If you need any evidence that North Carolina’s laws concerning public employee discipline and closed meetings fail the residents of our state, you need look no farther than the town of Middlesex.

In this hamlet nestled in Nash County, both the chief of police and the town’s administrative assistant have been arrested, charged with cyberstalking the assistant’s husband. The police chief also faces a charge of communicating threats against the administrative assistant’s husband.

The town’s board suspended the female assistant. The police chief is still at work and on the payroll.

Now, we must add that it turns out Middlesex hired as the administrative assistant a person who had been charged in neighboring Wilson County with embezzlement from her previous employer. Is that the reason the town suspended her, but not the police chief?

We don’t know.

The town board discussed the matter and took action during a meeting from which the public was excluded. The actual reason for the suspension is a state secret.

There are other states in the U.S. where taxpayers have greater access to information about disciplinary actions taken against public employees. After all, in the end, the taxpayers are the ones who employ these folks. But we in North Carolina have very limited ability to know exactly how they are performing or what problems they might have had on the job.

So instead, we are left wondering why in this case the police chief seemingly doesn’t get equal treatment in the specific case of the cyberstalking (plus, he also faces the communicating threats charge). Why does he stay on the job while the assistant gets a suspension?

For all we know, there could be excellent reasons, but we’re not privy to those reasons. And that’s a huge problem in our minds, especially when it involves a town official with the power to arrest other people.

It’s worth pointing out that Middlesex has a terrible reputation when it comes to open government. Its high-dollar surcharges for copies of public records — equal to the hourly pay and benefits of the town worker running the copying machine — have come under fire by Attorney General Roy Cooper, who says they violate the spirit of state sunshine laws.

Middlesex starts the meter for records requests that take more than a half-hour to compile. Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration had used the same arbitrary timetable, but has since backed off and shown itself open to compromise in the face of criticism from the attorney general and open government groups.

As long as the residents of North Carolina remain silent on the issue of access to disciplinary records of public employees, nothing will change. State legislators will not stand up to pressure from state workers’ lobbying groups unless they feel greater pressure from their own employers — the people of our state.

Today the problem is in Middlesex. But tomorrow it could just as easily be in 99 other counties, including Richmond. Is that what we really want for the future of our state?

Portions of this editorial were previously published in The Wilson Times.