A Letter to Mayor Knight on Textgate

Councilman Danny Thompson has sent the following letter to Mayor Bill Knight:

December 28, 2009

The Honorable William Knight
Mayor
City of Greensboro
One Governmental Plaza
PO Box 3136
Greensboro, NC 27402-3136

Dear Mayor Knight,

I am writing to express my concern regarding the practice or occasional times of Council members communicating with other parties while speakers from the floor are addressing Council.

It has come to our attention that while a representative of a local developer was addressing Council on a disputed matter requiring our deliberation, one Council member was, by his own admission, communicating openly with the opposing developer via email.

This revelation is troubling on several fronts, not the least of which is the breakdown of public trust in our elected body.  All citizens of Greensboro have the right to come before Council and receive a fair and impartial hearing of their issues or grievances and to expect our undivided attention.  When we fail to provide that, it demeans our Chamber and shows a lack of respect toward the citizens of Greensboro.

Therefore, I am respectfully requesting:

That you, as Presiding Chair of the Council, prohibit the use of personal electronic device instruments of all Council members during Council sessions, just as we require of all citizens, and
That this matter be part of the Agenda for the Meeting on January 5th, 2010.

I thank you for your kind consideration into this matter and look forward to receiving your reply.

Sincerest regards,



Danny L. Thompson
Greensboro City Councilman At-Large

Comments

[triadwatch]

good for Danny to say this and hopefully it will get addressed and taken care of.

[Joe Guarino]

I agree, Keith.

I think some of us were amazed that this type of activity is taking place. Some folks seem to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.

[Brandon]

I'm more amazed at Thompson's letter. I can't believe we finally have an ethical councilmember.

[Ken Hill]

Applause for Thompson. But he will be punished. That was my reward for being an ethical deacon in a Baptist church.

[Joe Guarino]

Brandon and Ken, yes, I am glad also that Councilman Thompson wrote this letter. And yes, there is a risk that malevolent forces in town will seek retribution against him.

In fact, one could argue that has already happened when TDBS made her splash during the council meeting a couple of weeks ago.

[Mick]

Seems fair and logical to me. The public is asked to turn off their devices.

[wayne stutts]

It goes without saying that we shut off electronic devices in city council meetings. Robbie looked like a fool. His explanation looked worse.

[Joe Guarino]

Mick and Wayne, I agree. Again, it is absolutely amazing that this should even have to be a matter of discussion.

[Sue]

I sure hope that no one ever needs to ask Mr. Google a question during a Council meeting. Heaven help us if anyone ever needs some statistic, citation or other fact during a meeting - we should always make decisions without any outside information.

This is so much like the TSA knee-jerk reactions to a guy with explosives in his pants and now no one can use a laptop or have a blanket (or pee) during the last hour of a flight. We've all made fun of that decision - now you offer the same thing. Rid the meetings of all devices. Don't you see a parallel?

[Dan]

Let someone who isn't on the dais (who should be paying attention, duh) be Mr. Google.

There is no parallel unless you think council members are terrorists.

[Betty Almond]

I hope that Sue is still around since she did not answer the comment and question that Roch mentioned in regard to Textgate.

Roch disagreed with Sue and thought that the messages were indeed text messages sent on the 15th and the email date was later. I would like to hear her answer in regard to Roch. It does appear that the text messages were sent December 15th and emails sent December 21st.

Sue?

[Sue]

I looked at the link too quickly and stand (or sit) corrected. When printed, they looked like emails. They're texts. Mea culpa, Betty. (I'm not a txt-er. Don't even have a text account on my Blackberry. I stick to email and should have read those a little more closely.)

[Sue]

Dan, the parallel is the knee-jerk reaction and I think you knew that. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater never gets us anywhere. If council members want to send SMS or emails during meetings, they should make them public. Shutting them off entirely makes as much sense as not being able to use a bathroom for an hour before landing.

Sending txt or email is unethical? Not all the time; this time, well, it's up for grabs (I didn't see anything unethical in the conversation; the argument seems to be that there WAS a conversation.) Let's formulate a policy based on sense and not on "I don't like Robbie Perkins." Policies should be greater than individuals. This one isn't.

[Brandon Burgess]

"we should always make decisions without any outside information."

--Sue, just calm down. I don't think anyone is advocating what you describe and I don't think banning council members from playing on the phone will ensure that decisions are uninformed.

Just what statistic or fact was Perkins looking up anyway? Seemed more like chitchat, kind of like our former mayor and her crossword puzzles during the briefings

We should always elect leaders who feel that council meetings are just social gatherings, right Sue?

[Joe Guarino]

Somehow I think that if council members are not able to text with developers during council meetings, the republic will survive nonetheless.

[Dan]

Sue, I don't think knee-jerk reactions are universally ill-advised. If someone breaks into my house my knee-jerk reaction is to install a security system. I'm not asking everyone to install a system or sit for an hour before the plane lands

If everybody in a room is asked to turn off their electronic devices, hypocrisy can hit the road.

[Roch101]

Is it accurate, as Danny asserts, that citizens are prohibited from using personal electronic devices during council meetings? I remember former Mayor Johnson asking that phones be set to silent or vibrate, but I am not aware of an outright prohibition and, indeed, I've seen people on laptops and texting at meetings.

[Roch101]

Having finished reading this thread, does anybody care to go beyond the personal attacks and weigh in on the wisdom of allowing council persons electronic access to communications during council meetings as long as those communications are made public?

[Doug]

It is possible that council member had either made up his mind already on the matter and therefore did not need to pay attention, or has a business relationship with the developer so he felt compelled to respond immediately. Running through the scenario - the council member received a text message, saw who it was from, took the time to respond, then repeated. Had he announced to the council that he had received a text from a party to the action, there would have been transparency -- but he did not for some reason. He also could have ignored the text or responded later. Were any of the developer's representatives at the meeting? What was said at the meeting that triggered his need to contact this specific council member immediately? Did the developer text other council members?

[Joe Guarino]

Roch, I don't see a compelling need to allow use of these devices. The position you are advocating is certainly one alternative means of dealing with the problem of council members conducting inappropriate communications during meetings. But it would not deal with the issue of the council member being distracted from the items being discussed, and the concerns brought by citizens before the council.

[Joe Guarino]

Those are some good points, Doug.

[Mick]

That is true Roch. I missed that all important distinction. As long as messages are public record and the interaction doesnt interfere or appear to interfere with the Council Person's duties I guess I'm OK BUT.....

It just seems rude and kind of arrogant. Particularly during Speakers from The Floor.

Requiring all emails, texts, etc made or recieved during meetings to be made public will probably solve the problem. Now, what about retreats?

The appearance of impropriety is my sticking point here.

[Roch101]

Mick and Joe, I get where you are coming from -- that it could indeed be rude and distracting for a council person to have his face in a device while other business is going on around him in person. Were I to see it while speaking from the floor, I would have no problem saying something like, "Mr. Mayor, may we suspend my time until I can have the council's full attention."

On the other hand, if there is some disagreement on a matter that could be resolved by a quick email or internet search, it is conceivable that allowing electronic devices might have benefits.*

There is an upside and a downside.

* Of course, such quick look-ups aren't without problems too, Robbie Perkins having previously used his Blackberry to determine, erroneously, that a web site being mentioned by speakers from the floor was a porn site. It was not. It was Greensboro's own lovable Monkeywhale and Perkins' error caused their appearance before council to be stricken from the record.

Read about it here:

http://blog.news-record.com/staff/scoopblog/2008/04/city_council_yo.shtml

[Mick]

Agreed. The council and/or mayor needs to come up with a fair and sensible policy. Good luck guys and gals.

No matter what, sunshine solves most of my problems.

[Joe Guarino]

Roch, should it really be up to one of the speaker from the floor to issue such a request to the mayor? I think that is a lot to expect when that speaker should be able to count on the council's full attention without that kind of intervention.

[Brandon Burgess]

If the council doesn't already have a secretary or clerk to "fact check" during meetings, they should get one. Then there would be no excuse for council members to be on the phone during meetings.

[Arch Stanton]

The council works for us so if we are speaking to the council they should pay attention. Imagine if one of us started texting while our boss was talking to us, how do you think that would go over in the work place?

[Joe Guarino]

Not too well, Arch. And of course, the citizen is the council members' employer-- so your analogy is apt.

[Roch101]

If your boss asked, "Does anybody know where Julie is today?" and you texted Jule to find out, your boss would be grateful. Saying there should be no electronic devices simply because they may cause distractions is a too shallow an analysis.

[Joe Guarino]

So possibly, Roch, the use of electronic devices could be permitted expressly in conjunction with a specific inquiry made by a speaker from the floor? Is that what you are proposing?

[Roch101]

To tell the truth, Joe, I'm not yet sure what I would propose -- just thinking it through at this point.

It certainly seems as if there are occasions where it may be beneficial for a council person to have access to an electronic device, as a tool for retrieving information in response to a request from a speaker or as a fact-checking/data gathering tool for matters under discussion.

Acknowledging what others have identified as the possible pitfalls, however, the question is how to allow the beneficial use without accommodating secret "back channel" conversations or without creating a distraction from the immediate in-person discussions. The former could be eliminated through cooperation with public records law, the latter may just be up to the voters to reject should it become a problem. But like I said, I don't have a ready solution.

[Brandon Burgess]

I don't understand why a clerk can't "fact check" for the council, enabling the council to give their undivided attention to council business during meetings.

[Joe Guarino]

A clerk certainly could perform this function, Brandon, if we can assure he or she could be relied upon to handle the task appropriately.

[Mick]

Are there clerks hanging around with nothing to do or would this be an added expense? I really do not know. How often does looking something up actually happen?

So far I am leaning toward an unofficial policy discouraging the activity combined with all being public record.

[Joe Guarino]

I think the public record aspect should be the bare minimum, Mick. It was interesting that the News and Record editorial this morning did not even seem to call for that much.

[Mick]

They also indicated the audience was asked to turn off there devices. Is that true? I think Roch has it right that in the past the audience has been asked to put devices on vibrate, etc.

It may need to be legally determined wether these communications are public record. I think they should be.

Bare minimum is very well what we may end up with.