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VA Court To Review "Official" Email Rules
imac.usr writes "The Virginia Supreme Court will hear arguments today on a case brought by a Fairfax County resident alleging that the county's school board members violated the state's Freedom of Information Act. The suit alleges that board members colluded to close an elementary school in the county through rapid exchange of emails with each other. The state's FOIA rules stipulate that such exchanges can not constitute 'virtually simultaneous interaction' and that any assemblage of three or more members constitutes a formal meeting which must be announced. The article notes similar suits are popping up across the country, highlighting one of the difficulties governments face in balancing communication with transparency."
"any assemblage of three or more members constitutes a formal meeting which must be announced."
Sounds like simply following the rules would work best.
OK fine, I'll check my email from 8-8:30AM and 12-12:30PM, my fellow board member will check his mail from 9-9:30AM and 1-1:30PM, and so on so we have at least two "round robins" per day.
By the end of the week we'll accomplish what would've taken half an hour, but it will be in secret and nobody will be the wiser.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
As it happens, my son went to Clifton Elementary, and the fix was definitely in on its closures. The pretty solid feeling against closure on the part of the Clifton Community was ignored, and a lot of people in the town feel railroaded. (The presumption is that some real estate developer wants the prime real estate the school sits on, and spread enough money around to make it happen.)
any time folks in public office create a consensus by whatever means then it should be made public (unless its provably not in the public interest like say the daily Lunch Order).
of course this is an example of how public offices should be limited to 2 terms 1 in office and 1 in JAIL
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More like difficulties on how to arrange actions that affect the public without having to disclose them under FOIA. These bureaucrats long for the day they could impose their will on the people while leaving the people clueless, and they will work any angle on a FOIA law that they can in order to get it.
“Decisions were made, people created alliances, and people went into that meeting already knowing which way they were voting,” Hill said of the board’s e-mail about Clifton. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.”
That's usually how votes go unless I'm mistaken.
You don't go into a meeting to vote with a blank mind, you tend to already have your decision ready and thought out.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
You mean the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the entire federal defense budget, and of which there is one every single fiscal year, is always passed around the same time, and which always has controversial provisions because they're easy to stick into a defense spending bill?
Oh, you mean the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012, which had a total of about two controversial sentences out of hundreds of pages, clearly codifying what has been standard practice for persons identified as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay for several years?
The one that people thought was some kind of a "secret plot" to indefinitely imprison random American citizens in military custody without trial, even though the wording says persons must be a "part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners"?
That NDAA? Oh. Yeah. Completely and totally unrelated. But nice try bringing something like military detention provisions into a story about a local school board's email communications!
There is no difficulty in balance here - it's a deliberate railroad move.
These people are deliberately trying to avoid public scrutiny and do an end-run around their constituents.
The rules are different in each state. In Massachusetts, I serve on a town board (the Planning Board, but the rules are the same for all boards). The relevant law is called the Open Meeging Law. We're simply not allowed to express any opinion on a matter before the board with a quorum of the board outside of a public meeting. We can do things like send out the agenda and documents to be discussed, but we can't suggest a course of action. Further, all emails to and from board members concerning the board are public record, and are subject to FOIA requests.
It's very frustrating not being able to do any business by email. It would be nice if email were allowed, provided that we used a list that was immediately available online on the town web site. On the other hand, I do see how this could make it harder for residents to have their input heard, and it could leave some board members who are not online much at a disadvantage.
I just love this quote;
“Sometimes you have to compromise efficiency for getting the right outcome,” she said.
As with many of these kinds of statements "right outcomes" could be more accurately replaced with "outcomes I agree with". I think it is very important to note that there is no allegation that the email conversation contained any coercion or improper behavior or that the actual outcome would have been any different if the conversation was done in public. The plaintiff just did not like the conversation not being "seen". The one interesting point was that a board member's opinion was changed. As with most "news" articles they do not go into what opinion was changed. Perhaps the board member thought a different school should be closed but was convinced otherwise. The outcome didn't change in that a school was closed.
Requiring all interaction between three or more members of an elected body having to be announced and made public is just stupid. Does this mean that any time three members want to get together to discuss things as trivial as the design of a poster it must be a public meeting? Lets just grind all decision making process to a halt. The public votes for people and day to day decisions do not need public input; that is micro-management to the highest degree.
Lets look at a couple of scenarios dealing with a discussion that require research to answer questions that arise during a discussion. The point being that every time a research question comes up discussion stops until re research is done. Say a discussion has 3 of these kinds of questions. By email a discussion like this may only take a couple of days followed by a public meeting where what was discussed is made public. If formal meetings are required the following would have to be taken into account;
1. room availability
2. People availability
3. Requirement for notice
It may only be possible to have such a meeting once a week. So instead of a conversation taking a week an a half it will take three weeks. Now do this for every discussion. Email also has big advantages over the spoken word; It can be re-read decreasing misunderstandings. It can be written then edited for clarification. It can be referred to when dealing with facts
To the specific case, I do not see a difference between publishing the email conversations after the fact and sitting in a room while the conversation went on. Observer would have no input into the conversation so their presence would make no difference.The prohibition on using email during a meeting just causes people to go back to passing notes like they did before laptops were available.
Slowing the wheels of government is great if you want to stop something from happening but it is a two edged sword. It also slows implementation of things one wants to happen. Do you want funding to re-build a playground that is becoming a safety hazard? You better plan on a couple of years of "open" meetings. I bet the same people who are complaining about lack of transparency are the same ones complaining about unresponsive and bureaucratic systems. You can't have it both ways. If you insist on open meetings on everything then everything will take longer. All this law means is that people will jump through hoops to stay legal but the decisions will be made the same way.
Some of these comments are absurd. Here in the real world, people need to discuss things in order to do their jobs. They might even need to discuss them with more then two people. That's how you come to an informed decision.
Going by most of the comments here, we should lock up all the decision makers under house arrest where they can't communicate with anybody about anything unless it's at a public meeting, so that whatever whiny special interest group feels like complaining about what they're doing can be as noisy and disruptive as possible if the vote doesn't go their way.
Sure we'll make decisions based on who complains the loudest and at best superficial arguments because there isn't time at public meetings for depth, and sure we'll get nothing done in a timely manner and government will be made even more ineffcient then it is now... but hey, it'll be "transparent" right? As if a giant chain of emails recorded and available under a FOIA request isn't?
What a joke.
As these people were using an email account supplied by the school district, the simple solution is to automatically make all of the email from each board member public facing. Something similar to google groups email would work. They can discuss things all they want, and it is all in 'public' as it is available right away.
Because you don't realize that efficiency is a burden. Let's have one person making all decision, it would be efficient, but terrible.