The Herald reports that the Boston City Council, which keeps wasting taxpayer money losing court cases over private meetings, will consider asking the state Legislature to exempt it from the state's open-meeting law:
An exemption would mean citizens have no legally guaranteed right to attend council meetings, or even receive meeting minutes.
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Comments
Herald link munged?
By MadMax
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 9:23am
Quick, let's get this fixed, before the URL-challenged newspapers call us hypocrites for failing to URL properly.
Fixed before the Herald could notice!
By adamg
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 9:33am
I think I need a keyboard where the keys are three inches wide (the URL I entered was actually fine, it was the fact I somehow left off part of the href tag, sigh).
FAIL
By mediaseth
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 9:51am
I would expect this to bring the biggest lawsuit on the matter they have ever seen, and ironically, the most public! I think when they "look" into it, they'll be dissuaded.
In related news, the City of Lynn just took a big step forward in finally getting its meetings on Cable. It's the only City in the State that does not have its meetings on cable.
Throw the bums out, then.
By Dan Farnkoff
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 10:00am
If they're ashamed to do the public's work in public view, relieve them of the burden. This is one of the worst proposals I've heard in a very long time. Don't quit the misconduct- make it legal! The state legislature should toss this proposal in the trash bin.
Council would hold public hearing on effort to bar public
By adamg
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 10:58am
Press release just in from Maureen Feeney's office: The council will not be voting today on seeking an Open Meeting Law exemption; would hold a public hearing on barring the public from meetings before it goes to the legislature. Instead, today, the council will discuss the staff report (I've asked if I can get a copy) and solicit independent experts to review the recommendations.
The council also intends to look at ways to "clarify the relationship" between the council and the mayor, given that councilors feel the already weak council has only gotten weaker in recent years.
Dan Kennedy discusses closed-door government:
I think the law needs to be
By ShadyMilkMan
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 11:17am
I think the law needs to be clarified so that people know what is and what is not included under the open meeting laws.
I think its important to allow discussions to take place between politicians but also feel that if you have 6 people in a hallway discussing something it might as well be a public meeting. It could explain why my local town council always has four or five (there are 11 members) people standing in a circle talking, there always seem to be two groups that switch with each other on occasion. Im not too concerned about it though because its in public, the hallway echos like crazy and half the time the local newspaper reporter is in the middle of it chatting with them too.
SunshineBoston
By theszak
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 11:54am
http://SunshineBoston.blogspot.com
Non-starter
By Ron Newman
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 12:47pm
Why would the state legislature even consider carving out an exception for just one city?
Specimen proof election ballots
By theszak
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 3:13pm
Could any of you nice folks with the capability scan a specimen boston, cambridge, somerville or brookline ballot and post it?... Specimen proof ballots are available from the state elections division or local election divisions by fax.
Somerville sample ballots
By Ron Newman
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 1:20pm
are [url=http://www.somervillema.gov/section.cfm?org=ELECT&.... Surprisingly, I can't find any for Cambridge.