Open Government

By Jim Gardner

A city council should be open to the people

For example, at a city council meeting two council members asked that the words "In God We trust" be added to the city signage. The others refused. Then began a debate about how the individual council members felt. But this is not the point. They should be asking "What do the people want?"

Our city has no TV coverage of council meetings. They have no webcasts. They destroy copies of the audio tapes after 90- days. Etc. I am for open government. I want people involved and I will televise our meetings and put them on the web.

Our city has a website and they've never used it to conduct an opinion poll. Yet every month there are issues of concern to the city for which people's opinions would be invaluable. Instead, the city doesn't seek their opinion, but simply votes their own desires.

This year the city opened negotiations with the county to increase the number of prisoners at the Musick Jail from 1,000 per year to more than 8,000 per year. This was done without any notice to the people of Lake Forest who would feel the impact if this increase in prisoners resulted in more escapes from Musick. And these additional prisoners will be much more motivated to escape since they are in the US illegally, headed for deportation, and many of them are going to be deported to face legal actions for crimes committed in their home country. Such a major decision by the city should have been open for public debate, not secret negotiations.