Carroll County Times Editorial for Sunday, July 20, 2008: Westminster shutting out the public

Carroll County Times Editorial for Sunday, July 20, 2008: Westminster shutting out the public

http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2008/07/22/news/opinion/editorial/editorial572.txt

Last week's aborted attempt by Westminster officials to circumvent the bidding process for a multi-million dollar roadwork contract was just the latest in a string of questionable actions that should have residents concerned about how their government is being run and whether the city is fiscally sound.

In May, the city advertised as required by law that it would not be lowering the tax rate to maintain a constant yield with rising revenue. As tax and assessment revenues increase, the state says that governments should lower the tax rate to maintain a constant yield. If they don't, they have to advertise the defacto tax increase.

Most municipalities don't decrease taxes, so Westminster not doing so wasn't unusual. What was unusual, however, was that city officials could provide no expense numbers prior to the May constant yield hearing, and they could not explain how they knew they would need additional tax revenue if they didn't have the expense numbers.

To further muddy the picture, the city then produced a "narrative" budget, touting it as easier to follow and good for residents. The narrative, however, did not include a breakdown of revenues and expenses.

Not surprisingly, with no real numbers and scant facts on expenses and revenues available, few people attended the constant yield hearing.

Weeks later, after not holding a public hearing on the budget, and with little discussion of the budget in open sessions, the council approved the current fiscal year's budget.

Officials never could explain why they didn't want to hold a public hearing.

Given the lack of open discussion, as well as the unavailability of real budget numbers, residents may be concerned that either their council voted on something they had no real knowledge of, or the council talked secretly - and illegally - outside public meetings to hash out the details and hid that from residents.

Last week, the city announced it would be firing several employees and consolidating some positions in an effort to save money. The week before, the city had to hold an emergency meeting in order to give the mayor the authority to sign for a $3.5 million loan for road projects. Originally city officials planned to circumvent the bidding process and give the contract to C.J. Miller. But last week they thought better of ignoring the city charter on putting contracts out to bid and removed the rubber stamp approval from the constent agenda.

Juggling the intricacies of a municipal government can be challenging for anyone, and there are sure to be missteps along the way. But what has emerged in Westminster since the beginning of this year's budget process is more than a few simple missteps and more closely resembles a concerted effort to hide the city's finances from public view.

The mayor and council need to return to the basic concept of doing public business at public meetings. They need to stop treating the public as intruders, and they need make a full accounting of the city's finances and why they have thrown up so many barriers to public participation in the budget process this year.

20080720 Carroll County Times Westminster shutting out the public

20080611 Carroll County Times editorial: No agenda is sign of poor government

Carroll County Times editorial: No agenda is sign of poor government

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

No agenda is sign of poor government

People often complain that governments have hidden agendas.

Unfortunately, some Carroll County governments are very literally living up to that, if they have an agenda at all.

Take for example the City of Westminster's Common Council meeting Monday night, where the council approved the fiscal year 2008 budget.

The problem? Despite numerous attempts, we were unable to get an agenda for the meeting until about 3:45 p.m. Monday - just slightly more than 3 hours before the meeting.

It was only then that it came to light that the city planned to approve the fiscal year 2008 budget.

Needless to say, there probably were few average citizens who were aware of what the council was going to do at Monday night's meeting.

Passing the budget is, more often than not, the most important decision any governing body will make during the entire year. And for some reason, the Westminster Common Council didn't view this as important enough to let taxpayers know about it sooner than three hours before the meeting.

On the town's Web site, there was still no agenda posted Tuesday morning, just a notice that the May 26 meeting was canceled because of Memorial Day, and the next meeting was scheduled for June 9. There was no agenda for the meeting, and certainly no mention of the approval of the budget.

The state's Open Meetings Law doesn't require governments to post agendas of their meetings. But common sense would suggest you aren't going to get too many people to your meetings if you don't tell them what the meeting will cover. Posting agendas is just a basic part of good government, whether it is required or not.

The fact that the budget was approved without a public hearing is another matter altogether.

This is just the most recent and egregious example of governments not posting agendas for meetings within a reasonable time frame. Municipalities around the county routinely do not post agendas until the day of the meeting, if at all.

Another example is last week's quarterly mayors meeting with the Carroll County Board of Commissioners. No agenda was released until Tuesday - two days before the parties were scheduled to meet - and the meeting was postponed the next day.

How is it that a once-every-three-months meeting doesn't have an agenda until 48 hours prior? (In this case, the mayors and commissioners hadn't met in six months, because the December meeting was canceled so the parties could attend tree lightings.) And could it be that the involved parties weren't prepared for the topics on the agenda, hence the weeklong postponement?

These same government officials often state they want more involvement and better attendance from residents at these meetings. But if these boards aren't making residents aware of what will be taking place at the meetings, why would they bother to attend?

Not releasing agendas until hours before a meeting is not only a bad practice from that standpoint; it also raises serious concerns about these governments trying to hide something. Do they not want people attending meetings? Or is it just laziness?

If governments really want community involvement at their meetings, they absolutely must do a better job of informing people about what is going on. Releasing an agenda well in advance so people can decide whether the meeting is worth attending and giving them enough time to make plans to do so is the first and simplest step in the right direction.

20080611 Carroll County Times editorial: No agenda is sign of poor government

20080611 Carroll County Times editorial: No agenda is sign of poor government

http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2008/06/11/news/opinion/editorial/editorial611.txt

Westminster Governance taxes, Westminster Governance open and transparent govt, Westminster Mayor 200505 to 2009 Thomas K. Ferguson, Westminster Dept Finance Budget 2008 – 2009 FY, Media Newspapers Carroll County Times,

Westminster Governance open and transparent govt

http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/search/label/Westminster%20Governance%20open%20and%20transparent%20govt