Comments on: Column: A Charter Change on Publishing?

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:47:15 +0000

Dave Askins has done an Other Perspectives segment on this.

Channel 17:

Premiere: Wednesday, 10/28 12:30 PM
Replays: Wednesday, 10/28 10:30 PM
Thursday, 10/29 2:30 PM & 6 PM
Friday, 10/30 10:30 AM & 8:30 PM
Saturday, 10/31 3 PM
Sunday, 11/1 1:30 PM
Monday, 11/2 2:30 PM, 5:30 PM & 8 PM

(Coincidentally, a separate part of this segment is an interview with Hatim Elhady. I’m looking forward to hearing what Dave has to say. I already voted against the charter amendment.)

By: Rarebeans

Rarebeans — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:21:50 +0000

I’m voting “no,” too. The current wording in the city charter does not exclude any type of posting or publishing. It only requires publication in a newspaper. I don’t trust the wording of the proposed change that reads “by any other means or methods determined by City Council appropriate.” What if in 50 years we end up with a Bush II-type council that is obsessed with privacy. They could determine that a very restricted method to be appropriate, thereby limiting public awareness and input. I can’t imagine that happening in Ann Arbor, but then I couldn’t imagine someone like Bush being voted in for a second disastrous term.

By: John Floyd

John Floyd — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:42:36 +0000

For the city save money, things like the issuance of GO bonds for optional projects (police station, convention center foundation, underground parking), $7 million buyouts for police officers 2 years away from retirement, and free-and-loose use of tax increment financing for private real estate projects need to be reigned in. $15,000 to publish council agendas is the wrong place to look for savings.

It is always “with the times” for government to be pro-active in its communications with the public. Contempt by government officials – and their apologists – for any portion of the public is never “with the times” in a democracy.

By: Dan Madaj

Dan Madaj — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:43:07 +0000

I’m all for saving money when possible. My question is: what costs the city $15K to print notices in a newspaper? if the city pays to have these printed, then they’re ads, not news. If it’s to pay someone to send these notices to a newspaper, that seems a lot of money for a few electrons and hitting the “send” button.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:15:23 +0000

Wow. Wonder how hard it would be to have an “electronic bulletin board” space on the city website where those responsible for meetings could post last-minute changes.

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:54:02 +0000

Vivienne, "posting" (to satisfy the requirements of the Open Meetings Act) is still being done with pieces of paper tacked up to a tack strip at City Hall. Link

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:35:03 +0000

I particularly appreciated the differentiation between “posting” and “publishing”. There have been times in the past when “posting” (to satisfy the requirements of the Open Meetings Act) for some meetings was a piece of paper on a string in the city hall. It is important that this information is truly accessible to the public at large, and not to those who are sufficiently motivated and knowledgeable to thread their way through procedural thickets. Your point about an archived version is also good.

(And thus I return to my point in #4 about last-minute additions to the agenda.)

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:20:31 +0000

Re: [12] “I think the quoted savings by the city is $15K /year but I might be mistaken.”

From the article published just above: “The FY 2010 budget (the current budget year), which was adopted by the city council in the spring, includes an assumption that the city council agenda will no longer be printed in a newspaper – at a cost savings of around $15,000.”

This part of [12] reveals clearly that there was not a close reading of the column by the author of [12]. And it’s thus understandable that the commentary in [12] doesn’t address the central issue of the column or subsequent comments.

The “Be Generous” commenting policy of the Chronicle means, in part, that it’s our expectation for commenters to be generous enough with their time to read, understand, mull over, and reflect on what others have written, before posting.

The vast majority of Chronicle commenters adhere to this practice, and is possibly an partial explanation for comment [7].

By: my two cents

my two cents — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:50:00 +0000

I need to throw in my two cents here. Not publishing the notices in a newspaper would save the city a small amount of money but small amounts can rapidly add up. I think the quoted savings by the city is $15K /year but I might be mistaken. Just a few months ago we spent many council meetings and still have major ongoing drama over whether to fund inexpensive items like project grow and the civic band. Face it, next year we will have to cut the budget somewhere and this looks like a good place to start. If we cut here, then maybe we can save those other programs that many still want covered, if at all possible.

In this day and age, I actually think more people check websites then government notices in the newspapers. In fact I don’t think I have EVER actually looked at the official government notices in a newspaper. Nonetheless, it would not be a bad thing to have more people actually go the government site for the notices because then they might browse around and see other important information. This actually seems like a good way to force people to be informed. There is nothing that irks me more than people who claim they were not told when they never bothered to pay attention. If you want to be informed, checkout the web sites and sign up for the new egov delivery system.

The few people out there who are not computer savvy and who do not have email addresses I do feel for. Maybe the city can have a weekly telephone recording listing all events and meetings that they can access. But those of you are who fully capable of looking up a website and getting email are just wasting our tax dollars to insist that the city publish these events in an actual newspaper. Get with the times.

By: Tonda Rush

Tonda Rush — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:42:22 +0000

Public notice is too important to drift solely into the domain of government websites. The notices should be posted there, of course. But the independent publication has served as a bulwark of due process throughout the nation’s history. For now, the printed record is still essential to archiving, though posting on news websites is becoming more important. But there are many reasons why posting to govt sites alone isn’t sufficient. For one, Pew research indicates most people never visit government websites. For another, there is the independent tracking noted in this excellent article. For a third, some people are sensitive to the public agency’s cookies being able to track readers, so an independent option gives them a venue that lacks official powers. In the end, the notice should be in all of these places. Who would ever argue for less notice?