At the most recent legislative meeting, board members were repeatedly reminded that the meeting should focus on announcements (and presumably voting). Deliberations are to take place in committee meetings. Accordingly, announcements of a Halloween parade and the magnet fair were made.
However, while announcements may be useful, viewers are likely to be at least as interested in the deliberations and reasoning behind the legislative votes. New measures to put meeting minutes online will be of little use if the meetings consist of announcements of plays and events, as this information is more easily obtained by means other than reading minutes. If meetings are to be limited to announcements and yes/no votes, then deliberative meetings should also be televised or at least have minutes made promptly available.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Exactly right.
Open democracy is messy. Bring it on. It makes the community stronger in many ways. But, it is a huge worry for those with power. That is just the nature of the beast.
Keep us posted.
Not too long ago the pghboe website posted minutes of both the Agenda Review and Legislative meetings. More of the deliberations happened during agenda review. Hopefully those minutes will be posted again sometime soon. I always wondered if they stopped making it to the site because the discussions were often contentious. To be fair, the presentations given to boardmembers during committee meetings appear on the website so quickly that it seems somebody flicks a switch to get them there.
Under the newest board presidency, it seems as though there is an effort to keep the meetings moving and to a reasonable length.
Under the new policy deliberations are to take place in the committees, rather than agenda review or the legislative hearing. And while presentations to the committees are posted quickly, the posts do not include minutes or deliberations.
Obviously the A+ Board Watch initiative has done its trick and the public face for televised meetings is a pleasant one. Perhaps the boardwatchers should only go to committee meetings. But if they do that will any discussion occur at all?
Post a Comment