TALLAHASSEE -- Rep. Ray Sansom and the board of trustees of Northwest Florida State College met in Tallahassee last March to discuss legislation that, once passed, elevated the school above traditional community colleges.

State law requires a get-together like that be held in public. But the meeting, arranged by Sansom at the request of college president Bob Richburg, was held with little public notice at a members-only club in Tallahassee, 150 miles from the Northwest Florida State campus in Okaloosa County.

The latest disclosure casts new light on one of the controversial elements of Sansom's relationship with the school, which derailed his tenure as House speaker and triggered a grand jury investigation. Sansom also faces review by a House special investigator and the state Commission on Ethics.

Caterers for the University Center Club overlooking the football stadium at Florida State University, where the meeting was held, were told not to post signs directing the public to the private room.

''For this particular event, they didn't want it open,'' said Robin Wharton, the club's private events director.

`SANSOM DINNER'

Sansom, recently ousted as House speaker, is a club member, and the event was booked as the ''Sansom dinner'' rather than as a Northwest Florida State event.

A member who reserves space -- there is no charge -- can ask for signs to be placed in the building so people can find the room. In this case, ''the host requested no signs,'' Wharton said in an interview with The Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times Tallahassee Bureau.

Sansom did not respond to an interview request and referred questions to the college. A college spokeswoman, Sylvia Bryan, said it was her understanding that there were two signs -- 'One in the lobby and one outside the room with something along the lines of `Welcome OWC trustees.' '' OWC is short for Okaloosa-Walton College, the school's former name. Bryan did not attend the meeting. No one from the general public was there, either.

Sansom's legislative scheduler, Dort Baltes, subsequently sent the Times/Herald an e-mail saying there were no signs that listed Sansom's name. When told that the question referred to directional signs to the meeting, she re-sent her original message with an explanation: ``Again, what we can confirm is the information listed below.''

Sansom, R-Destin, has previously described his role in the meeting as a mere participant and said that, as the only lawmaker there, the Sunshine Law on open meetings did not apply to him. The college contends it did not break the law, calling the meeting a legislative briefing.

''I believe very strongly in the Sunshine Law,'' Sansom told editors and reporters in Tallahassee last month. ``I've never not been accessible and available and open about everything that I'm working on.''

But Sansom was the only legislator there, and last month, the trustees approved a set of minutes created nearly 10 months after the meeting.

Attorney General Bill McCollum has called the sequence of events ''very questionable'' and turned the matter over to State Attorney Willie Meggs in Tallahassee, who is conducting a grand jury investigation into Sansom's dealings with the small Panhandle college. Sansom took a $110,000 part-time job there on Nov. 18, the same day he was sworn in as House speaker.

He quit the job amid swirling questions over millions in construction money he got for the school in the two years before he became speaker, when he was the top budget writer in the House. He also had helped secure passage of the legislation, eagerly sought by Richburg, that was the focus of the secretive trustee meeting.

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