COMMENTARY West Fork, ‘Mad Minutes’

The October meeting of the West Fork City Council and Civics Class began with:

“The motion to approve the Sept. 16, 2010 minutes as mailed.”

Motion: Misty Caudle

Second: Justin Harris

Then, a verbal tornado hit the room, sweeping away practically all common sense.

Council members spent a great deal of time debating the format that the meeting minutes should be presented.

Congratulations West Fork Council. You’ve just out-Tontitown-ed Tontitown.

Here’s a brief snippet of the discussion, taken from a transcript of the meeting:

Alderwoman Joan Wright asked for a discussion. She found it ironic that the council was voting to approve minutes that had already been released to the public via the Internet.

Mayor Jan Throgmorton asked if Alderwoman Wright was bothered that the minutes were out before they were approved and Ms. Wright indicated in the affirmative.

Alderman Charlie Rossetti asked why were the minutes out before they were approved?

Mayor Throgmorton: Because they sent in a Freedom of Information request to get them.

Alderman Rossetti asked if we have to do that even though they are not approved?

Mayor Throgmorton: “I don’t believe we do, I have to talk to Rusty (Hudson, city attorney) about that. We didn’t use to and then all of the sudden we started sending them out before approval. We will have to talk to Rusty and get our legal opinion on that because I really can’t answer that.”

City Clerk Susan Cooney asked to speak: “I did talk to David Schoen of the Arkansas Municipal League to confirmthat I had to do it. That is the only reason I did it. I got a Freedom of Information request that said as soon as I have typed the minutes they would like to have them. I e-mailed David Schoen, I talked to him over the phone, and he said, ‘Yes, it is a public record as soon as I have created it.’”

Alderwoman Wright: “Maybe you just don’t need to type it up right away.”

Clerk Cooney: “I usually don’t, I usually wait as long as possible because we had a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to not send them out until after they are approved by the council. Then, in the last few month’s, people have started asking for them sooner and sooner. Now it’s as soon as they are done, which was pretty late actually.”

In a nutshell - unfortunately, the operative word there is “nut” - West Fork aldermen received 22 pages of “minutes” and were complaining because the information was being e-mailedto a mailing list of the “Active Citizen’s Group.”

West Fork being my hometown - again unfortunately for the council - I’m also on the mailing list.

The council is trying to “order” the clerk to make the minutes more of a summary instead of a transcript.

That’s fairly unusual for a publicly elected group and gives the perception they’vegot something to hide. Usually, when a group is moving forward and making sound decisions, the group wants as many people as possible to know about their actions as quickly as possible.

Not so here. The council kicked the idea of condensing a report on the actions of the council for what must have been a lo-o-onng portion of the meeting, from reading the email.

Of course, a city council can’t actually order a city clerk to do or not do anything. Clerks are elected by the same people who elect the council.

If aldermen want to tell the city clerk that they want minutes in a condensed version for them to approve at meetings so they don’t have to read so much, they can do that.

If the clerk wants to continue providing the public with a transcript, the clerk can do that, too.

Since the council doesn’t seem to want the public who can’t make it to their public meetings to hear what’s going on verbatim, I thought I’d help folks out - since I’m on the mailing list that gets the minutes, transcript or whatever, before the council gets to approve the minutes.

You, know, council members could ask to be put on the mailing list, then approve a condensed version of the minutes at their meetings.

But like I said earlier, common sense among West Fork alderman appears to be Gone With The Wind.

I’m sure my consulting fee check for this column from the city council of West Fork willbe in the mail - in a condensed form.

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BOB CAUDLE WRITES A HUMOROUS COMMENTARY ON LOCAL, STATE AND NATIONAL ISSUES. HE IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY INSULTER.