In today\u2019s BOCC webcast, Commissioner Schwab once again admonished that the BOCC\u2019s open mic segment was not to be used for political campaign purposes.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter candidate Rowland led off with a little campaign number that could have been titled, \u201cI\u2019m Transparent And You\u2019re Not.\u201d He seemed to think that every word uttered between commissioners among themselves constitutes county business, and he should always be notified a day in advance when the commissioners think an aside among each other could be in the offing.\u00a0 The more relevant question this brings to mind is, \u201cWhat made Mr. Rowland so paranoid?\u201d\u00a0 An exigent security concern is probably never going to make it to an agenda for a public meeting where he can input and dialog about the most transparent solution.<\/p>\n
Jim Duvall was next up in the non-political political category and he thanked Commissioner Schlegel for \u201cposting a list of everyone who\u2019ve been requesting open records.\u00a0 That makes it easier for us to coordinate so it\u2019s actually a very positive thing.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Us<\/em>?\u00a0 A coordinated group<\/em>?\u00a0 I thought this was all about transparency for the people at large and pursuit of the greater good.\u00a0 Now I find out there\u2019s a coordinated group behind this effort.\u00a0 Well burst my bubble with an open record request!<\/p>\n Lastly, in the non-political political category came candidate Jill Duvall.\u00a0 Perhaps miffed over the publication of her extensive use of the Open Records Act \u2013 count \u2018em, 24, more than anyone else \u2013 she took umbrage over the \u201cfishing expedition\u201d characterization in a blog post below and shared by Commissioner Schlegel on FB, as well as language indicating that open record requests are being used for the personal benefit of the requesters.\u00a0\u00a0 If she\u2019s miffed over embarrassment, I would be too.<\/p>\n After carefully disclaiming any hint of illegality in Commissioner Schlegel\u2019s 2010 campaign, and carefully disclaiming any hint of illegality in Elbert County\u2019s selection of an accounting firm, she heaped suggestions of impropriety on both.\u00a0 Apparently her fishing expedition brought up facts insufficient for her to claim some illegality, but good enough to justify her hurling a few political mudballs.\u00a0 You never know what you\u2019re going to catch in an open records request, but I probably would have thrown these bottom feeders back in the water.<\/p>\n She did bring one last insight to the BOCC meeting that needs some exploration.\u00a0 She said, \u201cWe now have a situation that makes me extremely uncomfortable.\u00a0 There\u2019s too much chance that specific internal information could have been, or might be, shared with those who should not have access to this knowledge.\u00a0 I see the very real possibility of a conflict of interest when county business knowledge might be gained by this partner company of Miller and Nyquist.\u201d<\/p>\n What \u201cinternal information\u201d of Elbert County\u2019s could she be talking about?\u00a0 Would that be something discoverable by an open records request?\u00a0 Who should not have access to government\u2019s knowledge?\u00a0 Is there such a thing as internal information in a transparent government by and for the people?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t our government ruled by objective laws that are out in the open for everyone to see?\u00a0 Does candidate Duvall have some twisted notion of a government secreted away from the people, operating with internal business knowledge that no one knows about?\u00a0 Where could she have acquired such paranoid notions?<\/p>\n Both these candidates \u2013 Rowland and Duvall \u2013 have some paranoid demons to wrestle with.\u00a0 Well, better late than never I suppose, but it might be better if they did it offline out of the context of their political campaigns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In today\u2019s BOCC webcast, Commissioner Schwab once again admonished that the BOCC\u2019s open mic segment was not to be used for political campaign purposes.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter candidate Rowland led off with a little campaign number that could have been titled, \u201cI\u2019m Transparent And You\u2019re Not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-politics","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}