Recently it came to light that the Ann Arbor City Council members were emailing each other during the meetings. While on the surface that may not surprise you, what they were emailing should.
www.mlive.com/opinion/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2009/06/ann_arbor_city_councils_emaili.html
The people appearing before the Council usually do so after gathering signatures or doing a lot of research. They have spent a lot of time and energy on their cause. For the council to ignore them and instead email each other (the modern day equivalent of kids passing notes in school) is rude and disrespectful. While childish at best, when the emails were poking fun of people, they become more concerning to me when they are trying to change policy or influence votes.
The Michigan Open Meetings Act www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/Publications/OpenMtgsFreedom.pdf
states the following on page 2:
The Open Meetings Act, Public Act No. 267 of 1976, protects your right to know what’s going on in government by opening to full public view the processes by which elected and nonelected officials make decisions on your behalf.
If the council members are emailing each other in secret about whether or not to support an issue or their feelings on an issue – it is no great leap to say that it is a violation of The Open Meetings Act.
Let this also be a cautionary tale to those Michigan politicians becoming very involved in social media like Twitter. If you are an elected official and during public meetings are tweeting – depending on what you are tweeting, it could also possibly be considered a violation of The Open Meetings Act. I am a big proponent of Twitter and love to read the tweets from politicians. I’ve even commented in the past that it was great because I couldn’t attend so I was glad for the tweets to keep informed on the proceedings. However after the situation in the City of Ann Arbor, I’m changing my mind.
