Item Number 2 on the Oro Valley Town Council Agenda this Wednesday is a discussion of a change from synopsis minutes to summary minutes. This item is being proposed by Mayor Hiremath and Appointed Council Member and 2012 Council Candidate Steve Solomon. Their proposal is based on the alleged fact that this change will save the town money.
We believe that this change will not save the town money; rather, this change will substantially reduce the transparency of government in Oro Valley. (We have previously blogged on this item.)
The continuance of this discussion from the last meeting happened because no council person had ever seen summary minutes. They had no idea what they were discussing.
This week's agenda item includes and example of July 20 minutes: Attachment C is synopsis minutes as filed; Attachment B is the summary minute example.
The difference between these two minute forms is striking. In one, the synopsis minutes, the reader gets the "flavor" of the discussion that occurred on second agenda item, an Archery Range on the Naranja town site: 488 words, 14 paragraphs. We can read who spoke and of what they spoke. In the second, summary minutes, there is no discussion. We are told who spoke but not which council members spoke. We have no idea of what they spoke. In both, there is the motion that was voted.
In other words, summary minutes are worthless. Synopsis minutes have some value.
If summary minutes had been taken at this July 20 meeting, the only way one can find out what happened is to go back to the video of the meeting. That's assuming, of course, that the video/audio system did not fail as it did at the last council meeting.
The video we got is on the left. We watched this screen for 8 minutes.
That's right: 8 minutes just to start watching it; and I have a high-speed cable connection!
Finally, I got to spend the next 24 minutes watching the details of this discussion.
Watching the video, I learned absolutely nothing of interest that wasn't in the synoposis minutes. I learned a lot more than was in the summary minutes, since there was nothing in the summary minutes.
It took me 31 minutes to learn what i would have learned in reading the synopsis minutes in 1 minute.
I'm a persistent guy. I stuck with it. I doubt that the average resident would ever be willing to invest the time or even have the techology ability to locate, watch and listen to the video.
It is alleged by Mayor Hiremath and Appointed Council Member and 20112 Council Candidate Steve Solomon that the move to summary minutes will reduce cost. Which town employee is going to be dismissed? Our guess is that no one will be dismissed.
Nothing will be gained.
Transparency will be lost.
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8 comments:
Personal responsibility.
There are three ways you can see and hear every word of the Town Council meeting. You can go to it. You can watch it live. Or you can see it at your convenience afterward.
I view this topic as much to do about nothing. How much easier do you want it to be?
Your argument that the system failed once a week ago is like a drop of water in the ocean. Systems fail from time to time. It's not the end of the earth.
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Hello Thinker,
We will respectfully disagree on this.
When it takes 30 times longer for an interested citizen,like me, to get information about what happened at a Council or Commission meeting, then it is a big deal.
It is a reduction in the ability to gain access and insight into the key decisions our leaders make.
There is no benefit to moving to this new minutes format regardless of what its proponents contend.
On the contrary, it is merely an added impediment to free disclosure. Thus, it is a reduction in transparency.
Zeeman....You made my point. The only reduction according to your comment is 30 minutes.
How do you relate 30 minutes (a time measurement) to:
"It is a reduction in the ability to gain access and insight into the key decisions our leaders make."
and
"it is merely an added impediment to free disclosure. Thus, it is a reduction in transparency."
Just add one word:
It is a reduction in the ability to gain EASY access and insight into the key decisions our leaders make.
It takes much less time to peruse detailed minutes of a meeting and to use a highlighter to mark the areas of interest than it does to watch a video and have to keep stopping it and starting it again in order to write down verbatim what someone has said.
I've done both and I know the difference in how much time and effort it takes.
Zee Man & Victorian Cowgirl - I agree totally. I've spent hours jotting down what's been said at some of the 3 hr council mtgs.
What about the large population of elderly who don't have computers? They can't sit watching for hrs on the libbrary computer.
And what if you want to print the mins to read at work on your lunch hr? Or use it to prepare a speech so we don't annoy people with our stupidity at public meetings?
And how do you search for an item that you're trying to find years later when you don't know the date? For example, I found out that 7-I was denied a Gen Plan amendment back in 2005-06 time frame by a word search. You can't do that w/ video.
(side note: why didn't zoning do the research on 7-I before telling applicant that it was only a clarification & why didn't zoning commission remember reviewing this previously? Seems like this should have been shot down long before it got to TC. Talk about a waste of time.)
Don Cox (Objective Thinker), you responded to the Zeeman:
“Your (Zeeman) argument that the system failed once a week ago is like a drop of water in the ocean. Systems fail from time to time. It's not the end of the earth”.
Don, although it’s not the fault of the current council, you should know that the Town Clerk’s Office, the caretaker of the Town’s Council Minutes has failed in the past to properly keep and label Town records before the advent of the video recordings. Failure to keep correct records can be crucial to research for citizens to know what past precedence occurred on a zoning change.
Of course, you will dismiss my comment as just another drop of water in the ocean!
For example, Shirl Lamonna, made this crucial comment on the Love Blog about the 7-I parcel when discussing rezoning from commercial to HDR for building apartments on 7-I parcel. She was trying to show that prior councils had turned down rezoning requests
“Of interest: Town Council came to the same conclusion in 2004 when they denied WLB Group’s request, on behalf of Vistoso Partners, to amend the 1996 General Plan to change a 14 acre portion of Parcel 7-I from Community Commercial to Medium High Density Residential”.
Shirl got that information doing an archive search on the Town Web Site. It was difficult to find the correct data. The search screen said it was the Town Minutes from 06/16/2005. However when she opened those Town Minutes it was labeled 06/16/2004. Of course, this was an accidental mislabeling (???) of the Town Minutes on a subject that she was trying to search to find previous zoning requests on the parcel 7-I.
Total coincidence of course that the mis-labeling occurred on that particular record that was critical to her argument out of the hundreds of records stored on the computer!
Guess it’s not the end of the earth!
John Musolf
Don Cox (Objective Thinker), you responded to the Zeeman:
“Your (Zeeman) argument that the system failed once a week ago is like a drop of water in the ocean. Systems fail from time to time. It's not the end of the earth”.
Don, although it’s not the fault of the current council, you should know that the Town Clerk’s Office, the caretaker of the Town’s Council Minutes has failed in the past to properly keep and label Town records before the advent of the video recordings. Failure to keep correct records can be crucial to research for citizens to know what past precedence occurred on a zoning change.
Of course, you will dismiss my comment as just another drop of water in the ocean!
For example, Shirl Lamonna, made this crucial comment on the Love Blog about the 7-I parcel when discussing rezoning from commercial to HDR for building apartments on 7-I parcel.
“Of interest: Town Council came to the same conclusion in 2004 when they denied WLB Group’s request, on behalf of Vistoso Partners, to amend the 1996 General Plan to change a 14 acre portion of Parcel 7-I from Community Commercial to Medium High Density Residential”.
Shirl got that information doing an archive search on the Town Web Site. It was difficult to find the correct data. The search screen said it was the Town Minutes from 06/16/2005. However when she opened those Town Minutes it was labeled 06/16/2004. Of course, this was an accidental mislabeling (???) of the Town Minutes on a subject that she was trying to search to find previous zoning requests on the parcel 7-I. Total coincidence of course that the mis-labeling occurred on that particular record that was critical to her argument out of the hundreds of records stored on the computer!
As you said Don: “Guess it’s not the end of the earth”!
John Musolf
John..... You are 100% correct. It's another drop.
But your inference that the error may have been intentional, is a bit farfetched.
"Of course, this was an accidental mislabeling (???) of the Town Minutes on a subject that she was trying to search to find previous zoning requests on the parcel 7-I. Total coincidence of course that the mis-labeling occurred on that particular record that was critical to her argument out of the hundreds of records stored on the computer!"
That's some conspiracy theory.
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