Express-Times - "No Chance for Public Comment"

In today's Express-Times JD Malone writes about the Transition Committee Chairman Conrad Bowers and his decision to not allow public comment at Monday's meeting (read the full article here) .

This was also discussed in a post on this site (read the article here) this week.

Malone's article focuses' on Becky Butz's request for Council to define what an "open meeting" will entail. Her request is being made because Bowers did not ask for public comment nor did he allow a question to be asked from the public during the meeting.

Bowers was the lone vote against holding open committee meetings last month. In the article he is reported to have said he doesn't want the public to hear discussions on building security and tenant leases. It should be noted that issues are allowed to be held in executive session for contractual and personnel matters as they are for the workshop and business meetings.

Bowers went on to defend his position of not opening the meeting to public comment because:

"This was the first (open) meeting," Bowers said. "There was nothing to discuss from the former meetings or anything else that I was aware of."

It's rather tough to be aware of things if you don't ask.

Nazareth Borough Solicitor Al Pierce is reported to note that committees are not required to ask or answer questions. Nazareth is currently being sued for violating the Sunshine Law for this position as a result of the closed meetings held this summer.

Malone closes out the article noting Bowers will do what Council wants in regard to public meetings and Butz will be specifically requesting a definition from Council at the January meeting.

There are a few aspects of this that particularly interest me. Mostly though, it is the notion of only doing what you must based on the law and nothing more. Why? There is no harm in having an open meeting with public comment. Some committees simply discuss the issues in a fairly casual manner - and it works because maybe five people including the committee members are there. So what is the benefit of only wanting to do what is minimally required by law? I hope guidance given by Council in regard to Butz's request is a minimum requirement for committees to follow and am fairly certain that most will have no problem with it.