Last month, Saline County voters approved by more than a 2-to-1 margin the expansion of their county commission from three members to five, but many of those voters may be surprised — and distressed — by the way the process for filling those two new seats is being handled.

State statute requires that the new commission seats be filled not by local officials or local voters but by the governor. The statute requires the governor to make the appointments within 30 days after the adoption of a resolution dividing the county into new commission districts, but it doesn’t spell out any of the details of how those appointments should be made.

Gov. Sam Brownback has decided those appointments should be made outside the public view. The governor has received the names of 13 applicants for one of the commission seats and conducted interviews for the position. However, he has refused to release the names of those applicants even after receiving two open records requests from the Salina Journal seeking those names.

A representative of the governor claimed the names were being withheld because the appointments were a personnel issue and, therefore, exempt from open records laws. Salina Journal officials logically point out that none of the applicants currently is a state or county employee and therefore the personnel exemption shouldn’t apply.

On top of that, we would add, the residents of Saline County have a right to know who is being considered for an appointment to represent them on their county commission.

The main reason Saline County voters sought to expand the commission was to add some diversity to the group. There likely was more than one issue that fueled the effort, but the “Drive for Five” movement was launched after the current commission decided on more than one occasion to reject federal funds that would be used by the county health department to purchase and distribute intrauterine devices and a specific type of birth control pill. It’s understandable that Saline County residents might be concerned that the governor’s pro-life political record might influence his appointments to the commission.

The governor’s decision to withhold the names of the county commission applicants is not unlike his decision to keep secret the names of applicants who are seeking appointment to the Kansas Court of Appeals. In both cases, the public has a right to know who is being considered and who the governor rejected as well as who he appointed. Refusing to release the names only feeds the perception that the governor has something to hide.

The public deserves this information, and the governor should provide it.