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Commentary |
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Gilbert Meetings There have been too many meetings of the Gilbert City Council in which an agenda item was obviously a done deal before a meeting even began. Instead of discussion, there was simply the litany of the mayor asking for a motion, then a motion, a second, and a unanimous vote. Or in other cases, important business was never brought to the council table. That style of government is contrary to the spirit of Iowa’s open meetings laws. These laws are enumerated in Chapter 21 of the Iowa Code and begin with a statement of intent. 21.1 This chapter seeks to assure, through a requirement of open meetings of governmental bodies, that the basis and rationale of governmental decisions, as well as those decisions themselves, are easily accessible to the people. Ambiguity in the construction or application of this chapter should be resolved in favor of openness. There are plenty of examples of the Gilbert leaders skirting the open meeting laws. It is no secret that there was a long-standing conflicted relationship between the mayor and city clerk. For the record, the clerk was an officer of the city of Gilbert, and the town had two full-time and one part-time staff members. There is nothing wrong with conflict. My concern has been that the mayor and council were reluctant for so long to find healthy avenues to resolve the conflict. A special council meeting was finally held on January 5, 2002, with an outside facilitator to help the mayor, council, and staff members. The situation improved for a few months. Then at its meeting on July 7, 2002, the council held a review and pressed the clerk to candidly describe her working relationship with the mayor. She said that communication between them was merely via e-mail. She also gave the relationship a failing grade. When asked for his perspective, the mayor declined to comment but asked the council to appoint two persons to meet with him privately. The issue was never again discussed at a council meeting. There is no evidence that Gilbert’s leaders worked in a due-process fashion to resolve the conflict or respond to the concerns of the clerk. Perhaps it was thoughtlessness; on the other hand, it appears that there was an intentional meeting of the minds on the part of the mayor and council members to avoid dealing with the situation, thereby allowing the mayor to continue in an autocratic style, causing hardship for the clerk, and giving her no recourse except to resign on May 5, 2003. The clerk’s last day was to have been May 23, 2003. Instead, on May 19, the mayor and a council member asked her to vacate city hall. According Iowa Code, the city clerk is a municipal officer appointed by the city council. The only way that an officer can be removed is by written order by the body that made the appointment. The Gilbert council never publicly discussed or accepted the clerk’s resignation nor did it authorize her removal from office. There also was neither council discussion nor public notice of the closing of city hall from May 19 through June 2 or of the mayor’s contracting with an Ames agency to staff city hall with a series of part-time interim workers. Although the clerk submitted her resignation on May 5, nothing was said about it until a council member broke the silence at the June 2 meeting. The mayor replied that a part-time temporary person had begun work that afternoon, and the council delegated restaffing discussions to a committee that would meet in private. Later in June, the council discussed outsourcing its financial tasks to an Ames company. However, it did not publicly discuss restaffing until July, and there was essentially no discussion of the issues at the August meetings. Perhaps these silences and delays are the result of thoughtlessness, but it appears that there has been an intentional meeting of the minds on the part of Gilbert’s elected leaders to avoid dealing with these matters promptly, fully, and in the public arena. In July, I began a series of requests to the mayor and council members for public documents. My intent was to learn about the process, basis, and rationale of their various decisions. The mayor has controlled the public records in the absence of a bona fide city clerk, and his few responses have been slow and with questionable due process. The Web site for the Freedom of Information Council at Drake University explains a person’s right to access governmental records. Iowa law assumes that meetings and records are open. Iowans do not have to make a case to attend a governmental meeting or to see a public record. To the contrary, meetings must be open and records must be available for inspection unless the case for closure is specified in law. The Iowa Supreme Court has been adamant on this point, citing, for example, 22.8(3), which notes that most records are open to public inspection, “even though such examinations may cause inconvenience or embarrassment to public officials or others.” The agenda for Gilbert’s August 4 council meeting included a resolution that establishes fees for copies of public records. It was passed in a slick maneuver that included the litany listed above. A visitor could not know that the resolution designates the mayor as controller of the public records. Thoughtlessness? I don’t think so. A meeting of the minds prior to entering the council chambers? Yes. Do Gilbert citizens want elected officials who do the minimum to honor Iowa’s open meetings and records laws or do they want leaders who are proactive in modeling the principles of fair and open democratic government? People who are troubled by Gilbert’s government need to use the court of public opinion and the ballot box to make a change at city hall. They need to write letters to the editor and speak at council meetings. They also need to run for office or recruit good candidates who will diligently honor the spirit of Iowa’s open meetings and records laws. Gilbert’s election will be on Tuesday, November 4. The mayoral seat and three city council positions are on the ballot. Candidates must file papers at city hall by 5 p.m. on Thursday, September 18. The best person to contact for advice and information would be Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman at 382-7211. There is also material at www.gilbertgazette.com, an unofficial Web site for the Gilbert community, and on the bulletin boards at the Gilbert Post Office and Heart of Iowa Cooperative. Note: this opinion piece was originally published as a
letter to the editor in the Ames Tribune on September 8, 2003. |
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