Some Shelby County Commissioners didn’t care for how terms of the deal that would transfer two Germantown namesake schools to the City of Germantown were made public.

The Commission held an attorney-client meeting closed to the public with county attorneys, Memphis-Shelby County Schools leaders and others Monday, Dec. 5, after the county administration sent out a press release earlier in the afternoon.

Commissioners were also surprised to learn they would be voting on the terms of the deal at a special Dec. 14 meeting.

“We should know prior to any media outlet getting this somewhat privileged information,” Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. said at the end of Monday’s regularly scheduled commission meeting.

“It’s making decisions for us already before ‘us’ meets,” he said.

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After the meeting, Ford also expressed displeasure that members of the media could clearly see — and photograph — the discussion underway. 

Earlier, Commissioner Henri Brooks said she was “stunned” by the press release that included quotes from Commission Chairman Mickell Lowery and fellow Commissioner Miska Clay-Bibbs praising the proposal.

The press release also said all sides had reached terms this past Wednesday.

“It alluded to information being given out before we knew what was given out,” she said in complaining to the administration of County Mayor Lee Harris.

“I’ll make it known and I’m sure they are listening,” she said. “We can’t have this. We have to trust each other.”

“Nobody here was aware,” Lowery replied, saying the administration should answer questions about how the details were released.

“I think it probably would have read better if it would have read that the administration ‘suggests’ — instead of saying Shelby County ‘will do’— because we are Shelby County government and we haven’t done anything.”

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“This is going out to the public,” Brooks said. “They are going to be wondering why we didn’t speak to this. The public would never ever think this would come out if we didn’t know it and I haven’t said anything to my district.”

Commissioner Britney Thorton said she was “speechless.”

“I don’t understand how quotes are able to be captured for something so definitive when we just went into deliberations,” she said. “That’s interesting.”

The attorney-client meeting was held in the Commission’s committee room on the 6th floor of the Vasco Smith County Administration Building, which has a glass wall as its main entrance.

Ford was upset that a reporter snapped an iPhone picture of the Commission meeting in the closed session from the other side of the glass wall.

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The Memphis City Council has a similar glass section of a wall of its committee room and reporters have been known to photograph similar attorney-client closed meetings through those windows.

Reporters can’t hear what is being said but they do have a view of who is attending and who is involved.

At times council members have waved as the pictures are taken as well as cupped their hands over their mouths to prevent their lips from being read.

“For us to be exposed by anyone who gets off the elevator — that is never appropriate,” Ford said. “With all due respect, the last thing I need is any corrupt columnist asking what we are doing and being in a place where they don’t belong.”