Christiansburg Chaos: The On Going Good Old Boy Shennanigans & FOIA

In order to understand some of the absolute chaos (particularly related to FOIA)  that occurred during the 7/22/10 Christiansburg, VA meeting of some type of the Town Council, you need to have a bit of background. I have included the background information and some video clips so that you can make your own, informed decision. If you care to see the full meeting, it is available online in a 5 part series: July22, 2010 Meeting (simply use the links on the pages to go to the different sections...as I learn of new ways to do things, I try to make it easier for people to view these).

On June 17, 2010 (2:10PM), a notice was sent out that a work session on the Town of Christiansburg, VA budget was to be held on June 22, 2010 and specifically noted that "NO FORMAL ACTION WILL BE TAKEN".

On June 21, 2010 (6:05PM), this became a 'top secret' issue and the work session was now to include a Closed Session to discuss this 'mystery item' and possible litigation. Suddenly, it became a situation in which Town Council could take action.

Having been at the meeting and having reviewed the video several times, it is safe to say that the Mystery item is a contract pertaining to the Town Manager. This pretty much blew out of the water certain assumptions about what could be happening based upon State Code and FOIA. (FOIA and Guesswork about Town Council Meeting and Another Christiansburg Mystery – FOI Advisory Council Information contain additional information on this topic)

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let's begin where else but at the beginning. In the first few minutes of this Special-Work Session Meeting where the issue is first raised as Councilmember Showalter tries to get this removed from the closed meeting.

• Clip 1 from the Meeting (the other will be added where they apply in this article)

Our next stop along this rut-filled memory lane, is where the Council and Town Manager are speaking so softly as to be unheard by the audience. Lisa Gardner stepped forward try to get Council to speak up and continued to push for them to speak up despite being told by the Town Attorney that citizens did not have a right to hear what was being said. Another good example of how citizens are treated by their elected and appointed officials when those citizens have the audacity to attend meetings and be allowed to know what is going on. Oh, yeah, Town Council has truly taken steps to insure FOIA is followed and to develop ways to keep citizens informed. (Wanna bet that the proposed video system, complete with microphones, dies a slow death by neglect?)

• Clip 2 from the Meeting
  

The next large portion of the meeting contains more of the ongoing, ineffectual budget discussion that have dominated Town Council Work Sessions for several weeks now. It is clear that revenue has dropped, expenses have gone up, and as the Town Manager noted ... streamlining of staff would result in cuts to services because everyone is always busy... He even noted that Efficiency Studies had been done to show that every single position was needed. However, it seems that no one, including council members can get a list of the number of employees, job titles, and departments. No information was provided to indicate WHEN said efficiency reports were done or on what departments they were performed, leaving both council and citizens in the dark.

In the last 30 or so minutes of the "Whatever" Meeting, the talk returns to FOIA issues and the 'contract' in particular. During these 2 sections of video (and one supplemental video for clarification) you will have an opportunity to see what is important to elected officials and exactly how vested they are in citizen participation and providing citizens with the information necessary to participate and have a voice in their government.

Cord Hall, Councilmember Elect, was in the audience and spoke up about concerns with FOIA. The Town Attorney responded. What was not said was that it would have been a very simple, and far less controversial, solution to simply provide citizens a copy of the document with those sections that are ALLOWED to be kept confidential 'blacked out' of the document. There is nothing that specifies the entire document need be kept from citizens. In fact, the law is quite specific in what parts can be omitted. Instead, Council chose to keep this 'mystery' contract entirely out of the public eye.

• Clip 3
  

In the final section, Councilmembers Showalter, Stipes and Carter express their concerns over the necessity of an apparent "Emergency Meeting" since there was so little notice of the meeting to either Council or the Mayor. The Mayor justified this by stating he had given out the packet containing the 'mystery' item and said at that time that he hoped to take action on the item at the next meeting. Well, indeed he did. Yet the notice that went out about the next week's meeting (June 17th notice) held nothing about any 'special items' to be discussed and specifically noted that no actions would be taken.

• Supplemental Video Clip 1
  

It wasn't until the notice sent out on the 21st, that any evidence of this was provided to the public. Obviously, someone, the Mayor and the Town Manager, at least, knew that this would be a topic of the work session. Others, as you will note in the video, assumed that since it was presented at a Town Council meeting, assumed it would be addressed at the next real Town Council Meeting, not at a work session dedicated to working on the budget.

Questions were asked about whether or not this was truly an emergency meeting and whether FOIA and the Town Code were being complied with in this instance. The Town Attorney provides answers and specifically advised that work session can become special meetings without public notice being required. Of particular interest was Councilmember Wades argument that it should be heard now rather than wait for the newly elected members to be seated as has been the case for at least 21 years now. Mr. Wade was elected and seated when discussion of appointment of the Town Manager were made previously, yet now he argues that it should be heard and acted upon by those who will not be around to have to deal with the consequences of such a vote. Enlightened self-interest?

• Clip 4
  

Well, there you have a bit of my opinion wrapped around a lot of the actual words of Town Council and Mayor.

The main issues that I see are:

1. Questions pertaining to FOIA violations
2. Questions pertaining to Town Code violations
3. And, last but not least, a change in the pattern of when discussions pertaining to the appointment of the Town Manager are made such that the incoming Council members, duly elected by citizens, are prohibited from having a say in such matter.

The citizens are not being fairly and honestly represented by handling things in this manner. Obviously, whatever is in the contract must be highly controversial for some elected officials to go to such extreme measures to insure that citizens are not informed of what it is that they are about to do. It is possible that such a contract could tie the hands of future councils or even result in situations where taxpayer money would have to be used to pay off some extended contract.

Entering into ANY type of contract can be dangerous, forcing citizens to 'buy into' such contracts blind is about as dishonest as it gets. The contract may be perfectly acceptable to citizens......or NOT! Citizens deserve to know what you are tying them into, for how long and the potential consequences of costs of Council actions.

Overall, it looks like someone is scared a job is in jeopardy, and rather than spend energy making sure that job performance is such as to warrant the annual renewal that has occurred for the last 21 years, try to come up with some means of guaranteeing the position is held on to regardless of the cost to taxpayers. Doing this while at the same time, trying to cut expenses in order to balance the budget is simply ludicrous. There has never been a written contract for the Town Manager before. Now is not the time to be making changes in contracts any more than it is to be giving raises. Council has already determined that there will be no raises for employees. None of those employees have contracts guaranteeing them a job tomorrow. Heck, most of our citizens do not have such guarantees. Why should the Town Manager have them.