The Feeney Defense: Committee actions are minor
clerical chores
Jan 19, 2007 01:03 | Transparency in
Government
I posted the following on Joe Heisler's "Talk of the
Neighborhoods" blog after his interview with Maureen
Feeney:
On your Jan. 2 show, newly elected City Council President Maureen Feeney spoke about the pending Open Meeting Law suit against her Committee regarding its action on the pay raise Ordinance the Mayor filed last March.
It's important for the voters to know the other side of the story.
A Committee Report on the Ordinance, making major amendments and recommending Council passage, was approved by a majority of four of her Committee members. A majority "in favor" is required by Council Rules for an Ordinance to go to the Council floor for action.
The four members voted, not by sitting down in a meeting, but by individually communicating to her staff their "concurrence" with the Report. Serial communications among body members to arrive at a decision is a violation long established by case law. Using staff messengers as "gloves" doesn't remove the fingerprints.
Councilor Feeney, during her testimony, admitted that they voted, but told the court that it was not a vote on the substance of the ordinance. The Councilor's testimony was that the Committee members never deliberated, never discussed this controversial pay raise proposal with her or with each other between March 8 and the day they voted on May 2, and were merely providing a courtesy nod to her to bring to the Council floor her report, written solely by herself as the Chair, without any input from them.
Committee votes on Committee reports, she and Vice-Chair Stephen Murphy said, are just a housekeeping task, like a decision to order office supplies, a trivial head-count to bring the matter back to Council without regard to the substance, so public witness isn't required.
The judge asked what she'd do if most members voted against the Chair's report. She responded that she could bring it to the Council floor as a "Minority Report" -- an option that's not available in the City Council Rules and indeed would violate the Rules requiring majority approval prior to Council action.
The facts are these:
1) It's not just "housekeeping" when a committee takes action on legislation. Indeed, in this case, there were actually important amendments made to the original bill (including a pay raise for the City Clerk, a job in which Councilor Feeney has been quoted in the press as saying she has an interest). That they spoke individually, through intermediaries, calling it a "concurrence" instead of a "vote," doesn't change the basic fact: a majority of her committee took an action on the matter before them. A concurrence by a majority IS a meeting.
2) If this vote was, as Councilor Feeney insists, just a head-count of members agreeing to let the measure go to the Council for vote, that's a procedure required to be done right on the Council floor, according to Council Rules. It's called a "roll call vote," and a majority has to approve -- in public.
3) The Councilors are already changing the Rules to end Committee voting via individual votes sent to the chair. This procedure of voting without getting together in quorum was evidently contrived to skirt the Open Meeting Law, and has now been exposed.
Committee actions are the backbone of any body's work, because that's where the body's fact-finding, analysis and deliberation happen (or, in the Boston City Council, where analysis and deliberation doesn't happen, as we learned from the City Councilors' testimony). Whatever they do in those actions has to be witnessed by the public, including, as in this case, amending legislation and sending it for Council vote with a recommendation for passage. Isn't that self-evident?
The Councilors' defense of trivializing the work of Council Committees in order to deny the requirement for public witness, is a disheartening and cynical message to send to their constituents.
It's disappointing that they spend thousands of taxpayer dollars fighting lawsuits rather than taking a positive attitude and improving their transparency. It's especially wasteful when they've already begun Rules reform; their September 11, 2006, hearing on proposed Rule changes is most interesting, and a recording can be viewed via the Council website.
Unfortunately, then-President Michael Flaherty was still seeking, even at that reform hearing, mechanisms by which the Council could discuss issues "internally."
Our Councilors just have to honor the words introducing their personal copies of the Open Meeting Law: "The public's business must be done in public."
Posted at 10:21 AM
Monday, January 8, 2007
On your Jan. 2 show, newly elected City Council President Maureen Feeney spoke about the pending Open Meeting Law suit against her Committee regarding its action on the pay raise Ordinance the Mayor filed last March.
It's important for the voters to know the other side of the story.
A Committee Report on the Ordinance, making major amendments and recommending Council passage, was approved by a majority of four of her Committee members. A majority "in favor" is required by Council Rules for an Ordinance to go to the Council floor for action.
The four members voted, not by sitting down in a meeting, but by individually communicating to her staff their "concurrence" with the Report. Serial communications among body members to arrive at a decision is a violation long established by case law. Using staff messengers as "gloves" doesn't remove the fingerprints.
Councilor Feeney, during her testimony, admitted that they voted, but told the court that it was not a vote on the substance of the ordinance. The Councilor's testimony was that the Committee members never deliberated, never discussed this controversial pay raise proposal with her or with each other between March 8 and the day they voted on May 2, and were merely providing a courtesy nod to her to bring to the Council floor her report, written solely by herself as the Chair, without any input from them.
Committee votes on Committee reports, she and Vice-Chair Stephen Murphy said, are just a housekeeping task, like a decision to order office supplies, a trivial head-count to bring the matter back to Council without regard to the substance, so public witness isn't required.
The judge asked what she'd do if most members voted against the Chair's report. She responded that she could bring it to the Council floor as a "Minority Report" -- an option that's not available in the City Council Rules and indeed would violate the Rules requiring majority approval prior to Council action.
The facts are these:
1) It's not just "housekeeping" when a committee takes action on legislation. Indeed, in this case, there were actually important amendments made to the original bill (including a pay raise for the City Clerk, a job in which Councilor Feeney has been quoted in the press as saying she has an interest). That they spoke individually, through intermediaries, calling it a "concurrence" instead of a "vote," doesn't change the basic fact: a majority of her committee took an action on the matter before them. A concurrence by a majority IS a meeting.
2) If this vote was, as Councilor Feeney insists, just a head-count of members agreeing to let the measure go to the Council for vote, that's a procedure required to be done right on the Council floor, according to Council Rules. It's called a "roll call vote," and a majority has to approve -- in public.
3) The Councilors are already changing the Rules to end Committee voting via individual votes sent to the chair. This procedure of voting without getting together in quorum was evidently contrived to skirt the Open Meeting Law, and has now been exposed.
Committee actions are the backbone of any body's work, because that's where the body's fact-finding, analysis and deliberation happen (or, in the Boston City Council, where analysis and deliberation doesn't happen, as we learned from the City Councilors' testimony). Whatever they do in those actions has to be witnessed by the public, including, as in this case, amending legislation and sending it for Council vote with a recommendation for passage. Isn't that self-evident?
The Councilors' defense of trivializing the work of Council Committees in order to deny the requirement for public witness, is a disheartening and cynical message to send to their constituents.
It's disappointing that they spend thousands of taxpayer dollars fighting lawsuits rather than taking a positive attitude and improving their transparency. It's especially wasteful when they've already begun Rules reform; their September 11, 2006, hearing on proposed Rule changes is most interesting, and a recording can be viewed via the Council website.
Unfortunately, then-President Michael Flaherty was still seeking, even at that reform hearing, mechanisms by which the Council could discuss issues "internally."
Our Councilors just have to honor the words introducing their personal copies of the Open Meeting Law: "The public's business must be done in public."
Posted at 10:21 AM
Monday, January 8, 2007
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