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The dead hand of James Michael Curley comes back to haunt the Boston City Council
By adamg on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 5:01pm
If the Boston City Council wants to publish its minutes online, it's going to have to get permission from the state Legislature first, according to the city legal department.
You may recall how Councilor Sam Yoon proposed requiring all city boards use the city Web site to post meeting schedules and minutes. Seems a good, sensible thing in the Age of the Tubes, right? And, in fact, the council today unanimously approved his proposal to do just that for every city board.
Except the city council itself.
Seems that back in 1947, the state Legislature passed legislation - which Gov. Robert Bradford then signed - barring the publication of "the substance of debates by and among members of the [Boston] city council."
The law is still on the books, and the office of Corporation Counsel William Sinnott says it doesn't conflict with the more modern public-records and open-meeting laws, so Yoon said today he will seek a home-rule petition to the Legislature to repeal it. It's unclear if the 1947 law would also apply to the videos of city council meetings and hearings.
The law doesn't state reasons for the ban, but it was passed while Curley was both mayor and a federal inmate (pesky mail-fraud charges) and the acting mayor, then city clerk John Hynes, basically shut down City Hall so Curley could deal with things when he got out. So maybe the anti-Curley legislature thought it was giving the council a way to circumvent that. Any historians out there know for sure? And as long as we're on Curley, did anybody ever find his desk?
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Comments
Can we please get rid of the
Can we please get rid of the terrible law that the police use if you try to film them abusing their position? The one that bans audio recording without the permission of the person being recorded
Challenging legislative contradictions can be solved.
Challenging legislative contradictions can be solved. It's the good that conscientious legislative experts do.
There was a long history of
There was a long history of the Yankee state government seizing power from the Irish city of Boston. The Boston police commissioner was named by the Governor, and other departments had similar state control. The goo-goo reformers outside of government played a part in this as well. This particular instance was towards the end of the era, but Boston is still unable to increase meals taxes like many other cities do.
1947 law doesn't really contradict OML minutes requirements
It doesn't sound like there is a 100% conflict between the Open Meeting Law's requirements -- which apply to the City Council, and which require minutes to be made available -- and the 1947 law banning publication of "the substance of debates" by the councilors.
Minutes are not required to be detailed. Instead, minutes can just itemize what actions are taken, and maybe provide a sentence or two reasoning behind it, without describing any of the back-and-forth, blow-by-blow account of the debate that led to the decision. This non-conflict is probably what the city's legal counsel was referring to.
Since the legal counsel, too, said that the OML (particularly its requirement to produce and release minutes) does not conflict with the 1947 law, I don't understand why the City Council didn't vote to approve that second resolution of Councilor Yoon's. (See David Bernstein's Talking Politics Blog to find out what resolution they passed and what they didn't pass.) If the laws don't conflict, then why do they need a home rule petition to overturn the 1947 law that they can get around on a practical basis.
Any better potential candidates for Mayor besides Sam Yoon...
Are there any better potential candidates for Mayor besides Sam Yoon... entrenched powerful types make difficult a Sam Yoon campaign.
A great idea, I don't think
A great idea, I don't think Sam will let a little red tape stand in the way of good government.