive topics.”

Adam Goldstein, Attorney Advocate at the Student Press Law Center, says the chair’s act to close the meeting was in violation of the South Carolina Open Meetings Act.

“The whole purpose of the Open Meetings Act is, these are elected bodies that deal with some type of State funding, and that’s what people have a right to know about,” he said in a call with the paper’s editor Geoffrey W. Yost.

Bill Rogers, the Executive Director of the South Carolina Press Association, of which the George Street Observer is a member, corroborated Goldstein’s comments.

“I think the students have a right to know what’s going on,” he said. “They don’t have any grounds to close the meeting.”

The SGA Executive Board cannot decide the fate of President Kressel. That power lies in the hands of the Senate, which will convene Tuesday. This is where the debate lies, says Goldstein.

“If the student government wanted to have a closed meeting to discuss discipline, then the student government has to have the meeting, because the student government is what has the power to discipline. It’s not this ad-hoc committee.

“[The SGA Executive Board] can’t be deliberating [impeachment] because they don’t have the power to [impeach],” Goldstein said.

State law provides a list of exemptions to the Open Meetings Act, specifically when discussing “employment, appointment, compensation, promotion, demotion, discipline, or release of an employee, a student, or a person regulated by a public body.”

Goldstein says that impeachment is not the same thing, considering the impeachment and removal process would not happen until next week, and would involve separate entities.

“That’s a finite list [of exemptions], and maybe deciding to eventually take action isn’t the same as taking action,” Goldstein said.

The Senate will take action, with an impeachment vote, on September 13. The George Street Observer will cover the meeting.