Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Editorial: New Roanoke council, same old secrecy
Talk of changing the Mill Mountain Advisory Committee should take place in public.
From the RoundTable blog
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The proposed changes to the Mill Mountain Advisory Committee might be worthwhile, but Roanoke City Council chose to seek them secretly.
Mayor David Bowers, perhaps unintentionally, revealed the council's preference when he responded to inquiries from a Roanoke Times reporter. The mayor refused to comment because the issue had previously been discussed in a closed-door council session.
Oh really? Under which state exemption to open meeting law does changing the structure of a city committee fall?
We looked through the more than three dozen exemptions and were hard-pressed to identify one that applies. Our best guess is that the council was talking about appointments to the board when it strayed off topic into something that should have been public.
Bowers ran for mayor on a promise to shine light on council doings. He said he was tired of the secrets and wanted the public to see what happened at city hall.
Now that he is in office, he is keeping mum. He has no good reason to do so. The whole conversation about the bylaws went public when the advisory committee talked about it in an open meeting. Moreover, a few members of the council had gone on the record with their thoughts. The discussion was out there, but Bowers still chose to keep the public in the dark.
Bowers does not bear the blame alone in this. Council should not have gone into a closed meeting to begin with. State law might have allowed secrecy, but it certainly did not require it.
Because voters do not choose the members of committees, council should make the appointment processes as transparent as possible. That is especially true in the case of the Mill Mountain committee, which has garnered intense public interest since a group proposed more development atop the mountain.
If council plans to pursue changes to the bylaws and place fresh members on the committee, the public deserves a chance to participate in the conversation.
