The City Council just sent out a press release—gleefully reported by the Seattle Times— that Mayor Greg Nickels’ staff will no longer be briefing groups of city council members in closed meetings. Instead, they just won’t be briefing council members at all.
The thing is, under city law, they don’t have to. The meetings—which, as I pointed out earlier, are no different than dozens of meetings that happen between council members in their offices (ahem: BEHIND CLOSED DOORS!!11!11!!!) every week—gave the mayor’s staffers an opportunity to brief city council members on upcoming budget cuts. City law allows the mayor to reduce the budget in the middle of a budget year without any discussion or meetings at all. (The budget cuts, contrary to what the Times’s stories implied, will not be subject to a council vote). And now, thanks to the Seattle Times’ attempt to create news where none exists, it looks like there won’t be.
A side note: At the state legislature, members of the Republican and Democratic caucuses meet privately nearly every day to discuss legislation pending before the state house and senate. Moreover: When the majority party (the Democrats) meets in private, they constitute a quorum. Perhaps if the Seattle Times had someone in Olympia—and if its editors weren’t bent on making a huge issue out of a nonstory at City Hall— they might consider looking into that.
Jealous much?
Douchebag.
@1. Please. She’s absolutely right. The Times’ is off-base and citizens will suffer because their representatives will be in the dark about their own budget.
Thanks, Seattle Times. Glad to know my Councilmember will be like a deer in the headlights when the Mayor’s staff blindsides them at a public meeting.
It is clear that Erica will never again be able to post to Slog without these little colostomy bags following her here in the comments and stinking up the joint. It’s a shame. Bohica, fuck you, fuck you hard, and fuck all your sniggering little friends too.
#3: until comment registration.
Fnarf @ 3:
It appears that there are more of them than there are of you.
I’m shocked: For once I actually agree with Erica. The Times needs to grow up and learn how government really works.
@5, I doubt it very much. And even if there are, I’ll take quality over quantity. None of these little shitbags has ever contributed anything here — or anywhere, most likely.
Good. Maybe now we’ll have accountability in the mayor’s office. Nickels won’t be able to pass the buck on any budget cuts. It’s not like the council ever stands up to him anyhow.
Per the “side note”:
The legislature isn’t subject to the open meetings law.
The city council is.
End of story.
Who the fuck are you @7? Get your own blog if you don’t like the comments here. Just because your little cutesy-poo name is on the right-hand side of the page as a “friend” doesn’t make you a friend to everyone who reads and posts on the Slog. So go put on your Hitler hat and goosestep around your backyard like a good little Nazi.
On topic: This “news” wouldn’t have been nearly as disturbing if we still had two newspapers in this town.
@10, Kim, darling, if you knew what you were talking about I might be offended by your inane drivel. I’m talking about vacuous, sniggering junior high comments like @1. Nobody of any value on this planet likes those. But hey, everyone likes a Godwin. You go, girl!
!!11!11!!!
Is that a secret code or something?
Overreact much, Fnarf?
Douchebag.
I’m not sure I agree with the Times, but if you’re so sure they’re wrong, shouldn’t you direct your ire toward Nickels for caving so quickly?
The Times always did hate Seattle.
@9 correctly points out that the Legislature is exempt from the open records act. Just as Congress is exempt from FOIA. Is it right? Probably not. But there it is.
Not that anyone should expect ECB to actually do any factual reporting when a baseless claim will do.
@13, I’d clean out a hundred thousand vaginas before I’d ever so much as touch your filthy hand.
Fnarf,
Lurk moar.
Easily trolled much?
Douchebag.
My comment @1 was short and to the point. The point being that she wishes she had thought of doing something to get physically removed from anywhere besides a QFC. (Yes, character is relevant, so the wine stealing thing is as well.) If she had though of it first, and caused the same changes, she would be celebrating herself as a defender of democracy and congratulating herself on shining the light on meetings that purposely skirt the quorum rules. Eli and the rest of you d-bags would be holding it up as some kind of shining example where bloggers can shine the light on government just as well as the MSM.
But she didn’t. So now she is relegated to firing off factually inaccurate pot-shots at the big-kids.
I have no problem pointing out the hypocrisy using only 2 sentences as in @1. We don’t all need to type out paragraphs, err cut and paste from Wikipedia, to try and make ourselves sound smart to the cum stains that frequent this blog.
When are you correcting your erroneous side note on the Leg, Erica? Oh, and is it true that you’re in the running for a city flak job? Please say it isn’t so.
Kim you are invited to my wine tasting. I’ve emailed Erica for suggested grocery store brands under $9 that are so good people steal them.
Fnarf is a fat guy with a tiny little dick. Or am I confusing him with Big Sven. Anyway if he was a real man he would have gone to Iraq to fight in Dan’s war of liberation of the Iraqi people. But no! He stays here, like Dan, licking assholes and bragging about it. How disgusting!!
Bohica, my apologies. I hadn’t noticed your posting @19 so I would like to invite you to my wine tasting also.
No. Fuck You Fnarf-you can not come-you fucking douchbag.
Cases in point.
Wow, everybody take a deep breath:
1) the Stranger lecturing anybody on journalism ethics and standards;
2) The Stranger criticizing anyone for going overboard on a topic;
3) the Stranger stopping to put context around a story.
4) Erica sucking up to the council staff.
Erica, my shoplifting little wretch, you are the one who entirely missed the point: the council put out a press release saying, as you insist, they will stop doing something that is traditional, legal and helpful to quality government.
Shouldn’t you be turning your poison pen on the council for the idiocy of issuing a press release?
Now, please get back to coverage of Metro route changes.
Jesus… what the hell is going on with Fnarf? He’s so… well – unenjoyable. I’ve always considered him the Scarlet Pimpernel of Slog. You know, droll, flouncy… lacy hankerchief at the ready, good at parties. Why so bitter Fnarf?
@25, need you ask? The good ones (Elswinger) dies, and the sucking chest wounds multiply. All too often Slog is like finding millions of little round turds in your cornflakes. Just look at this thread.
No one is going to cry when Josh or FNURKF dies.
Erica, they were deliberately skirting the law by limiting how many people attended. If you had thought of it first you would have bashed the shit out of them for that. But since it was a competitor (and a smarter one than you, at that) that broke the story, you have to shit all over it to cover your ass.
You are a pathetic creature, and the furthest thing from a journalist.
@27 You are a REAL JOURNALIST or at least a regular reader of Erica. I for one, don’t give a shit that she is a convicted shoplifter of cheap wine. I just like to bring it up to show what a fucking farce she is as a political editor. Of course at Slog and The Stranger standards are extremely low and a little (ok a lot) of puerile snark can take you a long long way, but one does get sick of this shit at times, doesn’t one?
PS Fuck you Fnarf!!
On second thought @27. Perhaps we are being too hard on poor Erica. She has to fill a lot of space here at Slog every day which involves a lot of time consuming surfing the web trying to find shit that will appeal to fourteen year olds and doesn’t have the time to show up physically at city hall and be denied entrance to a meeting and then write about it and actually exert a genuine influence on behavior of our so called representatives at city hall.
And it appears that she is filling in for Dan today. perhaps he is off burnishing his anti-war and/or good gay parent brand somewhere and making a buck in the process.
I’m going to join Fnarf in sending a hearty “fuck you” to Bohica, Josh, and any other of your ilk. Snide bullshit like @ 1 is nothing to be proud of.
@30 Living in fucking Denver is nothing to be proud of either. That’s why your fourteen year old narrow ass is posting on this juvenile blog in Seattle.
Ouch, I draw my sense of self worth from how people who comment on blogs judge me. My point still stands.
@ 32, your point is ignorant horseshit, and only you and your juvenile twerp friends thinks it “stands.”
Not only is the Stranger having a meltdown of professional standards (descending to name calling and juvenile hit pieces, quoting anonymous sources, reporting unverified rumors, uncritical reporting on new development, not quoting or interviewing sources you disagree with, just to name a few), it feels like slog commentators are devolving too.
Let’s take the weekend off.
And when we return, maybe we can have mandatory registration to post comments on slog?
“Professional standards” at The Stranger. Trevor you must be new in town. The Stranger has never had professional standards. The political editor is a shoplifter of cheap grocery store wine. The editor is a self-promoting-say anything-anti-social-anything goes-bully (and I’m being euphemistic here) who mercilessly scorns the weak and powerless and does so with impunity.
As far as the commenters here. For a publication like The Stranger that specializes in the puerile and sensational and bullying ridicule of people than these are the perfect commenters for this blog. Indeed, they are exactly what you should expect a site like this to draw.
If you want professional journalistic standards in a blog, or even a mature approach to reporting or commenting on anything, what the fuck are you doing here? Are you new in town?
@34 The New York Times and Washigton Post and other mainstream respected news organizations all use anonymous sources.
Sadly, Josh is correct @36.
Josh, you’re a shallow hypocrite, and shameless to boot. You have the nerve to criticize anyone’s character AFTER you wrote your comment @ 21?
Hmm, I see the quality of discussion is really excellent here. In any event, I wanted to direct you all to the section of the Open Meetings Act that specifically exempts the Legislature:
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?…
RCW 42.30.020(1) defines a “public agency” that is subject to the Open Meetings Act, and RCW 42.30.020(1)(a) exempts the Legislature (and the courts) from the Act. That’s why the Democratic caucus can meet without needing to comply with the Act.
I’m with the Seattle Times on this one. If the purpose of those meetings was to bring together the Council to deliberate on the budget situation, then the meetings needed to be open to the public. It’s as if the Council had only two choices—meeting in secret or not meeting at all. There are other possibilities. Individual councilmembers (or perhaps groups of two) could be debriefed in private. Or the Council as a whole could be debriefed in an open meeting.
@27, @39: You need to go back and read the law. By having less than a quorum of Council at the meeting, the meeting could legally be closed. You can argue that the Council should be nice people and exceed the letter of the law, but ECB is still technically correct. The City Council’s closed budget meetings were not illegal.
@40
Nope, Alki, the meetings were probably illegal. Only a court can decide the issue for certain, but here is some on-point legal analysis by a local lawyer who is an expert in the Open Public Meetings Act:
http://www.awphd.org/presentations/Suppl… (noting, “Serial Discussions Can Be Meetings Subject to the OPMA”).
Also check out this Court of Appeals decision, http://www.mrsc.org/mc/courts/appellate/…, which discusses how an email discussion can constitute a “meeting.” The court’s analysis is relevant because the court seems to recognize that serial meetings, such as the budget meetings between the councilmembers and Nickels’ staff, are subject to public-meetings laws even if a quorum isn’t present at any single moment.
Why would it matter if there was a reporter at these meetings anyways? I tend to agree with Barnett these meetings probably aren’t under the sunshine laws and the Times overreacted, but… who cares? If a reporter wants to sit in on a meeting, no politician should refuse the chance to have words written about it.