Letters to the Editor: Recording shows need for special election to fill Mark Ridley-Thomas’ seat
Sunday
Jan 28, 2014 at 10:03 AMJan 28, 2014 at 10:03 AM
While a public hearing to discuss the status of efforts to restore the public’s right to record meetings of City Council meetings is not scheduled, Mark Ridley-Thomas would have us believe it is. We would do well to consider his letter in its entirety before dismissing it entirely.
While a public hearing to discuss the status of efforts to restore the public’s right to record meetings of City Council meetings is not scheduled, Mark Ridley-Thomas would have us believe it is. We would do well to consider his letter in its entirety before dismissing it entirely.
Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s letter (available online at http://www.sagalawrence.com) begins with gratuitous hyperbole about “mysterious and highly secretive acts” done by Council members – an apparent reference to the City Council recording sessions in the private home of City Attorney Jim Hall, who continues to defend the City Council’s practice of making public the very private and highly private meetings it holds.
Mr. Ridley-Thomas further states that the City Council’s “secretive practices have become a threat to law, justice and democracy.”
What he is not telling the rest of the world is that the City Council’s secretiveness has become a problem precisely because it has been so successful in keeping its meetings secret. All of the other municipal governments around the country have had their agendas in writing – not just in their back pockets – for decades. City Council meetings are no different.
City Council meetings should be open to the public because citizens have a right to know what is happening behind closed doors. Not only are private, secretive sessions the only way the City Council can effectively operate, they are also the only way the public can learn the real cost of the City Council’s actions. The public has a right to know what the City Council is up to and who is being paid by the City Council. Who pays for the salary of the City Council’s secretary, the secretarial staff who compile City Council agendas and agendas for the citizens of this city? Who are the Council’s special interest groups? What is the City Council�