7/18/2006 4:00:00 AM Bottom line: Upper Verde meeting broke law
By TIM WIEDERAENDERS Courier Managing Editor
I listened intently this past week to what several of our local, elected officials had to say in the wake of our Thursday lead article, "Coalition violates agreement; also broke state law."
To bring you up to speed, the first meeting of the Upper Verde River Watershed Protection Coalition on Wednesday violated the coalition's own intergovernmental agreement and, in turn, also violated state law.
The officials said Prescott's posting notice of the meeting at City Hall and on its Web site should have been good enough.
No, not according to the IGA that each of the five entities' elected governing bodies adopted. The five are Prescott, Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, Yavapai County and Dewey-Humboldt.
Their own IGA, folks, says the group's business "will be conducted in accordance with the Arizona Open Meeting Laws. (and) Each respective coalition member shall post meeting notices and agendas"
Prescott's posting stood only for Prescott officials, according to the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona. By the way, the posting did not include an agenda.
Simply put: These officials must not be reading what they're adopting or voting on or they made a mistake. The IGA calls for posting at all of the five; a check by a Courier reporter showed four of the municipal and county governments did not post any agenda or notice on the Internet or at their offices.
Now, to understand how I can be so bold to say these officials must not be reading their IGAs, consider that in the articles we published Thursday the officials at the Wednesday meeting were asking for transparency in the process.
That means they want the public to know everything they're doing. (Applause.)
It does not mean, as was one official's assumption, we think they're trying to hide something.
Frankly, before we brought the Open Meeting Law violation to their attention, they said they want the coalition's work to be open.
That tells me the answer is they made a mistake. They did not double-check the language of the IGA, or assumed someone else was taking care of the postings.
This leads me to believe we have very well-intentioned people serving us as elected officials. They just miss an occasional fine point.
Now, the bottom line: That's all a good excuse. However, if they want everything to be open and to appear honest, they need to follow through on their promises including the finer points.
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PARTING SHOT One of the local officials tried to explain away the violation as the efforts of journalists just "trying to sell newspapers." Wrong, we're performing one of the important tenets of journalism, being the watchdog.
