Town of South Kingstown Council votes against the “Automatic Open Records”

Yesterday night the Town of South Kingstown Council voted against the “Automatic Open Records” petition funding the “Automatic Open Records” Committee outlined in my letter to the Town Council on March 30, 2009 [1]. The general tenor of the comments were that the goal is good but that funding it now is not good.

Each of the Council members gave their specific reasons for voting against the funding.

Councilor O'Neill said that he was discouraged by the “Bowling Alone” culture [2]. Having more people attend (in person) public meetings was important to him. My rebuttal was that this is a societal issue not reasonably to be addressed by one councilor. As our representative he should be going to where the people are rather than expecting them to come to him.

Councilor Eddy said she did not know if it was the will of the people. My rebuttal was that a petition is a statement of the will of the people. That over 95% of the people I asked to support the petition did so and signed. I am not sure how clearer it can be.

Councilor Hagan McEntee said that the Town Administration was preparing a new web site and hoped this would address some of what I have been asking for. My rebuttal was that I have been involved with advocating for automatic open records since the beginning of the budget process (November 2009) and during this time I have not seen a single request for public input into the new web site. This is a clear indication that the Town Council and the Town Administration sees this issue as a clerical one and not as an infrastructure one.

Councilor Fogarty spoke about the costs of delivering and supporting the tools and data. My rebuttal was that the physical costs of these are minor compared to the staffing costs. These are costs the town already incurs. I wish I had reminded her that she had the same objection at an earlier meeting and that my response then was the same as now: If you don't study the problem how will you know what the costs are and this is the purpose of the Committee.

I am afraid that I have forgotten Councilor Whaley's specific objections. She did touch on the issue of not understanding why a committee should be funded. Councilors Eddy, Fogarty, and Hagan McEntee touched on this to. (Councilor O'Neill did not object to the funding amount.) I did not directly respond to this objection during the meeting. I regret this because this was the actual issue at hand. Let me do so here.

An effective committee needs engaged members and adequate support. Support ranges from having expert testimony, to gathering option, to making photocopies. Remunerating an expert for time and expenses is an obvious cost. The making and tabulating an option poll has obvious costs. And there are the less obvious costs of advertising a meeting, turning the lights on and air conditioning the meeting room, photocopying the working documents, and recoding the meeting. (Many of these costs were enumerated in my letter [1].) The members volunteer their time and expertise but we shouldn't expect this of its support. And so from who's budget are these costs paid? A funded Committee adds further transparency to the process.

In the end, however, the lack of success for “automatic open records” is mine. In political terms my efforts was an “issues campaign.” An issue campaign's success is achieved by ever broadening the support. Each supporter needs to understand the issue from their perspective. This is something I will have to more steadily attend to the next time.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement. I look forward to our Councilors' commitment to addressing automatic open records later this year.

[1] http://southkingstownrinow.blogspot.com/2009/03/letter-to-town-council-30-march-2009.html
[2] http://www.bowlingalone.com/