At last Tuesday’s meeting, the Lindsay City Council agreed to hire a consultant to direct a public workshop on defining the Council’s goals, objectives, and code of conduct. I’m told the fee for this work is $1,000, which will come from the public’s coffer. The time chosen was 10 a.m. Tuesday morning the 19th, following the long weekend celebrating Martin Luther King Day.
Councilman Mecum questioned the move on several counts, but perhaps the most important was the day and time chosen. It gave little opportunity for real advance notice to the public, and the morning hour prevents most people who work from attending. Although he was told the consultant was available only during normal business hours (which is hard for me to believe, frankly, unless this consultant does not normally work with governmental and NGO groups,) Councilwoman Pam Kimball also noted that the hour would allow for more privacy in their deliberations.
It seems to me that a better use for a consultant’s fee would be a workshop on governmental transparency and the techniques available to increase public participation in this city’s affairs. Despite years of writing on Lindsay’s crying need for improvement in this area, I see no recognition of that need from either Pam Kimball or Danny Salinas. Instead, from them we get only obscurement. They like to keep their cards close to their chests.
Perhaps a little trip to the dictionary will help. Let’s look up “privacy” and see what it says:
“1. the quality or condition of being private; withdrawal from public view or company; seclusion.
2.
secrecy [told in strict privacy]
3.
one’s private life or personal affairs [an invasion of one’s privacy].”
Since the first definition refers to
the word “private,” let’s check
there, too: “belonging to oneself, not to the state.” By number, the additional definitions expand
on that:
“1. of, belonging to, or concerning a particular
person or group; not common or general [private property, a private joke];
2.
not open to, intended for, or controlled by the public [a private
school];
3.
for an individual person [a private room in a hospital];
4.
not holding public office [a private citizen];
5.
away from public view; secluded [a private dining room];
6.
not publicly or generally known; secret; confidential;
7.
carried out or done on an individual basis [a private
medical practice];
8.
engaged in work independent of institutions, organizations, agencies,
etc. [private
detective, private tutor].” The dictionary had an additional entry on
“private” relating to body parts, but I’ll leave that to the privacy of your
imagination.
My dictionary’s old (it does not
have an entry for “obscurement,” for instance, a brand new word I just made
up,) but I think these definitions serve us quite well here in our small towns
and rural countryside, where the word “postmodern” has very few users (thank
God.)
Reading through these definitions, I
think almost anyone could see that Mrs. Kimball’s hope for privacy in this
public meeting would not have met with approval from Daniel Webster. Nor would it have from George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King Jr., and a host of
other national leaders with democracy on their minds.
It’s time for the private citizens
of this town to stand up and tell our so-called public leaders that we are
tired of their private meetings, their anti-public attitudes and exclusionary
tactics. The President of the United
States is not the only person we will be electing in November. Think about your selection criteria for three
Lindsay city councilmembers to be elected this fall, then start paying
attention to who cares about them.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a Populist agrarian advocate who writes. You can send her your thoughts on promoting
public participation c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a
comment below.
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