By all accounts, Martha’s Vineyard Airport director Cindi Martin did an impressive job of cleaning up airport finances during her brief tenure. Forced by personal reasons to retire after just 15 months, she has left the airport in better shape than she found it for her successor.

That person is deputy director Geoffrey Freeman, an Islander who truly earned his elevation by working his way up over 26 years with the airport. By his own account, airport commissioners were right to select Ms. Martin over him last year, but he now appears ready and eager to take the top job.

Still, we wish the transfer of power had been more public, as befits a public entity. Ms. Martin’s retirement, Mr. Freeman’s selection and his compensation were clearly a fait accompli when the commission met at their regularly scheduled meeting last week.

Airport commission chairman Bob Rosenbaum’s reassurance that by talking to fellow commissioners individually, he did not violate the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law, rings hollow. And his comment to a reporter that “The ‘quote’ public just does not have any understanding for what the qualifications for a candidate are” is frankly troubling.

The public has a right to know how decisions, both good and bad, are made by public officials. If the airport — which has had its share of troubles — is on a better course now, all the more reason to let the public in.