I was able to make it to the SEU meeting today to see where this task force is going.  Charlie Copeland was not in attendance, but there was no problem getting a quorum this time.  It was better attended than the previous one in terms of the public as well.  There were about 25 people altogether

A piece of proposed legislation was passed around for review by all of us.  I’ll have that up for review in the next day or so.  It would have simply been agreed to without a challenge if Alan Mueller hadn’t piped in asking if McDowell was accepting public comment (he wasn’t).  The slight delay gave the opportunity for Representative Thornburg to praise the document.  Patty Blevins then asked about the need for a conflict of interest clause in the legislation.  She was assured that this was already in the code.

Turns out, that it really isn’t.  The law actually only says that the members of the board may not benefit financially from being on the board.  This isn’t exactly conflict of interest wording.  She was given a vague assurance that the board would look into it.  Nonetheless, this became an issue as the meeting progressed.

McDowell also had Frank Murphy write a legal opinion on whether or not the board was still operating legally even though their authority appears to have expired.  I’ll also post that opinion in the next few days (unless the SEU website is updated first).  Basically, it is Mr. Murphy’s assertion that the intent of the law was that the board continue until a new board is constituted to replace them.  When pressed, Mr Murphy indicated that the board could continue to meet under this condition ad infinitum.  The running joke among the board members seemed to be that none of them wanted to be on the board any longer and way, so “Sorry folks, you can’t go anywhere until you are replaced.”  So sorry it’s a drag to serve the public.

McDowell made it clear that, although he didn’t have to invite public comment, he would.  I felt so honored.  Out of that public comment came a few points:

It was still not clear whether or not the SEU was a non-profit or a public body.  It is a hybrid of the two and thus many things were unclear (accountability, FOIA, and redress of public concerns , for example).  As always, John  Falherty delivered an eloquent appeal to McDowell to use some of the existing models for the structure of these things, rather than reinventing the wheel.

FOIA came up specifically again and the discussion centered around the difference between operating as if FOIA applied to the SEU and putting into the code that the SEU must comply with FOIA.  God bless Patty Blevins, she threw it out there that she didn’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be codified and she got a grudging assent from McDowell.  Murphy is going to work that up.

My favorite part, was when McDowell basically said that if this was a government program, it would fail.  And here’s the rub, he wants to insulate the SEU from the government for the valiant reason of protecting it from the taint of changing political tides.  Yet at every turn, he fights to prevent the checks and balances that would insulate the SEU from suspicion.  All the while, he says that they are open and welcome public comment.

As a sure sign of their openness, his defense for not putting FOIA in the legislation is that they get lots of requests for different ideas that are sometimes contradictory.  I ask you, who suggested that they not be open?