The other day my wife and I embarked on an effort to organize our office. This involved cleaning out file cabinets and installing new and bigger lateral file cabinets. While transferring stuff and piling other stuff into a recycle box we came across an old newspaper of Bruce Smith’s. Just so happens it was folded open to page 4, the Editorials page of the January 25, 2008 issue of the Yakima Valley Business Times. Very interesting. I’ve reprinted it below:
Editorials
Boost “Illegal Meeting” Fine
“We agree with state Rep. Larry Haler (R-Richland) who thinks elected officials who violate the state’s Open Public Meetings Act should be subject to a $1,000 – per-violation fine. The current penalty is a puny $100, which was set in 1971. Haler has introduced legislation in Olympia to boost the penalty and we wish him the best of luck.
Haler is a former Richland mayor and city council member. During a recent meeting with the Tri-City Herald’s editorial board, the second-term legislator admitted that the city council on which he served for several years often violated the act when he was a member.
Haler thinks the practice is widespread and we agree, as do state Auditor Brian Sonntag and state Attorney General Rob McKenna. Sonntag has documents that allege 400 violations over a three-year period. Our guess is you could multiply that number by ten and still fall well short of the amount of abuse that is occurring. Our recent experiences with the Yakima City Council drive home the point that the law is regularly and flagrantly violated.
Public officials need to conduct the public’s business in public. It’s the right thing to do and – oh, by the way, – it’s also the law.
Maybe passage of Haler’s proposal will give pause to the many elected officials and staff members who regularly skirt this important state law.”
Here, here Brucie boy. I’m with you all the way on this one. I’d go a step further and propose an additional $1000 fine on any newspaper publisher that conspires with the open meeting offenders. I offer to go to Olympia with Bruce Smith and in a bi-partisan fashion, lobby for this proposal. How about it Bruce?
WOW! Apparently the research Smith did for his article was a good primer on how to circumvent the Open Public Meetings Act. I am outraged that taxpayer dollars were used to pay Schoenrock’s fees! Why did not the alleged offending city council members pay the $2500 out of their own pockets? If they had done so, it would have been a good message to the citizens of Yakima that they got the message and would avoid the behavior in the future. Oh well, another missed opportunity for Ensey, Coffey, Cawley and Lover to convice the citizens of Yakima that they are working on behalf of all citizens and not just for their own narrow ideological self interests.
Hahahaha…typical. I love it when stuff like that shows up.