My short but not-so-sweet editorial career
This editorial was good for a second place award in a statewide AP contest. It might have been the only one I ever wrote for the Ashland Times-Gazette.
I was the city reporter at the time and part of my job was baby-sitting City Council and Mayor Doug Cellar. It was a full-time job.
Practically all of council’s business was conducted outside the public eye. Council members discussed much of their business over the phone or at a downtown restaurant over breakfast or lunch.
Council also was in the habit of conducting pre-meetings in council chambers. Council members would come in a half-hour before the scheduled meeting, sit around a table, make small talk and discuss how they would handle business during the meeting. This practice continues to this date.
I attended the pre-meetings and reported on city business conducted there, specifying in my articles which decisions were made there.
At first, council members took this with a grain of salt. Mainly because they knew that conducting business before the meeting was a violation of Ohio's open meetings law. There was even an extra chair for me in their pre-meeting room.
Eventually, they tired of this, removed the chair and had a gate installed, barring easy access to the table. I still could observe the pre-meeting from a counter at the end of the table and was content to baby-sit them from there.
Council also ordered a latch and a tiny cowbell installed on the gate. Which was kind of a joke because the latch was on the wrong side and didn’t prevent the gate from opening when it was pushed from the outside. As for the cowbell, it might have been more effective if they had put it around my neck.
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City officials should come out
of the dark when making laws
As the saying goes, there are two things you don't want to see made: Sausage and laws.
More than 40 people witnessed the latter Tuesday night. It wasn't pretty.
Third Ward Councilman Jim Molnar moved to table a resolution to provide city services so Dr. Elmer Merikel can annex 77 acres off County Road 995 to build a housing development. First Ward Councilman Lowell Bender followed suit by moving to adjourn.
Mayor Doug Cellar fumed and a heated exchange erupted. It was the latest manifestation of a feud between the mayor and council. Molnar charged, once again, that Cellar was pushing council to pass legislation without providing adequate information beforehand.
For a moment, it appeared as though Council and the mayor were in danger of discussing public business in public.
But City Law Director Rick Wolfe came to the rescue, ushering council into executive session for the stated purpose of discussing pending litigation.
Forty-five minutes later, Cellar emerged beaming.
Council members returned with their tails between their legs and sheepishly passed an amended version of the resolution.
The amendment changed the wording in a section of the resolution from "The developer and the city are negotiating..." to "The city is willing to negotiate with the developer..."
Bender said after the meeting that the amendment was made during the executive session. Ohio's Open Meeting Act (also known as the Sunshine Law) prohibits deliberation upon matters other than those for which executive sessions are held.
Prior to voting for the resolution, At-large Councilman Jim Heichel sat before the bewildered throng and gulped down a helping of humble pie.
"I feel like we've been called into the principal's office," Heichel announced. "We've been given information relative to this issue. The resolution we're about to vote on merely indicates to the petitioner what services, if any, the city would provide if the property is annexed. Mr. Wolfe has advised council our actions tonight are required and we have an obligation to the petitioner legally and otherwise."
Apparently Wolfe failed to advise council that it has an obligation to the public legally and otherwise to conduct business in public.
The bottom line is that more than 40 people, most of who apparently oppose the proposed annexation, were left to cool their heels while council, the mayor and law director deliberated and made a decision in private. These folks saw our city government at its worst. Which, unfortunately, isn't a whole lot different than our city government at its best.
As chronicled in a Times-Gazette article earlier this year, council and the mayor have established a pattern of flying under the radar of public scrutiny. Council continues to discuss public business in sessions before meetings. Cellar still tells council members he will provide them with information after meetings then take a straw vote over the telephone.
The courts have ruled such practices violate the Open Meetings Act.
Not that our city's elected officials are hiding anything. From all indications, their apparent aversion to conducting public business in public has more to do with efficiency than dishonesty.
But, as Molnar once observed, "You not only have to be right, you have to look right."
Maybe we're better off not witnessing the making of sausage or laws. But we should reserve the right to know what goes into them.
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| Perhaps they should have changed their motto to "Dedicated to Secrecy." |
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