- Mayor Robbie Perkins
- Yvonne Johnson
- Nancy Hoffman
- T. Dianne Bellamy Small
- Jim Kee
- Zack Matheny
One thing that is clear after the meeting is that City Manager Denise Turner Roth is not running the show. During a city council meeting last month, Turner Roth, in explaining the City's response to records requests said, "Process will not become an excuse for delay." For emphasis, she added, "I cannot emphasize that enough."
Yet, when this blogger asked at the meeting why a two-month old request by Amanda Lehmert of the News & Record for the emails provided to Yes!Weekly (those that prompted their reportage on police surveillance) had not yet resulted in the release of a single email to Amanda, the reply, courtesy of City Attorney Mujeeb Shah-Khan, was stupefyingly hilarious.
Understand; at this meeting where city staff were falling all over themselves to assure the public that they release records as fast as they can—that process is not a cause for delay—when it came to Amanda's request for what are reportedly around 11,000 emails, they were asked why the City's processes were incapable of clearing even a single email for release after two whole months. 11,000 emails, two months and a process that has not cleared one for release.
Rather than say, "Hmmm, maybe our processes are causing undue delay," we got the most eye-rolling gut busting "explainaaaaaaaaaaaaation" from the City Attorney about how there are multiple steps for review, involving different departments, and things go back and forth and get bundled together and carefully reviewed and there should be some records available on Wednesday and... yada yada yada...
This of course made Turner Roth appear a liar or irrelevant and Shah-Kahn incapable of attaching anything meaningful to the reality of the situation. Funny. In a very sad way. Too bad some City Councilors will remain in the dark. Who were they again?
- Mayor Robbie Perkins
- Yvonne Johnson
- Nancy Hoffman
- T. Dianne Bellamy Small
- Jim Kee
- Zack Matheny
Mujeeb doesn't want the public to know anything. Tony Carmany will fight staff, even when they are dead ass wrong.
ReplyDeletefight for..not fight
ReplyDeleteRoch - I have told you I will support your efforts on Publilc Records.
ReplyDeleteI was simply out of town on vacation yesterday. I would hope you would understand that I wanted to keep my vacation as planned.
By the way, yes, I had a terrific time and got to spend quality time with my brother.
I get this is important to you and I will continue to try and help,
Zack
Indeed, you have, Zack, and I appreciate it. I'm glad you had a nice vacation and good times with your brother -- I did the same last week. It's important.
ReplyDeleteSeems like a no-brainer that whichever council member takes the lead in forcing change in this will gain favor with the local press/blogs.
ReplyDeleteHugh, it would be beneficial to our city to have leadership who understands the foundational need for transparency and who would advocate it. For now, I'll settle for a majority of council members who are at least sympathetic.
ReplyDelete