To have a good government that serves its citizens, our elected officials must believe in transparency and citizen participation in all aspects of our government. Government work and decision making should not be done in the dark or behind closed doors. One important means of providing transparency is providing real time viewing of meetings and the opportunity to provide input and comments.
In our rural county the Council should assure that all citizens have access to view, participate in, and review Council meetings as well as all meetings of Boards and Commissions.
The County used to provide viewing access only via Easton Cable. When COVID came the County scrambled and successfully learned how to provide access via the internet, phone and to record a broad range of meetings.
Now, the County is incrementally removing access. For example, Council meetings are no longer available via the phone. Citizens with limited/no internet cannot participate. For example, my 95 year old neighbor must drive at night 50 miles round trip to participate in a Council meeting. Some Boards and Commissions meetings are no longer via any means. There are no public recordings or minutes that give us archives of decision making. This is not right.
With today’s technologies the County has the means to provide to its citizens access and participation via TV, internet, and phone, and public recordings of its work. Governments across the country do this, but our County has chosen to take it away. As we have lost newspaper coverage, the Council is taking us further into the dark. Does the Council not want citizens to know what it is doing? Does it want to operate in the dark?
Vote for Council Members who believe in transparency in all government actions. This is how we will get a responsive government.
Leslie Steen
Tilghman
Phil Jackson says
Leslie, I’m so glad you’ve shared this opinion piece. Transparency is critically important. After all, government is for the people. In my “day job,” I help government agencies achieve transparency through digitalization. That is, deliver data, information such that it is readily and immediately accessible anywhere, anytime by the citizen (which we now refer to as the customer). Importantly, this information should also be easily accessible by ALL (even those whose mobility, communicative ability, or understanding is reduced) . We have a lot of work to do in Talbot County to achieve this level of transparency and accessibility, but I can’t think of a more worthwhile goal to pursue.
Phil Jackson, Candidate for Talbot County Council
Tom Ledvina says
This letter is spot on! Making public meetings more accessible to the public, both live and after the fact, could be one of the very few silver linings of the pandemic. These efforts should be continued, not cancelled.
Howard & Susan Snyder says
Spot on, Leslie.
Transparency reinforced by a willingness to look at and consider both sides of issues is paramount.
Thanks so much for your letter.
Francine De Sanctis says
Thank you Leslie for pointing out what happens when a Council is made up of members from the same political party.
This inbreeding causes lack of transparency and accountability to its constituents. Couple that with the schedule and timing of meetings and it makes for a closed door policy. We Don want or need that in Talbot county.
Lynn Mielke, Republican candidate for Talbot County Council says
Leslie, thank you for bringing attention to this issue. I wholeheartedly agree that there must be transparency and expanded opportunities for the public to hear, and be heard by, our County officials. One improvement in the offing to address your issue is the expansion of broadband to unserved and underserved areas of our county which would enable expansion of broadcasting the meetings. The Council passed that bill on July 13 (No. 1478). Unfortunately the bill does not identify those areas with specificity or provide much detail at all or a plan for the expansion. In the meantime, public access to meetings that was implemented during COVID should be restored and improved. I like your idea of expanding recording of Board and Commission meetings which then can be made available for public view on the county website.
I support transparency; in fact it was some opaque actions and gamesmanship on the part of this present Council that prompted me to run for County Council. To borrow a phrase from the Washington Post, “Democracy dies in darkness”. I am committed to keeping the lights on our County government’s actions and to responsive government.
Leslie Steen says
Thank you Lynn. I would like to add that affordability of internet access is an issue as well. We need to maintain phone access as well as expand internet access.
Susie Hayward says
Lynn, It is strange to see you write about transparency. When you were president of Easton Club you were not transparent at all. In fact, you refused to answer questions about the very expensive lawsuit you got the community involved in, without their prior knowledge. You wouldn’t even explain what the benefit of winning the lawsuit was to the community or how much the community was paying for the lawsuit. It wasn’t until over 2 years later with another Board that the community finally found out what the true cost was. Also, for almost a year your Board did not properly disclose the Closed Session meetings you had, when this was brought to your attention, you had to go back and amend the Minutes to reflect all the Closed sessions your Board had. So much for “keeping the lights on”.
Pete Lesher says
Keep in mind, live broadcast of County Council meetings is available not only through the government access cable channel, but also on YouTube. While not everyone has internet access availability at home yet, particularly in more remote and less densely populated pockets of the county, the YouTube broadcast – which also becomes a video archive of the meetings, is available wherever there is internet available.