Transparency in Government

Today, I write about my belief that it is necessary for government to work in the open as much as possible. I believe that since our elected officials are there to represent our interests as our proxies, that it is beholden upon them to act in a way that we can hold them to account. In my post where I documented the issues I hope to address as councilman, I wrote, "As a former journalist, transparency of government is very important to me. I would make it a point to air the issues in the open, and not to hide behind conveniently written 'rules' of order to railroad through controversial legislation before it has been given a fair public hearing." When I wrote this, I was talking about two trends I have noticed in attending public meetings. "Rules" are invoked frequently to:

•adjourn to executive session
•bypass the requirement that new ordinances be read publicly on three separate occasions.

These trends are not unique to Toronto by any means. They do it in Steubenville and Follansbee and many other municipalities. I've seen it done numerous times in numerous places; and not just in city government - but in school boards as well. First, I should note that when this is done, it is perfectly legal. Nonetheless, it is often done for reasons that strain the intent behind the right of council to do it.

Public meetings are public for a reason; to give the citizens the opportunity to scrutinize how their business is being conducted. When legislators go into executive session, it closes the door on their deliberations, and the public is left guessing about what exactly is going on behind the closed door. Except in cases where council is considering private matters, it is my belief that the public has a right to see their business being conducted. Therefore, I would vote against closing the meetings to privately discuss the public's business in almost every instance.

Furthermore, except in cases of actual emergency, I would not vote to allow the rule requiring that new ordinances be read at three separate public meetings be waived. This issue came up at a recent Toronto Council meeting and was reported on by the Herald Star. According to the article:

Ordinances must be read at three separate meetings by council before becoming law unless a majority of council votes to suspend the rules and declare an emergency. Then the ordinance can be read and passed in a single council meeting, according to state guidelines and procedures on the passage of ordinances.

Steubenville recently declared such an emergency in order to expedite declaring some buildings condemned. This may well be a legitimate usage of the regulation. However, too often (in my opinion) the law is misused to declare an emergency where no such emergency exists. The intention may be innocent enough. Perhaps they are simply trying to streamline the city's business. Unfortunately, the result is that citizens are robbed of the opportunity to be heard on issues which might affect them.

The Herald Star article said of councilman Coppa that he "had argued previously that the ordinance committee of council should have guidelines on whether there should be separate readings of ordinances involving city funds." It further said that ordinance committee chair, Dorothy Blaner "said Ohio Revised Code is clear that whether or not to suspend the rules and vote on an ordinance in one or more readings is council’s decision. She added the same applies to ordinances involving city funds."

I don't disagree with Ms Blaner that the rules which exist should apply to legislation concerning funding no more or less than other legislation. And I also agree that the rule is and should be at council's discretion. I'm sure there are times when it is legitimately needed. Nonetheless, I feel that it is overused.

While as councilman, the choice to vote an issue an emergency will be at my discretion, I vow to make my definition of "emergency" a little more discrete.