My name is Forest, Forest Gump and “I may not be a smart man but I know what transparency is” and it ain’t here in River City.
The Roanoke Times July 1 editorial: “Openness and transparency” presses the two new council members to make good on their campaign promise of transparency and openness. The RTEB hints that the last council made progress in that regard. Phooey!
Council briefings are where most decisions are made. One could even argue voting takes place at briefings. Mayor Bowers though makes verbal reference to it not being a vote. It’s just a “consensus” show of hands or grunt of approval – a go-ahead to city administration on a project direction.
“Public input” then follows and befuddled citizen’s exiting council chambers mumble “they already had their minds made up.” Imagine that.
Televised briefings were campaign promises in the last election too. After the new council took office the city manager then Burcham brought to council the cost and impediments to televising briefings in the EOC. If you ever wondered what EOC stands for it is the “Emergency Operations Center” – in case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster <snicker here if you like>.
Council members suggested the city manager look into taping briefings at a minimal hourly rate and have them available for replay online. It was never revisited again.
The briefing room (the basement – room 159 or EOC) is so crowded at times with television camera tripods and interested citizens you can’t get to the coffee pot <sigh>. Seriously citizens and staff are bumping into each other. Media are jockeying for seats and shuffling microphones around the table.
Mayor Bowers leaned back in his chair so far one time he almost landed in my lap. And if you sit behind Councilman Court Rosen you can read his text messages <pointed sigh>. Cases are being made that text messaging during public meetings is open to FOIA requests. It seems citizens have become suspicious that council members are secretly texting each other regarding agenda items.
Number one on the RTEB transparency list in the July 1 editorial asked for topic clarification for closed sessions. Meaning name the “subject” of closed session before closing the door to citizen’s prying eyes. Try arguing that point with the city attorney William Hackworth. Hackworth doesn’t agree with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). No matter that Virginia’s FOIA Advisory Council has consistently written opinions to the contrary – the city attorney just doesn’t happen to agree. I’ll try that tact with a judge and see how that works for me.
Roanoke county names the subject very clearly on their agenda and it hasn’t hurt them one bit.
To end my little tirade let me paraphrase a member of the media. I asked him why he didn’t threaten litigation to force FOIA compliance? I’ll never forget – he said, “we have to pick our battles.” If John Q. Public doesn’t care then we don’t care.
He had a point – if the populace is not clamoring for transparency then the vocal few that identify the FOIA transgressions are whistling in the wind.
Valerie Garner, Roanoke
Editor’s Note – Valerie Garner is a regular contributing reporter to the Roanoke Star Sentinel and like everyone else in the world, she has an opinion. Don’t be shy – send us yours.
so glad you picked this up, council needs transparency and that doesn’t come with the quick vagueness in which business is done, just to be undone in the next meeting or so. this past meeting was soomething.