Matt Ready

At the 12/18/2019 Jefferson Healthcare Public Hospital District Commission meeting, Commissioner Ready made a motion that the commission adopt the policy that “if a commissioner decides to record a meeting on their own device, uh, it will be announced and no further discussion of it will be had since they’re exercising their basic right.”

The motion was rejected 3-1.

The hospital attorney present at the 12/18 meeting said this in regards to the motion:  “The, the threshold question is whether or not, uh, a board member can record over the objection of other board members and, uh, I don’t know the answer to that, so I would have to research that before our next meeting. Uh, I need some time to look into that.”

After the motion failed by a vote of 3-1, board chair Commissioner Reinstra said, “Chair is opposed, so it’s three, uh, motion fails. I might mention, Matt, if you want to pursue this and come up with something that would protect the district then maybe work with [the hospital attorney], that, you know, in a matter that, uh, that we know that the district would be protected and you could record it then, um, I suggest you, you do that and bring it back in January when we actually vote for the um, the, the book and at that time, we could still make that motion and, uh.”

In response, Commissioner Ready said,” I made the motion I thought protected the district the best. I don’t know. I mean I’m open to whatever suggestions, but that was intended to protect us from doing something inappropriate when someone is exercising a basic right, you wanna be careful how you handle that.”