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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 11, 2006 Tag team pushes the line on Sunshine Laws Council tag team is suddenly in vogue. Time will tell if two public displays constitutes a trend, but certainly members of this council are playing the game. The city council can only get together legally, when they notify the public that the get together is about to happen. With a council of seven, four members makes a quorum. Three council members can meet as often in private as they like, cooking up whatever recipes for the city of Ashland they so desire. Of course, politicians have devised ways to get around Sunshine Laws for as long as the rules have been in place, giving rise to the meaningful cliché of backroom deals. But because the rules are often broken, doesn’t make it right. The value of open government goes beyond a simple count of hands. It stands for a basic level of respect for democracy, that respects Sunshine Laws rather than tries to circumvent them. In the case of council tag team, it seems that a majority of the council is comfortable getting together in meetings of three. How many, how often and who gets to come each meeting is unknown, simply because they aren’t required to announce them. Tuesday’s plan to pursue an open carrier plan for maintaining control of AFN was one highly charged example. Three councilors — Cate Hartzell, Russ Silbiger and David Chapman — brought the plan to the open meeting. Most notable during the meeting was the lack of discussion, particularly among the councilors themselves. Still not surprisingly, a majority voted in favor of the plan, despite it having more holes than a mouse-ridden mound of Swiss cheese. This wasn’t the only time council tag was played. A triumvirate of councilors (Hardesty in, Silbiger tagged out) got together to draft a five-page inquiry from the Chamber of Commerce. When the chamber dropped an anvil-like report on the council bench in response, the council voted with scant explanation of the letter’s purpose. Obviously, it is legal to have three members meet secretly. It becomes much more suspect if a majority of councilors are tag-teaming these meetings so as to get the public’s business done without all of the council present or out of the spotlight of public scrutiny. If three meet a couple of times and intersperse a couple of other meetings in between with a different tag team of members, Sunshine Laws are as much a mockery as they were in cigar-smoke filled rooms of old-boys networks from days gone by. We applaud the council for pushing to make decisions and becoming more productive than its first year. If a majority on the council has an agenda and plans to guide the direction of where this city is headed, like it or not, that is what they were voted to do. But this tag team should be of high concern. Any majority must make its agenda known early and often and stand the scrutiny of public debate. Anything less is simply a backroom deal that makes a mockery of open government. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams