By John Estridge
Brookville Town Council unanimously shut down active public participation at its meetings for the foreseeable future.
The vote was taken after a recommendation from new council member Brooke Leffingwell; she made the suggestion at the Tuesday, January 12 meeting. She wants all questions from the public to be put in writing by the end of business on Mondays on the same week as council meetings so council members can research answers before the Tuesday night meetings.
Unfortunately, for the public, BTC’s agenda for its meetings is not made public until the afternoon of the scheduled meeting, so the public will not know what is going to be discussed at meetings before they prepare their questions. Also, media members and others have always been allowed to ask clarification questions near the meeting’s end.
That also will be eliminated.
The Franklin County Observer reporter Bridget Hayes asked those clarifying questions at the January 12 meeting before the meeting ended. An example of a clarifying question was council members voted for contracts, one for $784,125 for O’Mara. However, council members did not mention the amounts or who the contractors are when they voted on the various contracts before them. After council members were done with their business, Hayes asked her list of clarification questions including the one about that contract votes.
When all of her questions were answered, which will no longer occur during meetings, she lamented the council members’ decision on not allowing questions.
“Obviously, a public meeting normally encourages the public and citizens of the town to interact with the public officials they just voted for,” Hayes said. “So, the fact you guys have shut down any questions obviously is going impact the media because we can’t ask questions about anything you guys have talked about during the meeting, which is unfortunate. I also think it’s going to increase the public discord.”
Newly elected council member Chuck Campbell said the reason for the change is because with annexation-based questions, council members did not have time to do the research on the questions to give answers.
BTC President Curtis Ward explained in the state’s Open Door Law where public meetings are open to the public, but the public does not have the right to make comments or ask questions during the meeting.
Prior to this change, BTC, as most if not all the governmental entities in Franklin and Union counties, has always allowed the public, including media members, to ask questions near the end of the meeting.
That is illegal. They can not do that doesn’t anyone know how to reach them ?
They are most likely democrats. And this is how they do business. They decide. Not the public. You now, have no voice either.