Greenville County approves secret settlement of FOI lawsuit

governing boards: Somebody sues the government, the government goes through a period of razzle-dazzle and delay, hoping the plaintiff will give up and go away, and finally, when it becomes clear that won’t happen, the board gets a secret briefing from its attorney and directs the attorney to settle the lawsuit, without giving the public any indication of how. Then the attorney presents the agreement to the plaintiff, the two sides go to court and ask a judge to approve their settlement, and it’s an irreversible deal by the time the public finds out what’s going on. Even if the government was clearly in the wrong — in which case it never should have fought the lawsuit — and there’s little wiggle room on the financial payout, the settlement often includes some entirely negotiable aspects, starting with a confidentiality clause that prohibits either side from telling the public what the government acknowledged or refused to acknowledge, and in some cases even the amount of money awarded. But as The Post and Courier’s Conor Hughes reports, the first part of this scenario played out