Comments on: Column: When’s an Open Meeting Open?

By: yet another

yet another — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:29:14 +0000

While council reps do not need to engage in email, chat, Facebook updates, or any other online communications during public meetings, placing modern gadgetry in their hands during these occasions shouldn’t be ruled out needlessly. Go ahead and let each Council rep use a computer at their seat — so long as their access to the internet and to local networks has been completely disabled within the chambers.

For meeting purposes only, let’s provide the elected ones with city-owned, network-crippled laptops — no access to wireless or ethernet — which can also come pre-loaded with meeting packets and lots of relevant reference materials now found on city, state and federal web sites. (You might want to call this charitable concept the One Laptop per Councilmember Program.) Thus they could still peck at their keyboards and mouse around during meetings, while using installed applications to look up info and take notes. But as far as networking goes, everyone would party like it’s 1989. Keep all the digitized action on the home drive, only, like we did before discovering these interwebs.

Meanwhile, city clerk staff can still project an electronic version of the meeting packet onto the wall for the viewing pleasure of the live, in-studio Larcom audience. And any sneaky elected official caught accessing a wireless net connection through their smart phone should be whipped on the spot with an unplugged ethernet cord.

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By: Fred Posner

Fred Posner — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:27:16 +0000

Thanks Dave for a great writeup. My position of course is that any emails sent in the capacity of the position are public record. If we need to get laws changed and amended, we can do it. Hat to bring up Florida again, but one of the reasons Florida can be continually embarrassed by “goings-ons” is the Sunshine law… which states (more or less) that government activity is public. Which is how you get great media / public access to employees looking at hanging chads, etc.

You also get access to all email, written records, and personnel files (with some redacting).

I saw this with the parking bruhaha earlier this year. The A2 government with notable exceptions, seems to like keeping their hands on the puppet strings of public information. My belief is that public information should not have strings, should not be caged, and should be public. When government seeks to control public information, they are no longer representing the public. Instead they are controlling the public.

I certainly hope that continued pressure will eventually lead to a political body that realizes it’s much easier to gain public trust by not hiding information from the public. The only thing that comes from a closed meeting is suspicion. If the council has “nothing to hide” they can show this very easily… simply hide nothing.

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By: John Floyd

John Floyd — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 05:08:28 +0000

David,

Well-conceived, well written.

To me, the next step is to press the point that releasing prior e-mails is not about the past. Even though most current council members were elected after 2007, a sitting judge (Judge Easthope) and two members of the Planning Commission (Jean Carlberg and Wendy Woods) were on council before 2007, and are still serving in decision-making roles in government. The public needs to know that these three people – especially Judge Easthope – have not been involved in routine violations of state law. I would think that they would all be eager to have their names cleared. As long as the emails are kept from the public, their personal reputations and professional credibility are in a delicate position. Judicial temperament and fitness for office are serious business.

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By: Duane Collicott

Duane Collicott — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:20:16 +0000

>At its Sept. 21 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council voted to attach to the official meeting minutes any emails sent to and from its members during its future meetings.

Cool, so if I send my council rep an email during the meeting that says, “Whassup????” it will get printed in the minutes! I’ll be published!

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By: Michael Schils

Michael Schils — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:19:35 +0000

Does anyone know if the city council ran this resolution by their attorney? I can’t believe an attorney would go along with shielding email deliberations from public view in this manner.

The contrived “remedy” of disclosing the deliberations to the public in the official minutes — which would most often occur only AFTER any decisions had already been made (!) — is an INSULT and shows that transparency and the public’s interests did not show up on the radar of city council when they were penning this resolution.

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By: Kaaren Strauch Brown

Kaaren Strauch Brown — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:34:28 +0000

I find it reprehensible that any member of City Council can defend the use of emails during a Council meeting. Not only is this a violation of the letter and spirit of the Open Meetings Act but it also demonstrates contempt for members of the public, whether they are testifying or not. This behavior proclaims that council members only have to take each other into account.

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By: Steve Bean

Steve Bean — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:41:33 +0000

I agree with and appreciate your analysis, Dave. It’s a bit of a leap to “the correct interpretation of the OMA”. though you do make a good case for it being so.

Councilmember Briere continues to demonstrate that she’s less guided by ego (and role, both in the sense that Eckhart Tolle uses) than her colleagues.

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By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:22:53 +0000

Yes, exactly. Every part of your analysis and prescription are precisely on track. I opposed the Board of Commissioners using laptops at meetings (which didn’t happen)on the same grounds.

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