My friend Arnold Cole ran for city council in Overland Park, Kansas. He lost. One of his yard signs (complete with sunflower in the upper left hand corner) is number 2,189 in The World’s Largest Sunflower Collection.
Good representative local government (for that matter, all representative government) is dependent on an informed electorate. In order to insure an informed electorate the meetings of government must be made open to the public. That is, whenever the elected folks get together to transact the business of government, the public must be allowed to attend. A few, a very few, exceptions are made to this rule. Secret “executive sessions” may be held when the subject is one of the following:
1. Personnel matters,
2. Acquisition of real property, and
3. Attorney-Client consultations, i.e. pending or actual legal matters.
However, no action may be taken during the closed sessions. All votes must be taken in public. So you see dear reader, virtually all discussions and, in fact, all decisions, pertaining to city business must be conducted in public. It must be open;
To friends,
To enemies,
To reporters,
To Monday morning quarterbacks, and
To would-be city councilmembers.
There are no smoke-filled rooms in local city government. Every item is discussed, cussed and decided on in public. AS SUCH, each question and comment, no matter how inane, absurd, silly, pointless, stupid, or FOOLISH must be stated, asked, and responded to in public. Hence, my premise that;
Local governing bodies have the responsibility to look foolish.
If they aren’t looking foolish, there must be some smoked-filled rooms in someone’s closet.
Somewhere, sometime leaders of every organization or business have to ask foolish questions or make foolish comments. The main difference between local government and a private business is that the private business gets to appear foolish in private.
The very publicness of the questions and of the answers probably keep the governmental leaders from making even more mistakes than they already make. By the time the local leader hears from the constituents, the press and their family members the logical, correct, best course of action is evident. I bet there have been times when private businesses had wished they had had some public input injected into their decisions. How about;
Coca-Cola & New Coke,
Decca Records & The Beatles,
HP & Personal Computers,
Hubble & Mirrors,
Red Sox & The Babe?
These were all decisions, which would have had more positive and beneficial outcomes, had they had the benefit of public exposure, scrutiny and comment.
The next time your ‘local’ government representative asks a foolish question, and you are tempted to think of him or her as ‘loco’, instead thank him or her. Give some logical common sense answer or advice (don’t laugh), but thank that leader for taking his or her responsibility ‘to look foolish’ seriously.
Good representative local government (for that matter, all representative government) is dependent on an informed electorate. In order to insure an informed electorate the meetings of government must be made open to the public. That is, whenever the elected folks get together to transact the business of government, the public must be allowed to attend. A few, a very few, exceptions are made to this rule. Secret “executive sessions” may be held when the subject is one of the following:
1. Personnel matters,
2. Acquisition of real property, and
3. Attorney-Client consultations, i.e. pending or actual legal matters.
However, no action may be taken during the closed sessions. All votes must be taken in public. So you see dear reader, virtually all discussions and, in fact, all decisions, pertaining to city business must be conducted in public. It must be open;
To friends,
To enemies,
To reporters,
To Monday morning quarterbacks, and
To would-be city councilmembers.
There are no smoke-filled rooms in local city government. Every item is discussed, cussed and decided on in public. AS SUCH, each question and comment, no matter how inane, absurd, silly, pointless, stupid, or FOOLISH must be stated, asked, and responded to in public. Hence, my premise that;
Local governing bodies have the responsibility to look foolish.
If they aren’t looking foolish, there must be some smoked-filled rooms in someone’s closet.
Somewhere, sometime leaders of every organization or business have to ask foolish questions or make foolish comments. The main difference between local government and a private business is that the private business gets to appear foolish in private.
The very publicness of the questions and of the answers probably keep the governmental leaders from making even more mistakes than they already make. By the time the local leader hears from the constituents, the press and their family members the logical, correct, best course of action is evident. I bet there have been times when private businesses had wished they had had some public input injected into their decisions. How about;
Coca-Cola & New Coke,
Decca Records & The Beatles,
HP & Personal Computers,
Hubble & Mirrors,
Red Sox & The Babe?
These were all decisions, which would have had more positive and beneficial outcomes, had they had the benefit of public exposure, scrutiny and comment.
The next time your ‘local’ government representative asks a foolish question, and you are tempted to think of him or her as ‘loco’, instead thank him or her. Give some logical common sense answer or advice (don’t laugh), but thank that leader for taking his or her responsibility ‘to look foolish’ seriously.
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