Open government is right both in itself and in consequence: a free society confers political power only for limited & enumerated purposes. Those who confer this power have a right of oversight and a sensible obligation to assure that power’s exercise remains limited & enumerated.
The right derives both naturally and by positive law.
In a well-ordered community, a community worthy of America, residents and officials to whom they confer limited & enumerated authority see the importance of open government. Federal, state, and local provisions – if sound – advance open government.
These principles, established and mostly followed in Whitewater these last several years, now seem to have fallen out of fashion (as though fashion mattered).
Millions for a municipal government with a communications manager, but meetings left unrecorded, inconsistently recorded, on a haphazard schedule.
Tens of millions for school district upgrades, but for the best records of public meetings, of public officials, acting only through conferred authority, well, that’s not a priority.
The same officials who know how to make a recording of a parade or concert (all good efforts) presumably know how to record a public meeting (a recording surely no less important to public business). If, among those in the Municipal Building or Central Office, there’s a particular amnesia that impairs operation of video equipment, then I don’t know of it.
English is my first language, and so I have spoken and written in it for many years. Here’s the simplest way to describe a situation like this:
We’ll do something, sometimes, when it seems convenient, based on all our many priorities, as we alone order those priorities. What are you going to do about it?
And so, one confronts this concise question: What will one do about it?
Tomorrow: Daylight (Part 3 in a Series).
Previously: Twilight (Part 1 in a Series).