Open Session, Friday

August 7, 2009

Open Session, Friday

Filed under: Open Session — mary @ 11:15 am

Nice to have a rainy day. Any thoughts, comments, questions as we start into another weekend?

Comments (11)

11 Comments

Y’know I just learned how to make a good Pina Colada. It had durned well better be hot tomorrow.

Comment by Wallypog — August 7, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
Word is Minnick is avoiding in person town hall meetings. See http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=52100

Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), whose district encompasses nearly one-third of the large western state, held a tele-town hall meeting with reporters and constituents July 24, saying it provides him with immediate feedback while in Washington.

“These ‘virtual’ town hall meetings have been a very useful way to get immediate feedback from my constituents when my work as a Congressman keeps me from being home in Idaho,” Minnick said in a statement announcing the event.

Comment by Pariah — August 7, 2009 @ 8:07 pm
I just happened to catch the city council meeting on Cable this Friday evening for 08-04 where the mayor was twitching and the attorney for the city – Gridley – explained the exemptions of public law disclosures as “some things.”

Kennedy is a wuss and gave us this great remedy that if the law is clarified and the city is right, then we can settle it with a beer, like in “beer summit.” The “guy” would be setting some sort of precedence by going to court over this so the city of CDA could spend more of our tax dollars by being stupid for a BEER!

Edinger is calling it an elections year publicity stunt and Bloem hides behind the fact that the public really does hate them that much, but the city cannot possibly violate the law by releasing first names because they have the cities’ legal opinion (Gridley) who states that “some things” are exempt. Their liability is over 300 city employee’s would sue. What dumb lawyer would take those cases? They gotta be kidding.

The city is also blaming it on the legislature because they are too damn dumh to get it. Title 9 340 C is very clear. That is the problem, they don’t like it so they invent all these smokescreens to hide behind their secrecy to justify their defense by FORCING a lawsuit – on our dime.

Kennedy’s beer summit quote is priceless. I wish I had a recording – it is almost Saturday Night Live, but it’s not – it’s our city government!

You can count on it. Hoffman is going to sue.

Comment by Stebbijo — August 7, 2009 @ 9:27 pm
In an effort to be more diplomatic and respectable (while a knife is stuck in my back), I would like to take back my reference to Kennedy as a “wuss.” In other terms, Kennedy is a man who appears to lack backbone and appears weak and timid while he humors us with his shortcomings by proposing a beer summit to settle a very delicate matter that the city has stepped into and they are up to their necks in it. He writes all over the other “gossip blog” that he opts for disclosure of the city first names with their salaries, but then swallows his own words and hides behind the Mayor’s shirt collar appearing cowered and shallow. I want my vote back.

Comment by Stebbijo — August 8, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
Concerning Gov’t run healthcare and Obama wanting to have socialized medicine in this country.I believe it will bankrupt the country, even though I’d probably benefit from it.
California couldn’t take care of all the illegals who needed healthcare,
without going bankrupt.So,I’m against
it passing.Another reason I am not for gov’t run healthcare is my dad who had a 5/bypass surgery last summer, could have been deemed too old and his quality of life too diminished had this gov’t run healthcare been in place.The gov’t should never be in the business of selectively,picking who gets to live or die when waiting for critically needed surgery.

If Gov’t run healthcare or socialized medicine ever gets passed, it will be almost impossible to get rid of it, so it must be defeated right now.All across the country alot of seniors are against it and they are the ones who will defeat it IMO.

Comment by kageman — August 9, 2009 @ 3:27 pm
I know that Bill and Gary are follwoing the OML.

I found this link on some issues regarding the OML ect.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/531/story/849862.html

What is all of this? I guess we are included in this mess, somehow.

Thanks.

Comment by Stebbijo — August 9, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
Stebbijo,

This is a Texas Open Meeting Act case, Rangra v. Brown. In the case, two Alpine City Council members were prosecuted under the Texas Open Meetings Act for exchanging e-mail messages about the time and content of a meeting. Rangra and another council member at the time were briefly indicted in 2005 over an e-mail exchange discussing engineering firms the council was considering hiring to fix a local water problem. Because two other council member were copied on the e-mails, a quorum of the council was in on a discussion of public business without proper public notification. Council members were accused of violating a provision of the Texas Open Meetings Act that requires all deliberations and actions of government officials to be taken with a quorum in a public meeting. In response, they brought a lawsuit against the state of Texas arguing that the law violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment.

On April 27, a panel of the Fifth Circuit held that the Texas Open Meetings Act potentially restricted the free speech rights of elected officials and thus was subject to a heightened constitutional standard of review.

The state attorneys general in the article have joined the State of Texas and asked the full court of the Fifth Circuit to reconsider the case. Essentially, they want the federal court to uphold the Texas state court’s original decision that the email exchange between a quorum of Alpine council members did violate the Texas Open Meeting Act. The entire Fifth Circuit court has agreed to review it. That’s where it stands now.

Comment by Bill — August 10, 2009 @ 6:54 am
Thanks Bill. I hope it goes the right way.

I just want to also chime in and let you all know that I called the city clerk and requested the information that Hoffman sent ect.

I talked with her and she sounded like a very nice person. She told me she did not send the Sim’s letter to the other blog. However, she was required to send it to three other folks – the city administrator, the city attorney, and the candidate because it was a complaint, so how it got on the other blog is anyone’s guess. We did agree, that Sim’ information is not confidential. My concern is that our city professionals (not Susan) is forwarding this information as newsworthy to the other news sources for political reasons. It really is dirty politics. So, after talking with her, I apologized, if I made any reference to her that was not very nice.

I hope Gridely acts in the best interests of the people in CDA by disclosing the names to Hoffman. And if he does, I will apologize to him, too.

I hope to receive the information I asked for soon, if this doesn’t all blow up in my face.

Comment by Stebbijo — August 10, 2009 @ 3:42 pm
I posted the email chain of Hoffman and the city over on my site if you are interested in reading it. I think this may be a grudge match and the city is going to pay for it – us.

Comment by Stebbijo — August 11, 2009 @ 7:54 am
I have the rest of it, including the list Hoffman received.

Comment by Stebbijo — August 11, 2009 @ 10:19 am
I thought that Gridley works for the city and city council. The post about the 8-04 city council meetings seems to reveal they don’t overule him since he has taken a position and spoken on the matter. Not one of them has the backbone to go out on a limb, state thier position, and stick with it. If they can default to Gridley they’ll say nothing more on it but a song and a dance.

Leaders – I think NOT!

Comment by Appalled — August 13, 2009 @ 10:28 am

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