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Mathews County supervisors agree to copy chair or entire board on substantive staff replies; brief direct staff queries allowed
Summary
The Mathews County Board of Supervisors clarified that supervisors may contact staff directly for brief questions that do not require substantive research, but asked that substantive email responses from the county administrator be copied to the chair or the whole board so all supervisors are aware of significant exchanges.
Supervisors at a Mathews County Board of Supervisors meeting clarified how members should contact staff and handle substantive email exchanges: brief questions may be direct, but substantive replies should be copied to the chair or the full board.
Speaker 1 opened item 6B seeking clarity on whether staff contact should always go through the chair or whether supervisors may contact staff directly. "We don't want board members usurping that," Speaker 1 said, referring to the board's supervisory relationship with staff. At the same time, the chair warned against an overly bureaucratic requirement that forces all communication through the chair.
Speaker 5 (staff) said brief inquiries that "don't require a substantial amount of time to research" are acceptable to send directly to staff, with the expectation that substantive replies will be copied to the chair or the board so everyone is aware of important back-and-forth. "If it doesn't require a substantial amount of time to research or get information ... That's fine," Speaker 5 said (SEG 138–141).
Several supervisors said copying the chair (or blind-copying the board on replies) should be standard practice when exchanges are significant. Speaker 4 said the item was added because some board members had previously contacted outside offices — including a judge's secretary and the FOIA Commission — and the board wants to avoid overloading the county administrator and to ensure consistent communications.
Speaker 2 specifically requested to be copied on emails about the Hole in the Wall matter. The chair asked that when a supervisor has a significant question, at minimum the staff response be copied to all supervisors so the board is aware of substantive communications.
The board expressed general agreement with the approach, and the meeting later concluded with a motion to adjourn that passed by voice vote.
This article does not assign formal roles or titles beyond the speaker labels used in the transcript because speakers were not named with official titles in the record.
