The selection of Chief Erika Shields, whatever each of us may think of it, should prompt a re-evaluation of whether the search process for the appointment of public officials should be shrouded in secrecy. Open government advocates across the country question whether a secret selection process ensures a better applicant pool or yields the best result.

On December 11, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting examined the decision to conduct a secret selection process for the new chief of the Louisville Metro Police Department in a departure from its past open selection process. KYCIR identitied "nine cities where police chief searches are underway or were recently completed [that] have publicized lists of finalists."

https://kycir.org/2020/12/11/while-other-cities-introduce-police-chief-…

Shortly after KyCIR's story appeared, the Kentucky Open Government Coalition wrote that in 2011:

"the Attorney General departed from the old position that the names of applicants for public employment did not have to be disclosed. The dispute involved access to applicants for a vacant Bowling Green commissioner's seat.

https://ag.ky.gov/Priorities/Government-Transparency/orom/2011/11ORD046…

"The old position was based on the view that the unsuccessful applicants' privacy interests "in avoiding disruption in their current employment and maintaining their reputations," if not hired, was superior to the public interest in the hiring process.

"The Attorney General's decision requiring disclosure of the names of applicants for city commission turned on the facts of the appeal: the applicants' reduced expectation of privacy and the public's heightened interest in the selection process.

"Nearly a decade later, Louisville Metro has reverted to a discredited legal interpretation, failed to consider the compelling public interest, and, perhaps most curiously, deviated from its own past practice of making the names of applicants for LMPD chief public.

"Can Louisville Metro """withhold the names of applicants currently being considered for the position of LMPD's new chief?

"The open records law may provide cover for its decision to do so, but the 'specific context' within which this issue arises —widespread mistrust of city leadership at the highest level and a professed commitment to transparency — strongly suggests that it should not.

"Especially when it necessitates a conscious departure from past practice in an era when other cities are consciously making the names of applicants for police chief public.

"The fact that it (arguably) can withhold applicant names does not mean that it should."

https://forwardky.com/should-louisville-metro-keep-secret-the-applicant…

Frank Lomonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida, has written extensively on the subject of secret selection of university presidents.

In 2019, Lomonte observed that "[s]ometimes 'more applicants' isn't really better." He noted that the the only applicants who won't apply if a public search is conducted are "(1) people so arrogant they can't stand the thought of losing; (2) people whose backgrounds won't hold up to public scrutiny and (3) people with contempt for open government."

Lomonte's observations apply with equal force to the search recently concluded by Louisville Metro for a new police chief.