Sometimes it's no fun conducting the public's business while that pesky entity known as the public is breathing down your neck.

That seemed to be the dilemma that at least a couple of the five members of the Moore County Board of Commissioners wrestled with last Thursday - and publicly, at that.

At issue, among other matters aired at a (public) session was the need to get off dead center and work out some kind of agreement with the town of Robbins over a complicated joint water arrangement.

"I think we'd all like to go to Robbins and go in a room and not come out till we have a solution," said a frustrated Nick Picerno, the board's chairman.

"It will be impossible to do it in public [there's that word again] session," complained Commissioner Jimmy Melton, who compared holding such conversations in front of open doors, as opposed to behind closed ones, to "negotiating in the newspaper."

State Law Is Clear

That sounds like us they're talking about. We feel their pain. But we hasten to point out that newspaper reporters and other media representatives who cover local governmental bodies enjoy no special status in this regard.

The important question is not whether public bodies have to open themselves to newspapers (and broadcast stations and websites), but whether they have an obligation to make sure members of the public - of which reporters are only one small example - know when and where the public's business is being conducted and have an opportunity to be on hand and witness those proceedings if they so choose.

North Carolina law - specifically, the state's Open Meetings Law - makes it amply clear that such an obligation exists.

The law sets forth a few exceptions - cases in which public bodies can shoo everybody out and meet privately. They typically involve things like the purchase of a piece of property or the terms of employment of a potential hire. But even then, the board can't decide anything privately. It has to come out and do that in the light of day.

Wide-Ranging Topics

The potential discussions between Robbins and the county might indeed involve the purchase of a piece of property - a water plant. But they go far beyond that. Among other things, a joint project with Robbins could give the county a way to provide water service to a much wider area, possibly extending all the way down to Seven Lakes.

We hope those talks begin soon and proceed fruitfully. And the county should avoid the temptation for the board chairman or a couple of commissioners or the county attorney to meet cozily with their counterparts in Robbins for casual consideration of terms to be rubber-stamped publicly later by the full boards. Though that might not violate the letter of the law, it does do violence to its spirit.

It is especially troubling when a commissioner speaks of a desire for "all of us" to get together secretly with all of "them" on the other side. In such a case, you're talking quorums of one or more boards. And that's when the Open Meetings Law kicks in with both feet.

Sure, working under conditions of openness can get cumbersome and counterproductive when sensitive topics are up for discussion. Sorry. But that's the way the law says things need to be done. And it's right.