Stephen Gay tells us about “accomplishments” under Mayor Dickey, which we both agree are not directly attributable to her. Yet he asserts that these have “improved government transparency.” Really? Let’s take a closer look.
Gay starts by applauding the town for doing a roll call vote. This is required at the state level and most municipalities have been doing this for quite a while. Nothing unique. What else? Town meetings are now livestreamed and recorded. Credit goes to staff for that. What else? The town pays an outside service to provide verbatim transcripts of meeting minutes. So, the mayor isn’t taking shorthand. Sorry, not impressed. What else?
Yet another “accomplishment” is that the town has a website. The mayor has nothing substantial to do with this other than to add occasional content. Truly, not impressed. But the town hired a Community Relations director! The credit for that belongs to the town manager, not the mayor. What else? Executive sessions are reviewed by the attorney to insure legality. News flash! Every public sector entity does this.
I’m not seeing any transparency here. But there was a recent incident where I asked the mayor to be transparent about an ethics complaint against her where she was accused of attempting to stifle the free speech of a local minister. This was a serious ethics complaint that the town attorney conveniently blocked, preventing a proper review from an outside adjudicator. The charge was stopped dead in its tracks, with no public justification, avoiding an election embarrassment for the mayor. It should have gone forward. Seems like the mayor ignored my pesky request to shift this to an independent investigator in a fervent desire to maintain complete opaqueness.
Stephen, as you know, opaqueness is the opposite of transparency, and moreover, Dickey’s accomplishments have been utterly underwhelming.
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