Every so often, those people charged with conducting the public’s business should read the preamble to state of Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act. Other citizens ought to read it, too. It states: “The legislature finds and declares that all public commissions, boards, councils, committees, subcommittees, departments, divisions, offices, and all other public agencies of this state and subdivisions thereof exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of this chapter that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.
“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
We mention this because at least two members of the Olympian Planning Commission – Carole Richmond and Jerry Parker — don’t seem to understand the meaning of public service. The nonprofit Washington Coalition for Open Government recently presented its Key Award to planning commission member Judy Bardin for calling attention to a series of secret meetings between other commissioners and developers. But Richmond and Parker criticized WCOG and the award. Continue>>>
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