Village Secrecy Creates Angry Citizens

The citizens of a nearby village, we'll call it Anytown, are about to vote on a very hot topic: whether or not to save a crumbling relic that was the original high school. For several years, a committee attempted to raise money to buy it from the school district and rehab it into a community center. They haven't been successful. That should have said something to the committee but it forged on, pushing the village board for support.

A neighboring town broadcasts its board meetings on local cable.  While the discussions are hardly on par with a new episode of NCIS, most citizens are interested in the new businesses that come to town, what the mayor has planned for the 4th of July celebration, and how the budget looks. Citizens feel knowledgeable when they go into the voting booth. They know exactly who stands for what because everything is in the open.

Anytown does not televise its meetings.  The mayor claims there's no money in the budget for it. I suppose those in charge fear what the citizens might hear in an unguarded or heated discussion moment. Certainly if their citizenry had known about any consideration to fund the building rehab, the board would have heard an outcry two years ago. Anytown could have saved itself a lot of expense.

The voters made their position clear when they did not attend the fundraisers or donate to the committee. Low participation was a visible demonstration of the lack of support.  Sometimes silence says more than an entire speech. 

Now Anytown is holding informational meetings and the politicians see how angry the voters are. Apparently the village board members were taken by surprise; something that would not have happened if Anytown broadcast its meetings.  It's all about communication and, in this case, important ears haven't been listening. It could be a costly mistake in more ways than one.  This is an election year.

Gibbs and the IRS

Everything on the Net is for public consumption. This should be one of Gibbs' rules. You NCIS watchers know what I mean.

This is something I've been told since I first got access to email back in the technological dark ages. The company's IT folk constantly reminded us not to put something into an email that we didn't want the entire world to read. They told us there are no secrets in the electronic world.  Digital communication is truly for the masses. I heard this warning long before lawyers began subpoenaing email records or human resource departments started scanning Facebook posts.  

Email doesn't go directly from my computer to yours. It passes through several other computers along the way. At each stop, it can be (and is) read by technicians, programmers, and others who are bored or troubleshooting. I heard many stories from night operators who said they read emails during their breaks.

The IRS was in the news on April 10th but it wasn't due to the approach of tax day. The ACLU obtained documents indicating that the IRS doesn't think email is private.  (Read about it here.)  For that matter, Facebook chats and other forms of digital communication aren't either.  My reaction is "yeah, so?"

Where has the ACLU been?  If they wanted to argue this, they should have started about thirty years ago. Fortunately for them, they have powerful allies who will fight the fight for them.  The companies behind digital communication (Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to name just a few) want prying eyes wandering through their emails less than we do.  So changes to the law have been presented in both the House and Senate.  Warrants will be required before the IRS or any other agency can obtain certain digital material.

Regardless of the legislative outcome, I'll stick with my own version of a Gibbs' rule.  If it can be read by a computer, it can be read by anyone at any time.

What Are You Hiding?

I used to live in a village that broadcast its board meetings.  While the discussion of whether or not to approve the minutes was hardly on a par with NCIS, most citizens were interested in the new businesses that were coming to town, what the mayor had planned for the 4th of July celebration, and how the budget looked. We felt knowledgeable and it was one of the few times I went into the voting booth knowing exactly who stood for what because I had seen how they voted.

A few years ago, I moved to a town that does not televise its meetings.  Periodically there are articles in the local paper questioning that and the excuse is always the same - there's no money in the budget for it.  This was the justification even when the village was rolling in dough during the height of the real estate bubble.

I have to wonder why those in charge of our town feel that televising the board meetings is unimportant.  Or perhaps I don't need to speculate at all.  When it comes to local politics, the less said, the better?  No doubt, the village trustees fear what the citizens might hear in an unguarded and heated discussion moment.  

We all assume business is conducted at the meetings but possibly they spend an hour or two playing bridge. Who's to know?

Good communication in government has nothing to do with politics. It is about fostering a sense of community. Residents want to know what's going on and that's getting harder and harder.  In an age when local news comes from foreign writers (see my post from July 5 - Local News from Faraway Places), televised village meetings are more important than ever.

So my fingers are crossed that things will change and in the meantime, my neighbors and I keep guessing about what's going on behind those closed doors.