As the post-Charles Carlsen JCCC President, Terry Calaway could have worked at the college as long as he wanted.  All Calaway had to do was not be a classless, corrupt government administrator.

I can think of no one better than Calaway (right) who illustrates the phrase, "The cover-up is worse than the crime."  

The cover-up was over a senseless issue, and like many other things at JCCC during the 15-year era of former Trustee Shirley Brown-VanArsdale and current Trustee Lynn Mitchelson, the cover-up was incompetently managed.  

This week, The Kansas City Star is reporting that three heavy-weights among Kansas pro-open-government groups are for the first time entering the matter that begin in early 2009 with a violation of the Kansas Open Meetings Act by Calaway and JCCC trustees:

1. The Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government,
2. The Kansas Press Association, and
3. The Kansas Association of Broadcasters.

The Star on the closed meeting at JCCC in February 2009:

Calaway provided the list of 64 possible items being discussed by administration officials prior to final action on the budget. Hodge was severely chastised later by other trustees for releasing that list to the public at a reporter’s request shortly after the evaluation.

Trustees were also critical of the reporter for publishing the list on Kansascity.com...

The press association argued that it was not burdensome or impossible for Calaway to wait until an open meeting to share his 64-item list of possible budget cuts and deliberately used the closed session to discuss matters not allowed under the open meetings law.

“The opinion of the Kansas Attorney General appears to be in conflict with your ruling on the JCCC open meetings complaint,” the association letter to Howe stated.

The letter was signed by Doug Anstaett, association executive director, Kent Cornish, director of the Kansas Association of Broadcasters and Randy Brown, director of the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government.

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Benjamin Hodge publishes the Web site KansasProgress.com, based in Johnson County, KS, in the Greater Kansas City area.  Hodge is a delegate to the Kansas GOP, a former state representative, and a former trustee at Johnson County Community College. You can join Hodge’s efforts on Facebook, through his personal Web site, on Twitter, and through his PAC.