Regarding Notices of Public Meetings

by Ron West

        The document in this article is a "typical" notice of public meetings.  To meet the minimum requirements of the law, such notice of public meetings must be posted at least 72 hours in advance of the meetings in a public place designated for such purpose.  This particular meeting was planned months in advance, mediators were contracted for, a budget was set, city employees were notified to make arrangements for attendance and memos were circulated within the city.  The cost of the meeting exceeded $25,000. 

        The official place for public notification is a poorly maintained set of glass cases just to the right of the entrance to the police department.  When I visited there this past week, the notice to the left was not posted but there were still "public notices" for meetings as far back as December 2004 on the board.  I must "assume" that this notice was posted as certified.

        Is this an important issue?  I guess that is up to us as citizens to express our viewpoints.  This meeting was the "strategic planning session" for the future of the city.  Approximately 30 city employees were invited and paid to attend along with our City Council and Mayor.  A high powered firm was hired to lead the discussion and paid nearly $15,000 for a 1 1/2 day meeting. (Not bad work if you could get it.)  The output of the meeting is a very poorly prepared and presented 17 page document of which 3 pages are a cover and index.  The last 4 pages are "rules" to control behavior of council members and their interaction within our local government.  If spacing is removed, the entire document could have been reduced to about 7 or 8 pages.   At one point in the document, the goals set are apparently from a prior "word processing" copy of the 2004 goals,  so it didn't take a lot of time to prepare this "new" report.  It just cost the taxpayers over $25,000.

        This particular meeting was to set goals for our city for the period between now and the year 2010.  It was also to impose rules to limit the actions of our elected officials and the intent was to "accept" the result in a subsequent Council Meeting.  It is very difficult from the language in the notice to truly understand what this meeting was to be about.

        I plan to address the content of the Strategic Goals 2010 as the report is called in a subsequent article.  The purpose of this article is to call attention to the fact that the public was "legally notified" and "intentionally excluded" at the same time.

        Our city has a large and powerful web site, a cable television station and multiple vehicles to announce important events or to campaign against issues that they may dislike.   There is no provision in our city to use these vehicles to announce public meetings.   Wouldn't it make sense to invite the citizens to participate in setting "strategic goals" for our city?  Wouldn't it make such goals easier to sell if the public subscribed to them?   If either of these statements are true, why does our city leadership continue their practices of exclusion?  Why was this "important" meeting held at Garrett Ranch near Lake Bridgeport rather that at local city offices to invite citizen participation?

        This is really a simple issue.  Do we as citizens want to be notified of important meetings?  Do we want to participate?  Is fulfilling the technically legal requirements of the law, all we want from our city leadership?  Do we accept a legal notice posting in an obscure place barely 7 days before meetings as proper notice?  If we do, then we can remain silent and accept the "strategic goal 2010" which includes raising our taxes every year.  If we don't think this is acceptable or proper (or even the real intent of the Open Meetings Act) then we need to talk to our elected officials.  If they don't want to respond, then we need to elect folks who will invite us to participate in our future for our city.