The issue over minutes taken at Northampton meetings
To the editor:
As a former reporter who has dealt extensively with towns that did not follow either the letter or the spirit of the open meeting law, I was pleased to see this story about minutes of executive sessions of city council meetings. Northampton needs to give its citizens insight into how decisions are made.
However, the quote from Michael Bardsley: "I was surprised that the minutes were so devoid of content." is disingenuous at best.
The city council votes to approve all minutes, including executive session minutes.
I assume that he reads the minutes before he votes to approve them, so I don't know how this could possibly come as a surprise to him.
If he is a big proponent of transparency, why has he never spoken out about this in 16 years on the council, or why did he approve the minutes?
I also wonder why Bardsley was the only councilor quoted for the story, especially without mentioning that he is running for mayor.
Valle Dwight
Florence
Comments
Transparency/Northampton City Govt
On this one occasion, the notes for the City Council meeting as published were much more sparse than they typically are for other meetings. Mr. Bardsley questioned why this was the case for this particular meeting when it is not the case for other meetings. I fail to understand what is disingenuous about that. The fact that the more expansive notes that WERE taken weren't published and further, were SHREDDED at the behest of City Solicitor Janet Shepard, is worthy of inquiry. That is exactly what Mr. Bardsley did.
I do agree with Ms Valle, however, on her point that the story could have mentioned that Mr. Bardsley is running for Mayor. It would be nice to know what options the city has in upcoming elections for moving our city in a new direction, towards transparency, and moving away from the good-ole-boy/[girl] network. Although that was hardly the point of this story.
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