What Constitutes Secrecy in an Open Society?

[Geo]

I think there has been some confusion about my use of the term
"secret" or "secrecy" in this forum. I thought that my past use of the
term was clear enough, but apparently my infrequent usage covered too
much time to make that so. I will clarify my intended meaning now.

My first use of the term appears in a post 3 years ago (see
"Outstanding Charter School? - A Brief History" http://tinyurl.com/mn7qm6
):

December 2005

Developer Ominously Proposes (in secret): Seek Other
Funding

Bob Evans has the tape recorder turned off (the one always
used for school board meetings) while he addresses a
special meeting of the Harmony Charter School Board. He
speaks words to the effect that perhaps the charter school
board should find "other ways of obtaining financial
support for the school" and perhaps the charter school
board should ask the Arthur J. Gallagher Company for money
since it "has its name on the school".

Here's another (see "New Hope in Harmony? Only Time Will Tell"
http://tinyurl.com/ltlnue ):

After a month or so Shad started monitoring the activity of
this group. He also scheduled some secret meetings (ie.
unannounced) with two small subsets of the Harmony
community. I was not included in either meeting (as was the
case with several other vocal residents), so I was not
privy to the details. I had my doubts about this less than
auspicious start to Shad's reign, but I really had nothing
much to say about it, until now.

And another (see "Does Greensides Suck? (ie. the one restaurant in
Harmony)" http://tinyurl.com/mbyap5 ):

He just brought to my attention a slew of posts on the
secret Harmony forum (ie. the Yahoo Group) about the
problems at Greensides / Harmony Tavern.

And another (see "A Question of Fairness" http://tinyurl.com/nomn68 ):

The Harmony Horse Amenity is no secret, not anymore. ... It
was not announced in any public meetings, it did not appear
in any meeting minutes (as far as I know) and it was not
printed in any newspapers or posted on any public bulletin
boards.

From these posts and many others, what I have meant by the term
"secrecy" should be clear in the context of an open public forum like
this. We are not talking about the secrets that children keep from
each other. We are talking about the secrets that major corporations
keep from the general public.

In the case of the horse amenity, several residents including myself
have been aware of its original form in Harmony as well as the form it
has taken since Starwood Capital took over from Jim Lentz in 2005. As
I recall, there was one or two public meetings about the changes
contemplated by Bob Geimer and Bob Evans after they originally
announced that horses would be eliminated from Harmony. These meetings
were open to the public and therefore were not held in secret.

I am also aware that there were several meetings related to the
changing horse amenity conducted by Bob Evans that only a select few
were privy to. These meetings were not announced to the public and
they were not open to anyone interested. These were therefore secret
meetings. Although several people not in attendance were aware of the
meetings and the meetings have been discussed openly since, these
meetings are considered secret none-the-less since the public at large
had no access and no record of them.

I have had several private meetings with the developer over the years
primarily to discuss amenity issues in Harmony. I would classify these
as secret meetings also. Someday I may write about them, but for now
the public at large interested in Harmony would have no way to know
anything about those. As an example (which some may find surprising),
I met with Bob Geimer the night of the 12/7/2005 public meeting after
Bob Evans announced the impending closure of the horse amenity. I
pleaded with Geimer not to close the horse amenity since it had been
so heavily advertised by Harmony Development and it had drawn so many
families to Harmony. I tried to persuade him that much goodwill could
be engendered if only he could find a way to keep the horse amenity
open at least in some small way. Bob Geimer did indeed make the choice
to allow the horse amenity to continue, but sadly he also handed all
subsequent decision making over to Bob Evans who then turned the horse
amenity into the tragic mess that it is today.

When I write that the Harmony Horse Amenity was a secret, I meant that
is was a secret to the general public at large. It was a secret until
it was written about in this public forum. When I write that the
little community garden among the horses was a secret, I meant that
while it may be well known among Dave's friends with whom he chooses
to share the crops, the greater community of Harmony as well as the
public at large had no other way to know anything about it. The people
of Harmony would therefore have no way to judge the fairness of
something that was completely hidden from them.

When I write that the HarmonyFL group on Yahoo is secret, I mean that
it is not open to the public at large. Anyone interested in seeing
positive or negative topics of interest about Harmony posted in that
group are barred from doing so unless they get permission from that
group's moderator (who also happens to work for the developer). In
fact, it is a policy of that group that no one outside of Harmony is
allowed even to view the topics discussed (see http://tinyurl.com/lt5djj
). While the moderator claims that the group is "entirely unofficial",
there is an indirect link to it from developer's website (http://
HarmonyFL.com) via the "official" Harmony residents website (also run
by the developer).

Thus the term "secrecy" has one meaning among children and another
among adults interested in community affairs.