Yesterday’s public hearing of Governor Patrick’s Ethics Task Force seems to have generated a good deal of heat; whether it generated much light remains to be seen. One BMG regular, Shirley Kressel, was there (she was quoted in today’s Globe article about the hearing). She raised an important complaint in yesterday’s BMG thread, namely:
When I began my testimony, I asked Task Force chair Ben Clements to post all the written testimony on the internet. He said no. I persisted; he said, maybe they’d be made available when the Task Force’s work is done; he’d let me know. These are statements MADE IN PUBLIC. I wasn’t even asking about the suggestions sent in to them by e-mail.
That seems crazy, no? Regardless of whether some committee deliberations should or shouldn’t be confidential, posting testimony delivered at a public hearing online would seem to be a no-brainer.
Fortunately, I can report that the powers that be at the Gov’s office have heard this complaint, and have agreed that public testimony should be, well, public. Look for an official statement, as well as a BMG post, on this topic later today. We’ll keep you updated.
http://www.bostonherald.com/ne…
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p>While I think Dan Winslow makes good suggestions, frankly, as long as the legislature is immune to the open meeting law and the open records laws – and so is the Executive Branch, and so is governance in the courts, we will not have ethics reform.
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p>Shady characters operate best in the dark – and there is plenty of darkness and hidden activity in governance in our state. To restate:
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/s…
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p>The Commonwealth of Massachusetts sure got failing grades from this study…all branches of government, when spending taxpayer money, should operate in the open.
Thanks for the interest and suggestions from the BMG community. After reading the comments today concerning the public hearing, I spoke with Ben Clements. He made it clear that it was always his intention to post online the written testimony submitted at the public hearing. It is available now on the Governor’s Task Force on Public Integrity website.
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p>We look forward to more thoughts and comments on the issues facing the task force – the deadline for submitting ideas is December 10.
It is nice that the Governor’s Office belatedly allowed for the posting of public comments on the website of the Public Integrity Task Force. One wonders why the Governor has had such a tin ear around this issue to begin with.
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p>How about now actually opening to the public all meetings of the Task Force itself?
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p>Why is Deval Patrick, a Governor many of us worked hard to elect, having such a hard time of grasping why a public ethics commission should be fully open to the public?
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p>Come on Governor, trot out some more high paid flacks and explain that it was ‘always our intent to…’, etc., etc. Yes, it is time for the flacks to clean up the mess from weeks of bad press around your Orwellian approach to ethics reform — a Task Force that holds only one meeting in public, and refuses to post even its public testimony in public.
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p>Governor, we got you elected because we really believed you represented meaningful and structural change for Beacon Hill. Give us some solace that in your current and only term you will at least attempt to prove us right.