City questioned for not filming key workshop

Published 7:44 am Friday, December 10, 2010

The decision not to film an emotional Department of Natural Resources lease negotiation workshop in September at the request of Mayor Bob Scales has led to questions from the community about transparency and open government.

On Sept. 29, the City Council held a special workshop to discuss lease negotiations for an open-water moorage and anchorage area when it was faced with an Oct. 1 deadline to enter into a lease.

The meeting was highly charged and filled with tense testimony and discussion, which in the end resulted in the city deciding not to enter into a lease. Though the Bainbridge Island Television (BITV) cameras were set up to film, the cameras were not rolling, at the request of Scales, who had instructed BITV not to film the DNR workshop several days prior to the meeting.

Since September, state officials, including the assistant attorney general for government accountability, were contacted along with the city’s ethics board about the incident. Scales made a public apology at the Dec. 1 City Council meeting.

Both members of the community and representatives from BITV are using the incident as a jumping off point to discuss the legalities and ethics of open government, transparency and public participation.

The failure to film the Sept. 29 DNR workshop frustrated many in the community who believe the video coverage of such an important meeting should have been shown on BITV.

The city did capture audio of the workshop, which was held between 4:30-5:30 p.m. and 7:30-8:30 p.m. with a special council meeting in-between. The council meeting was filmed, but the cameras were turned off before and after the meeting.

BITV Executive Director Scott Schmidt said staff members were surprised to receive specific instructions by Scales not to film two parts of a controversial meeting. Scales said he told BITV not to film in an e-mail several days before the workshop. Scales said the City Council is limited to the number of hours it can film based on a contract with BITV.

In an e-mail on Sept. 24 to City Clerk Roz Lassoff, Scales said: “We should film all the budget workshops. No need to film the DNR.”

Scales said that the council decided to film study sessions, regular City Council meetings and budget workshops, but not the other workshops to avoid getting charged for filming over what the contract allows. For that reason none of the Winslow Way workshops or prior DNR workshops were televised.

“In retrospect I should have said forget it and just film the extra hour, but it was not a conscious effort not to film like they are trying to portray it,” said Scales. “They are trying to create a controversy that does not exist.”

Scales said he never received comment from the community or other councilors requesting filming of the workshops, and said the city is not required by law to film the meetings.

Schmidt said it was unusual that the city chose not to film all of the study sessions because BITV had made it clear that their robotic cameras could add more meetings or special programs without additional costs. Schmidt said the city was told that they were weren’t utilizing their council coverage time.

“I am disappointed councilors have twisted this around to make BITV sound as though we were costing too much to film meetings, when all along they did not want the television audience to be a part of the study sessions,” he said.

“Those meetings are where the decisions are really made,” said Schmidt.

Island resident Andy Rovelstad requested clarification from Assistant Attorney General Tim Ford, the Assistant Attorney General for government accountability in early November in an effort to understand how city law relates to public comment and laws governing censoring the public and media. Ford presented a series of legal rights, including a formal opinion the state Attorney General’s Office had composed at a prior date on how the Open Public Meetings Act relates to the media.

City Attorney Jack Johnson advised Rovelstad in an e-mail that the council invites the public to offer comments on agendas, but restricts them to certain times and places within the meetings for efficiency. He wrote that BITV is contracted through the city, therefore there is a difference in telling a news organization it “cannot” film versus saying it is not “required” to film a certain meeting.

Johnson also informed Rovelstad that the city operates under an alternative set of state statues called RCW Title 35A, known as the “Optional Municipal Code.”

“The legal requirement to allow public comment does not exist under the RCW sections that apply to the Bainbridge City Council,” according to Johnson.

The city does allow opportunities for public comment in study sessions, business meetings and regular council meetings, but public comment “is not normally allowed at workshops although the council may allow, or request, participation in the same manner as other Council Study Sessions,” according to code.

Rovelstad has asked Ford for another opinion on whether the city is required by law to have public comment.