The Charleston Wine and Food festival’s Board of Directors will hold a “Public Board Meeting” on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018 at 9:30 a.m. at 205 King Street, Suite 400. The meeting agenda, posted on the W+F website Wednesday states simply: “The Board will call for a vote to enter in executive session to discuss a personnel matter. Action may be taken on the items discussed during executive session.”
Reached this morning, Board Chair David Marconi told us, “I’m not going to talk to you about what the personnel matter is, but we’ll enter into executive session and discuss the matter.” Marconi is a former partner at Maverick Southern Kitchens.
When asked whether the festival board had held ‘public’ meetings such as this before, Marconi said that the move to announce the meetings is new.
“We had not ever realized that we were subject to FOIA. Under the rules of FOIA, our procedures going forward have to change,” Marconi said. He also confirmed that the move to announce the meeting was taken after the board received a FOIA request, although Marconi did not say from who.
Calls this morning to other board members were not answered or immediately directed to Marconi.
Given the unprecedented nature of the meeting taking place just six days before the start of the 2018 festival, the announcement raises many questions, namely who is the personnel up for discussion?
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