Responsibility
At last night's meeting a resident brought to the forefront a very important issue - the proper submittal and approval of minutes from Council meetings which are handled by the Clerk's office. Her point was well made - the Council has not received and approved minutes in many months. There is simply no excuse for this error on the Council's part. As Council President I accept full responsibility for not dealing with this matter sooner and intend to mend the situation by the November meeting.
Background
The Clerk's office is the hub of the City and is responsible for a myriad of responsibilities. It serves as the licensing bureau for the entire City, dealing with chauffeurs (i.e. limo/taxi licenses) and establishments with alcoholic beverage control licenses among others. It is also charged with overseeing local elections and maintaining public documents. It is responsible for research of and response to all City OPRA requests which can require many hours of effort at any given time. In addition, this office bears the extra weight of working with the Council to pull together agenda items, write resolutions, update the City's code book and keep minutes of Council meetings.
Following last year's budget cuts, the Clerk's office suffered severely with the loss of 4 long-time employees that were either laid off or displaced from the office. For the past 15 years, a consultant wrote and submitted minutes to the Council. The memorandum of understanding signed by the City in exchange for receipt of state extraordinary aide prevented the reinstatement of that consultant. Low on staff, the Clerk's office has been unable to submit proper minutes to the Council for many months. Thus, the Council has not had minutes to approve for many months. While this is not the way to conduct government business, to my knowledge there has been no request by the public of Council documentation that has gone unanswered.
Plan
This situation is completely unacceptable and must be rectified as soon as possible. I will be recommending to the Council that we hire a consultant to do the following:
1) Immediately write and submit for approval bare bones minutes.
According to state statute, minutes are only required to reflect the time that the meeting opened and closed, who was in attendance, items that were discussed, and a record of the votes. In the past our minutes have reflected more detail and included statements from Councilors on why they voted as they did. In order to meet our legal requirement as soon as possible, we should move quickly to meet the minimum.
2) Amend basic minutes to add details
Once we meet the minimum, we should amend these minutes to reflect the dialogue and statements made by Council. Although this is not required by law, in the interest of transparency it is important to include the reasoning for decisions made. This is beneficial not only for the public who can better understand the often complex nature of our decisions, but also for future Councils that may rely on minutes to understand why decisions with long term impact were made.
3) Require the consultant to maintain a complete log of minutes going forward
This is not a position that we should be in ever again. Minutes should be submitted for approval at each Regular Business Meeting so that we stay up-to-date.
Neither the situation nor the solution is ideal. However, I believe that the entire Council will support this effort and that this matter will be adequately addressed by the next meeting. In the meantime, videotape of all public meetings continue to remain available in the Clerk's office for viewing by any resident. In addition, minutes of Committee meetings that have been submitted are also available in the Clerk's office. These minutes often reflect a deeper level discussion of items that are eventually brought to agenda fixing sessions.
I will provide a status of this matter at the next Agenda Fixing meeting.
**I will be blogging about the budget shortly.
.
10 comments:
Please toss in the various boards and entities whose meeting schedules are posted on the City website. I OPRAd a request for minutes from all Plainfield Action Services meetings since July '09, which should be about eight meetings. The Clerk's office told me there were no minutes, and wasn't sure if there had been meetings, or if there were, whether there was a quorom or not. That's like a stone wall being put up in your face, or an indication of gross mismanagement, or both.
As you wrote, "This is beneficial not only for the public who can better understand the often complex nature of our decisions, but also for future Councils that may rely on minutes to understand why decisions with long term impact were made."
You know the reason for my request, that funds from Barack Obama's stimulus package intended to provide those in poverty with the means to self-sufficiency not be used to provide a deceitful windfall profit to a former Councilman's family. At least have the minutes from the PAS meetings to refute my contention, which, I might add, I stand by regardless of the silence and obfuscation on the part of the city and its 'friends' at DCA.
If you're really interested in a 'deeper level of discussion', one that has a 'long-term' and beneficial 'impact' on Plainfield, you've got to release the vacuum of secrecy. Minutes are just words. Open up Council committee meetings so the public can hear the logic and thought process instead of just the pronouncements that mark the regular meetings. And insist that city government not operate as its own special interest, skirting both the spirit and letter of the law.
It's hours of work, not minutes.
Alan,
Thank you for your comment.
With regards to Resolution awarding a contract to the Incubator for job training, all members of the Council are aware of your concerns. In fact, several spoke with the City Administrator and Corporation Counsel on this matter. As you know, DCA - the authority on this matter has found both the process and the decision to grant the contract to be completely legal. While I understand your concerns, the bottom line is that the Council cannot pull back an award if there is no legal reason to. There is process behind all of this that we must adhere to.
With regards to PAS minutes, I know that PAS has had difficulty reaching a quorum nearly all year. There simply may not be minutes because they have not met. I will follow up on this matter with the appropriate individuals and get back to you.
As you know, committee meetings are not public meetings. If you are interested in discussions being held in committee meetings, you can look into minutes available in the Clerk's office. Additionally there is nothing stopping you from speaking with your representatives individually and just asking. You would be surprised by how rarely that happens and by how eager we all are to share our thoughts.
Thanks,
Annie
Dear Councilwoman McWilliams,
Thanks so much for listening to the Minutes concern. I look forward to learn more about the city official business through the Minutes in the near future. Your decision to resolve this matter will benefit many who lack the time to attend council meetings.
Not to change the importance of properly thanking you for your efforts I could not help but wonder after reading Mr. Goldstein's comment about the council's decision to hold the council's committees meetings closed to the public. It will be appreciated if you could share why was this decision made and if there is any thoughts on opening these meetings to the public.
Thanks again for listening to the Minutes concern and I look forward to read here your response to why council committees' meetings are closed to the public.
Sincerely,
Maria Pellum
Annie,
The point of law is clear:
N.J.S.A. 34:15C-10.2
"No training provider who is not an approved training provider included on the State Eligible Training Provider List shall receive any federal job training funds or State job training funds."
DCA may have given the city a pass to violate the law, but that wouldn't be beyond imagination knowing the state. To boot, although you've reached an understanding of some sort with DCA, DCA wouldn't say what it is that is understood, nor have any of my three representatives on the Council bothered to explain it either despite my concern. The City Administrator too hasn't returned phone calls. The point is, if it was worth understanding it would be worth explaining. That it hasn't been speaks volumes.
There's plenty of smoke here. If I'm right or I'm wrong, I'll be the first to admit it. But if you want to be the chief, put out the fire, whichever way it is. Don't patronize me with a simple "it's completely legal". If there's an explanation, let's hear it. Otherwise we ALL should assume this business about transparency is for show, and Plainfield and the American taxpayer are being ripped off for $270,000.
I've told Plainfield why it is illegal. You tell Plainfield why it is legal.
Maria,
Committee meetings give Council a chance to discuss key issues that may involve personnel, public safety or contract matters that are not appropriate for public consumption. I am not opposed to these meetings being open to the public when applicable, but that is not always the case. This is something I'm happy to entertain a discussion on with Committee Chairs who would have to agree to this.
I believe that part of your concern is that some information or rationale behind legislative decisions is being hidden. That's simply not the case. In fact, part of why our meetings last so long is because we discuss, at length, the pros and cons of each piece of legislation.
I believe that the Council has been very transparent this year. I have no problem admitting when mistakes are made, but I am a naturally open person and believe that characteristic shines through during meetings. If there are particular pieces of legislation that you want more background information about or seek to question the rationale, please use public comment at Council meetings for that. You can also simply pick up the phone and call Councilors. I have had many phone conversations, exchanged many emails (even facebook messages!) with residents on different issues. There is no time limit on these discussions. While I think it's very important that the public require minutes, seek video footage and attend meetings to hear the Council's discussions, its even more important that residents pick up the phone and call. One on one conversations allow elected officials to address the individual concerns of residents.
Alan,
You make an excellent case. It was so strong that I reached out to the City Administrator and Corp Counsel immediately after hearing your concerns and asked for an explanation. The Administration advised that these funds are excluded from Federal and State Workforce laws. This was backed up by DCA. I will inquire again with the Administration.
Thanks,
Annie
Councilwoman McWilliams,
I appreciate your response and I agree that for some the best way to address "individual concerns" with our elected officials is through personal interaction with the council. What I at this point feel is that perhaps Minutes are being viewed as my "individual concern". They are not, Minutes are mandated for a reason by law and this is so the community in general can access them. This is then a "community concern" raised by an individual. It is concerning to see the lack of understanding of what Minutes are and why they are needed.
As for the committees and what you believe the reasons for my question are, please let me clarify:
As an advocate for transparency I basically would like to know who is meeting, when are you meeting, and if Minutes are available to the public (Minutes were not available at the Clerk's Office this morning). What legislation, personnel, city official business and all of what you mentioned gets to be in those Minutes, or at least the agenda, is what will really tell the community how transparent our government is today. The question was quite simple: How it was decided to have committees' meetings behind doors. I hope this clarifies what my question was. Furthermore, if I understood your comment well, general concerns will be more appropriate at council meetings. Thanks for the clarification, I will keep that on mind.
Thanks.
Maria Pellum
For the record- the Administration and DCA are wrong.
The Workforce Investment Act (US Code Title 29) Section 121 (b) (1) (B) (x) expressly includes "employment and training activities carried out under the Community Services Block Grant Act".
Additionally, there is a question of the validity of a proposal and contract signed by an individual under the title 'President' when the State's business registration indicates that another individual is actually the president.
Maria,
I do not, at all, believe that minutes are your individual concern. Those are a statutory requirement and should be a very important concern to the entire public. When I mentioned individual concerns I was speaking about the individual concerns residents may have that never ask and so never get an answer. I'm sorry for the confusion - I would never be so rude in making your request seem trivial, especially when it isn’t!
Committee minutes are supposed to be made available in the Clerk's office. I ask for them at every meeting from Committee Chairs.
I don't know if there was a "decision made" to make committee meetings non-public. It's just a common practice that suits the sensitive nature of our discussions. The committee structure that we have this year is new because there are fewer committees (only 4 as opposed to 7 or 8 in previous years). The Council has had committees for many years but I don't believe they have ever been advertised as public meetings. I would have to check with the Clerk on that. I guess to answer your question - I would have to see what the Clerk knows of the history of committee meetings, whether they were ever public and if so, whether she can recall the reason a change was made.
I hope that answers at least some of your questions. I will follow up later.
Annie
thats right! vote councilwoman annie mcwilliams out of office! she stands up for whats right and takes responsibility when shes wrong! i dont want her representing me!
Post a Comment