An Open Letter to the NCCo Council
By rejecting Councilman David Tackett’s resolution to make it easier for citizens hear the proceedings in County Council via the web (live or archived video), you put yourselves on the record as firmly opposed to the cause of Open Government.
Given the times we live in, restricting the availability of your proceedings demonstrates an incredible arrogance on your part. The Council has vital business on its agenda — new taxes, reducing county government as well as planning for another fiscal year where revenues are unlikely to support the County Government. Instead of welcoming the citizens who can participate in this government via their computers, you’ve decided that participating in government is a privilege that is earned by making the trip to Council Chambers. Even this resolution provides its own example — how is it that citizens didn’t get some notice that issues of Open Government were going to be discussed?
Open Government is the right of every citizen paying taxes. You need more County Citizens to be informed, and you need to realize that you were not voted into office to conduct your business behind closed doors. More importantly, it is not your job to monitor who it is that is accessing County meeting information or how that information gets used.
If you have concerns about people hacking into the County website, you have bigger problems than whether County Meetings are recorded. If you are worried about people doctoring your words, then just go to TV — that is much harder to alter. If you have concerns about people using that information to criticize your work, then you need to resign. Not one of us has a job where we are not subject to criticism, fair or not. And criticism of the Council is legitimate input to the process — if that criticism is wrong or vindictive, then you get to respond to that. It is not legitimate to close off your records and only release them to people who appear to get themselves on a list you can monitor.
Councilman Hollins notes that “There are members of the public that will go out of their way to abuse us, to embarrass us.” From where I sit, County Council is perfectly capable of embarrassing itself already, and certainly has with this decision. But you are a public body, serving the public and being vulnerable to some of the more vindictive or insecure of the public is part of the deal. What is for certain is that no one sent you to Council to excel at CYA.
Pass Councilman David Tackett’s resolution and get your meetings up on the web TODAY.
EDIT: WDEL reports (with audio!) here.
Tags: NCCo, Open Government
Pretty damn sad when Sussex County is ahead of New Castle County on this. Who are the hicks in Delaware again?
Excellent letter. The NCCo Council’s pretext (audio could be doctored to make us look bad) is ridiculous.
They audio would not need to be doctored to make them look bad.
Amen and Hallelujah, I will even volunteer time to help them get it working. Hell, if I had time, I’d go do it myself and put it up without their permission.
Shame on them!
Is there anything stopping a citizen from going to a meeting and recording it?
My advice to council members who are afraid they’ll look bad: don’t say stupid things. You’re much more likely to have doctored quotes when there is no other way to find out what was really said.
Sussex not only has a live webcam and live audio, the minutes, agendas, and the audio files are uploaded in an archive for anyone to use at any time.
How sad that NCCo are afraid to be accountable for the things they say.
This is ridiculous. I’d love to be able to watch all government meetings. It’s simply not possible to attend every one, but I guess if they did this they’d lose their favorite excuse of “We had a meeting. Why didn’t you care enough to show up?”
My advice to council members who are afraid they’ll look bad: don’t say stupid things.
I’ll go one further: don’t friggin’ run for office.
You can’t please everyone (if you do, you are a panderer, plain and simple), so you will be criticized many times, some colorful, some direct and to the point.
Paul Clark’s assertion to attend every meeting, rather than OK a recording is asenine. Most of us (not all) have commitments with family, but would otherwise be involved with government. Having this kind of access (recording) would be highly beneficial. David Tackett obviously recognized it.
To no surprise, every single HIGHLY-PRO-WFH jagass* (Bell and Powers, I am looking at YOU – and Hollins…and Smiley…etc) was against this measure. It wouldn’t surprise me if the high heat they received in response to that “initiative” had some part in this no vote. That’s my conspiracy theory connection and I’m sticking to it.
* – referring to those who went beyond passively voting for it, making efforts to justify it by way of belittling and insulting opponents to their “initiative’ interests.
To add on to my comment in #7, we can look at the case involving Albero (an earlier post on DL), using the money quote from Judge Mumford:
YOU HEAR THAT NEW CASTLE COUNTY COUNCIL? IF YOU CAN’T TAKE IT, GET OUT!
For the love of God, I don’t care what party someone belongs to, there is no way these anti-modern council people should be re-elected when they come up for re-election. PLEASE challenge Bill Power-less (he’s a puppet, afterall) in a primary. Republicans, please challenge him in the general. Yes, “GOOD” Democrats or Republican, I don’t care. CHALLENGE THESE FOOLS!
Ridiculous. Geezer hit it right on the head.
Two points and a suggestion:
(1) A lot of government bodies – I don’t know about NCCo – ALREADY record their meetings to help the clerk or secretary prepare the minutes. It’s nearly impossible to keep it all straight (who said what and made what motions and seconds) from notes, even if they’re typed by someone who can do 80 wpm. It’s important to be able to go back and doublecheck the facts, particularly if something was garbled or in cross-talk.
(2) If NCCo does this – and I can’t imagine that they don’t – those recordings are ALREADY public record.
Suggestion: Some enterprising government watchdog should request those audio files or recordings and post them online as a public service to put the heat on these idiots until they do it themselves.
Edited my post to include WDEL’s report on this subject.
AFAIK, Paul Clark wants to be NCCo Executive, so the fact that he is officially opposed to Open Government ought to be wrapped around his neck until Bill Dunn wins.
NCCo County Council meets in a room that is already wired to record audio and video. It can’t be too hard to just turn on the equipment and give the tape to someone who will put it on the web.
And anon has a good point above — just get the tapes and post them.
The demise of Common Cause means there’s only us bloggers left to watchdog.
Two times so far I have been foiled by the way council hides its business.
First was when Pam Scott-Paul Clarky tried to sneak the La Grange development plan into an Historic Review Board meeting off agenda (not legal). She was challenged by a Board member and they had ‘words’.
A colleague of mine was present in person to witness what transpired and I had his notes. But when I requested the digital copy of the meeting, Chris Coons’ land use could only give me a CD where the pertinant portion of the meeting was not discernable. The recording was compromised. Was it compromised on purpose to protect Mrs. Clarky?
ooh is this the reputation part you mention, Georgie?
And the second time I was screwed over by the county’s recordings was when I took Bob Weiner to the AG over his not allowing me to speak at a sub-committee meeting where other citizens were allowed to speak on the record.
The AG wrote that the county could not provide a recorded copy of the meeting in question because the machine didn’t work that day.
Funny to have those words typed out on the embossed stationary of my state AG Danberg as if it were perfectly normal. It’s not.
(forgive any spelling atrosities)
ditto cass.
To Boot – they already have teevee equipment in the chamber and they have staffers who can run it and they have a friggin TEEVEE STATION.
For the life of me I can’t understand how anyone could alter anything any of these guys say and make them look WORSE.
Dave Tackett is my council representative. I plan on talking to him to see what I can do to get this to pass. I wish I had known about it beforehand, but just because it was defeated doesn’t mean that it can’t be brought up again. Perhaps we need a campaign like OOGA, where we show up in force to get this bill passed.
TNJ story notes that the audio is available to anyone who asks via a FOIA request. Why they don’t post it online is beyond me. I would guess anyone in the DE blogosphere could take the audio and post it. It’s public record. NCCo should just save everyone the time and trouble by doing it themselves. Can’t cost any more than buying themselves dinner did.
As Dave Tackett said on WDEL – this won’t cost them more than their IT person’s afternoon to set the website up for it. Then it’s automatic.
Another Mike is right.
Hey, cassandra – do you guys have the bandwidth here?
I look at this as one of those glass half empty/half full situations. It did not pass,but this was the initial time it was introduced, right?
It lost 7 to 5 with 1 absent. 2 more votes and it wins. That gives backers a reasonable goal for trying again, securing 2 of the remaining 8 members while retaining the 5 who supported it.
Hey anon — we just might. Am looking into that now and county FOIA process so I can start asking.
And John, it may be possible that this got voted down with a few folk not being clear about how important this issue is among some of their constituents. Perhaps it may pass if reintroduced again. What is true is that everyone who cares about this should call/write your councilperson.