It's the big controversy in Auburn these days.

The three Auburn Enlarged City School District Board of Education members who make up the entire audit committee conducted what might have been an illegal meeting on Jan. 6 when they met at a local restaurant.

What proof exists that it was an illegal meeting?

School board member Joe Leogrande has a copy of an e-mail from Mike Stearns, the board president and audit committee member, stating that Mr. Sterns, Ginny Kent and Charles Cantor, who make up the entire audit committee, put forth ideas at this gathering on how board members should�properly ask questions and get answers for legitimate audit issues.

I happened to catch on TV the board meeting when Leogrande questioned Stearns and raised some concern about this meeting.

Leogrande was respectful, professional and had every right to ask some simple questions that deserved straight answers. But that's not what happened.

It reminded me of so many other times when the school board has been asked legitimate questions, even by their own members, and they have reacted in a degrading, condescending way.

In this case, Stearns treated Leogrande in a very disrespectful manner, certainly not befitting a fellow elected board member, and then decided that this has “limited the communications that will take place between the board and Mr. Leogrande in the future because he's twisting around a lot of what we're saying.”

Does this mean that he's not going to share information with an elected board member simply because Leogrande asked some valid questions? We know they were valid because Camille Jobin-Davis, the assistant director for the state Committee on Open Government, is now involved.

She stated that “once (a quorum) is conducting public business, they are conducting a meeting subject to the Open Meetings Law” and that's exactly what appears to have happened. Do other public officials do this all the time? You bet they do, but that doesn't make it right.

I happen to like having someone in office who's doing the job, checking up on things so we don't have to. If�Leogrande was becoming a nuisance, that would be one thing, but that certainly does not appear to be the case.

If Sterns had addressed the concerns in a professional manner, I believe that the issue could have been resolved. Lots of us like to hear questions asked at public meetings. It makes us feel like someone is taking their position seriously and confronting issues that could be shady. And as it turns out this meeting could be one of those times.

We can only hope that questions such as these can be resolved in a professional way.