I posed the question on Arbor Update for council members: what have you learned–in particular about yourself–from this experience? Isn’t that what we really want to know, assuming that we want to know their thoughts about this at all? What’s done is done. Apologies are meaningless stories about a past that doesn’t exist. Defensiveness has no value. Judgments are made, and we either stress over them or examine and learn from them.

As for the exchange between myself and councilmember Greden on the parking structure, I think it’s interesting that he saw it as a debate. I actually thought of it as a discussion (i.e., an opportunity to learn)–I just didn’t catch his use of the former term when I replied or I would have pointed out my different perspective on that. I haven’t looked yet at all the emails to see what he shared with others during or after our exchange. The full exchange is quite revealing, I think. In particular, I thought his conclusion that “The economy trumps all else right now.” was a sign of confusion on his part. Now it seems that the law may demonstrate that other considerations are equally important.

Another way of looking at the e-mail problem is to consult Robert’s Rules of Order. City Council Rule 18 says “The rules of parliamentary practice, comprised in Robert’s Rule of Order, shall govern the Council in all cases to which they are applicable, provided they are not in conflict with these rules or with the charter of the City.” So Robert’s provides “default” rules for a host of situations not covered by the City Council’s own rules.

On page 382 of the 10th edition of Robert’s (the “Gold Book”), we find: “Refraining From Disturbing the Assembly. During debate, during remarks by the presiding officer to the assembly, and during voting, no member should be permitted to disturb the assembly by whispering, walking across the floor, or in any other way.”

The e-mails in question obviously disturb the assembly, so they fall under “any other way”. Sending them is out of order. Now that Mayor Hieftje knows of the extent of the e-mailing, he should rule them out of order, either at the beginning of next Monday’s Council meeting or in response to a point of order made by a Council member during a meeting.

Before the advent of laptops, it wasn’t at all uncommon to watch multiple Council members regularly and simultaneously disappear into the offices behind the meeting room. We never had any idea what they were discussing — probably pretty much the same things they now email — but, of course, those conversations couldn’t be FOIA’d.

Who among us hasn’t sat during a boring part of some meeting and exchanged side quips with another equally bored attendee? Or nattered back and forth about an upcoming agenda item of greater mutual interest?

The fact that these are elected representatives doesn’t make them less subject to these normal human foibles — it simply makes their actions subject to being breathlessly smeared across multiple pages of a newspaper. On a ten-point scale of iniquity by public officials, this rates about a two.