TAKING A STAND FOR OPENNESS

Hooray for Toni Atkins and Donna Frye

Editorial by John Hollon, San Diego Business Journal

March 9, 2004 - Last week, these two San Diego City Council members finally got fed up with the never-ending string of closed council sessions and decided to do something about it. So, they boycotted morning and afternoon secret sessions of the City Council on March 9 in a show of displeasure over what has become an all-too-common practice of shutting the public out of the debate at City Hall.

There's a culture of secrecy in our City Council, and it was wonderfully refreshing to see two council members finally say, "Enough!"

Donna Frye said it best:

"The public's impression is that we're constantly meeting in closed sessions, hiding things from them," she told one newspaper. "I'm tired of it."

Although we run the risk of incurring the wrath of the ACLU, we say, amen to that.

As we have pointed out before, the council is all too eager to go into closed session. Frequently, even the council members don't know exactly why they are going behind closed doors, only that the city attorney tells them they should be doing it - so they do.

Mayor Dick Murphy says that according to the city attorney, the council has been following the law - the Ralph M. Brown Act, California's open-meetings law - and we don't disagree with that assessment.

Our problem is with the almost cavalier way the City Council routinely cuts the public out of the debate - as the City Council has done with the Chargers' negotiations, the settlement with the ACLU over the Boys Scouts lease at Balboa Park, and a host of other issues.

We also wonder: Where is Executive City Attorney Leslie Devaney's voice in this? Didn't she run her primary election campaign for city attorney on openness and the need to limit closed council sessions? As the San Diego Union-Tribune said in a story last month, "Even in instances where the council legally can meet in private, Devaney said she would advise it to meet in public, except in very limited circumstances."

Where is Devaney's advice now? If she truly wants to beat Mike Aguirre - a guy who has actually put his money where his mouth is and filed suit against the county Board of Supervisors for an alleged violation of the state open-meetings act - and become San Diego's next city attorney, she better not swallow her tongue now.

But that's just a side issue here. The real focus should be on how the City Council routinely goes into closed session before and after the public sessions on Tuesday.

"It's got to change and I think the people want it to change," Toni Atkins said. "It's got to be a cultural change at the city."

We agree completely. Perhaps it will change only with a committed open meetings advocate like Mike Aguirre as city attorney, or, with a changing of the guard in some of the council seats down at City Hall, but the public must be allowed to see and hear their elected representatives at work. Closing the doors to the public - even if completely legal - should be severely limited and reserved for only the most exceptional of circumstances.

Open meetings are at the heart of our system of government. They're good for the public, good for business, and good for democracy. We cheer council members Atkins and Frye for their stand on this, and for adding their voices to the growing debate over the chronic and ongoing misuse of the state's public meetings law by the San Diego City Council.

We hope they will continue to stand and fight for the public's right to know. We also hope they can convince some of their council colleagues to re-examine their positions, to consider the larger good, and to stop doing so much of the public's business behind closed doors.

-- John Hollon