Jim and everyone else would bee right in seriously damning the secrecy surrounding this task force. It won't necessarily render its recommendations invalid since it's not a policy panel. But the credibility of any public body meeting in secret is shattered by the secrecy alone.
What could possibly be said in any meeting of this task force so sensitive as to be "uncomfortable" enough for any of its members as to remain secret? If proprietary business data is at issue here, then put that data in confidential folders and hold the meetings in public. Otherwise there is nothing I can think of that can't be heard by the general public, especially those of us who believe a smoking ban to be as imperative as public education and housing and public safety. We're also not yet at any stage of legal privilege, so that has no validity in an argument for secrecy. I want to know if tobacco lobbyists are able to sit in on these meetings and spout their stuff. They are not stakeholders in this. Neither are labor unions who may urge votes against the best interests of their own membership. The economics of any smoking ban can never supplant the public health concerns of the public at-large. Let's get something very straight here: no entity - no business, no company, no special interest whatsoever - has any greater a stake in the outcome of these deliberations than any member of the public, possibly less so. The data that should be used for this discussion is available everywhere. It merely takes some brief surfing to get at it. If there is data no one else has access to, then it should have no part in public policymaking. The progressives on the City Council, especially, should be ashamed of themselves. I expect politicos on the right to support secrecy - not liberals and progressives who hammer regularly on establishment policymakers to open up their process. I now call on the Mayor and Council to retreat from kowtowing to the small minority of opponents to this critical measure and immediately open the windows on the meetings and paperwork of the smoking ban task force. Any compromises here will really smell - and create more legal issues for the City than if a comprehensive, nondiscriminatory, non-selective ban is invoked - now! Andy Driscoll Saint Paul -- on 7/10/04 6:58 PM, Jim Bernstein wrote: > I find it very ironic that a task force appointed by our city council to > draft an ordinance to control smoke filled rooms engages in smoke filled > room policy making because they afraid of that the public might hear > what they are saying. > > Thanks to Scott Russell's reporting in the current issue of the SOUHWEST > JOURNAL, we discover that the task force appointed by the city council > to draft a smoke free ordinance is meeting in secret! An issue which > has attracted a great deal of public attention and the answer is to make > public policy in secret? What the heck is going on in the this city > when the solution to a controversial proposal has to be drafted in > secret? [snip] > I happen to support a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants; even if > the task force chooses that route however, the stench from their process > smells so bad that it will render their recommendations useless. The > public cannot trust the results from a process that is terrified of what > the public might think if they were allowed to observe that process. > > Jim Bernstein > Fulton REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
