Legal troubles for Town?
In Thursday's post about the town website, I reminded readers of one of the straw men that had been put forth as a reason to not post Council meeting minutes on the town website: "legal concerns." (Recall that Craig Houghton at Cheshire Town Post took his own time to upload numerous town meeting minutes to the web... in an attempt at greater transparency.)
My question to you: Is it fair to describe "legal concerns" as a straw man? Well, consider... in Thursday's post, I clearly showed that the most recent meeting minutes are, in fact, posted to the town website. And for afficionados, you know that the most recent Council meeting minutes are always posted to the town website... in that same location on the Council webpage... while the weblink to the prior meeting minutes gets deleted.
As for why the weblink is deleted, I could only speculate. But as I was recently doing some random googling, I came across something of interest to me... apparently only the weblinks and not the webpages are deleted.
So here are a few of the meeting minutes that I found located on the town website (as of 10pm tonight):
June 14, 2005
December 12, 2006
March 13, 2007
May 8, 2007
June 14, 2007
August 30, 2007
Adopted 2007-2008 operating budget
And since there are some who say that "legal issues" may arise if these old minutes are on the town website, then...
Finally, to Tim Slocum's point (on Thursday's post) about John Knott being listed as the Town Attorney on the town website... from my perspective, it is something that should've been updated by now. And we all know the website has been fraught with errors. But it's really not a big concern for me... my concern is why meeting minutes get posted, then have their link deleted... without even having the webpage deleted. It just makes no sense to me. And it really does reduce transparency.
Tim White
Town Council, 4th District
4 comments:
The "Good Old Boys" run this town and are doing just fine. They like to work in the dark without people raising questions and that's why some things get posted and things that they don't want posted aren't.
The developers and realtors run this town plain and simple.
It was a big surprise to see the last Planning and Zoning meeting televised. It was probably televised because it was more of W/S propaganda show for the home viewers. Let's see if they continue to televise these meetings.
When you shine a light in the darkness, the rats all scramble.
The public hearings of PZC are televised unless Henry Chase has some technical problem. Regular meetings are not but the public can show up at town hall and watch the paint dry if they want to.
You may not like this application but there are no rats involved. That is a cynical and dim view of our land use regulatory process. In this case whether you like or dislike the applicant, the landowners, the PZC commissioners or life here in general the process is completely transparent.
All town meetings including commissions and everything should be televised. It is not difficult nor would it be expensive. Set up fixed internet cameras in all rooms that have meetings. Asa required agenda item before the meeting starts the chairman starts the camera. After the item to adjourn the chairman turns the camera off. The tape is automatically fed into a central server and the following morning the new communications director can easily upload the previous nights meetings. If the kids can do this on YouTube, the residents can get the same.
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