Daily Press: Be a watchdog
Daily Press editorial
July 20, 2008
Be a watchdog
How to keep government clean: Keep an eye on it
The debacle in Gloucester County is a vivid example of why we have, and need, open government laws -- and how those laws benefit citizens who are willing to be their own watchdogs. And, with all modesty, why an independent press, keeping an eye on government, is an essential part of our system of government.
Last week, a special grand jury indicted four members of the Gloucester Board of Supervisors -- Teresa Altemus, Michelle Ressler, Bobby Crewe and Gregory Woodard -- for, among other things, conducting public business in secret. According to the grand jury's report, they schemed, behind the scenes, to dump the county administrator and replace him with a friend of Altemus, to figure out how much to pay the replacement and when he could start work. And they did it in private homes and small groups, where the public couldn't see what they were up to.
At the board's first meeting of the year, at which their cabal officially took power, they dropped their fully formed bombshell.
It exploded.
Citizens were incensed. They packed meetings and voiced their anger and indignation. They extracted a dubious apology from Altemus, a sincere apology from a fifth supervisor, Buddy Rilee, who had let himself be dragged in.
Woodard accused them of acting like a mob. Actually, they were acting like the kind of citizens representative democracy requires: watchful, skeptical, demanding and involved.
The citizens were aided by the don't-back-down reporting of the Daily Press' Matt Sabo, and by a couple of technological assets to civic participation: the videotaping of supervisors meetings, and the Daily Press Web site, www.dailypress.com, where Sabo's blog and the public comment sections offered a running source of information and a forum for citizen commentary.
But even the most watchful and skeptical citizens can be stymied when government is allowed to work in the shadows. Modern technology is useful, but it's hardly a match for these oldest of human failings: an appetite for power, an inclination to vindictiveness, pettiness, arrogance and self-aggrandizement, all of which the indicted supervisors displayed.
They wouldn't be facing a day in court next week if there weren't laws against working in secret. Not so many years ago, there weren't, and the public's business was even more routinely done where the public wasn't admitted, in back rooms. With certain exceptions, at least that's not legal these days, even if it's all too common.
Too often, elected representatives and some appointed officials -- at the local, state and federal level -- defy the spirit of Freedom of Information laws, twisting logic into knots to find legal cover to retreat behind closed doors. Since neither the public nor the press can observe these sessions, it's hard to tell how often the law is broken. But there are telltales that it sometimes is, by governing boards, and groups of officials and others who know better.
In addition, government bodies routinely go into private session when the law allows it, but doesn't require it, such as when they're picking appointments to public commissions. Their "default" position is secrecy, not openness.
Worse, they skirt the law by meeting two by two, because meetings of three or more officials have to be open. Or they move what should be public decision-making into semi-private settings, by using private partnerships or unelected funding authorities to direct commercial development.
Or they cave in to the influence of special interests and carve out exemptions to what are considered public documents or the work of public licensing or regulatory agencies. For example, the state Board of Medicine shields consumer complaints about doctors far beyond the point of weeding out the purely gratuitous, so the public is left in the dark when there are legitimate questions about dangerous doctors. And now the Virginia Supreme Court has decided that that we-won't-tell-you-till-it's-all-over approach will be used on complaints about lawyers, too.
The inclination to hide is alive and well, in other words, and the state Freedom of Information Act is whittled away a little in practically every session of the legislature. The House of Delegates itself took a step backward when it decided that subcommittees could kill bills with no recorded votes -- a process that works against citizens in two ways. It magnifies the influence of paid lobbyists whose business it is to be at every one of those subcommittee meetings, and the lack of a recorded vote means citizens can't even hold their elected representatives accountable.
Some governmental bodies show enthusiasm for the principle of openness; some don't. Some make it easy to watch videos of meetings -- not just of the city council or board of supervisors but also, in some places, of other key groups, such as planning commissions -- by putting them on their Web sites and cable channels. The more, the better.
And what's the role of the press? Freedom of information laws are for the public, not just the press. But because the press employs reporters and editors whose job is keeping an eye on government, it's often the press that demands access to meetings and documents and shares what it learns with the public. It's often the press that files a legal challenge when open government laws are abused, or just pours ink on the issue so citizens see the secrecy, if not the secrets. That often opens the doors.
Plenty of private citizens are on regular duty, too. Some demand action in response to particular events, as the Gloucester Rotary Club did after the supervisors dropped that bomb on Jan. 2. Some show up at every meeting of their city council or board of supervisors, as gadflies in every locality who ask questions that need to be asked. Some get a grip on a particular concern, and won't let go -- such as the couple who blew the top off state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries board and staff members helping themselves to taxpayer dollars for luxuries, and a safari.
Openness. Involvement. Accountability. That's how representative government is supposed to work.
And, as the Gloucester example shows, it's invigorating when it does.
July 20, 2008
Be a watchdog
How to keep government clean: Keep an eye on it
The debacle in Gloucester County is a vivid example of why we have, and need, open government laws -- and how those laws benefit citizens who are willing to be their own watchdogs. And, with all modesty, why an independent press, keeping an eye on government, is an essential part of our system of government.
Last week, a special grand jury indicted four members of the Gloucester Board of Supervisors -- Teresa Altemus, Michelle Ressler, Bobby Crewe and Gregory Woodard -- for, among other things, conducting public business in secret. According to the grand jury's report, they schemed, behind the scenes, to dump the county administrator and replace him with a friend of Altemus, to figure out how much to pay the replacement and when he could start work. And they did it in private homes and small groups, where the public couldn't see what they were up to.
At the board's first meeting of the year, at which their cabal officially took power, they dropped their fully formed bombshell.
It exploded.
Citizens were incensed. They packed meetings and voiced their anger and indignation. They extracted a dubious apology from Altemus, a sincere apology from a fifth supervisor, Buddy Rilee, who had let himself be dragged in.
Woodard accused them of acting like a mob. Actually, they were acting like the kind of citizens representative democracy requires: watchful, skeptical, demanding and involved.
The citizens were aided by the don't-back-down reporting of the Daily Press' Matt Sabo, and by a couple of technological assets to civic participation: the videotaping of supervisors meetings, and the Daily Press Web site, www.dailypress.com, where Sabo's blog and the public comment sections offered a running source of information and a forum for citizen commentary.
But even the most watchful and skeptical citizens can be stymied when government is allowed to work in the shadows. Modern technology is useful, but it's hardly a match for these oldest of human failings: an appetite for power, an inclination to vindictiveness, pettiness, arrogance and self-aggrandizement, all of which the indicted supervisors displayed.
They wouldn't be facing a day in court next week if there weren't laws against working in secret. Not so many years ago, there weren't, and the public's business was even more routinely done where the public wasn't admitted, in back rooms. With certain exceptions, at least that's not legal these days, even if it's all too common.
Too often, elected representatives and some appointed officials -- at the local, state and federal level -- defy the spirit of Freedom of Information laws, twisting logic into knots to find legal cover to retreat behind closed doors. Since neither the public nor the press can observe these sessions, it's hard to tell how often the law is broken. But there are telltales that it sometimes is, by governing boards, and groups of officials and others who know better.
In addition, government bodies routinely go into private session when the law allows it, but doesn't require it, such as when they're picking appointments to public commissions. Their "default" position is secrecy, not openness.
Worse, they skirt the law by meeting two by two, because meetings of three or more officials have to be open. Or they move what should be public decision-making into semi-private settings, by using private partnerships or unelected funding authorities to direct commercial development.
Or they cave in to the influence of special interests and carve out exemptions to what are considered public documents or the work of public licensing or regulatory agencies. For example, the state Board of Medicine shields consumer complaints about doctors far beyond the point of weeding out the purely gratuitous, so the public is left in the dark when there are legitimate questions about dangerous doctors. And now the Virginia Supreme Court has decided that that we-won't-tell-you-till-it's-all-over approach will be used on complaints about lawyers, too.
The inclination to hide is alive and well, in other words, and the state Freedom of Information Act is whittled away a little in practically every session of the legislature. The House of Delegates itself took a step backward when it decided that subcommittees could kill bills with no recorded votes -- a process that works against citizens in two ways. It magnifies the influence of paid lobbyists whose business it is to be at every one of those subcommittee meetings, and the lack of a recorded vote means citizens can't even hold their elected representatives accountable.
Some governmental bodies show enthusiasm for the principle of openness; some don't. Some make it easy to watch videos of meetings -- not just of the city council or board of supervisors but also, in some places, of other key groups, such as planning commissions -- by putting them on their Web sites and cable channels. The more, the better.
And what's the role of the press? Freedom of information laws are for the public, not just the press. But because the press employs reporters and editors whose job is keeping an eye on government, it's often the press that demands access to meetings and documents and shares what it learns with the public. It's often the press that files a legal challenge when open government laws are abused, or just pours ink on the issue so citizens see the secrecy, if not the secrets. That often opens the doors.
Plenty of private citizens are on regular duty, too. Some demand action in response to particular events, as the Gloucester Rotary Club did after the supervisors dropped that bomb on Jan. 2. Some show up at every meeting of their city council or board of supervisors, as gadflies in every locality who ask questions that need to be asked. Some get a grip on a particular concern, and won't let go -- such as the couple who blew the top off state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries board and staff members helping themselves to taxpayer dollars for luxuries, and a safari.
Openness. Involvement. Accountability. That's how representative government is supposed to work.
And, as the Gloucester example shows, it's invigorating when it does.
