On the other hand
The more I think about it, the more this editorial bothers me.
From all indications, this appears to be an honest mistake, albeit one that arguably deserves necessary scrutiny because of the obligation of elected officials to provide open government. Still, to say this ...
He can apologize and take all the responsibility he wants, but that doesn't change the fact Oconee County Commission Chairman Melvin Davis was almost certainly trying to sneak something by the citizens whose interests he is supposed to represent in connection with a Dec. 7 meeting held in neighboring Morgan County.
... is, quite frankly, a leap of logic that I can't figure out. This directly implies that Davis deliberately mislead the people of Oconee County over a planning retreat. There was no voting going on, but just a discussion of possible future issues. In fact, nothing from the obtained emails nor the apologies offered by Davis suggest that he was trying to 'sneak something' past the people of Oconee County.
Sometimes, a mistake is just that.
From all indications, this appears to be an honest mistake, albeit one that arguably deserves necessary scrutiny because of the obligation of elected officials to provide open government. Still, to say this ...
He can apologize and take all the responsibility he wants, but that doesn't change the fact Oconee County Commission Chairman Melvin Davis was almost certainly trying to sneak something by the citizens whose interests he is supposed to represent in connection with a Dec. 7 meeting held in neighboring Morgan County.
... is, quite frankly, a leap of logic that I can't figure out. This directly implies that Davis deliberately mislead the people of Oconee County over a planning retreat. There was no voting going on, but just a discussion of possible future issues. In fact, nothing from the obtained emails nor the apologies offered by Davis suggest that he was trying to 'sneak something' past the people of Oconee County.
Sometimes, a mistake is just that.
posted by Jmac at 12:10 PM
3 Comments:
JMac-
Don't be so naive. I have all the respect for Chairman Davis and know that he believes that he has the best interest in Oconee County at heart (although I often disagree with the course he thinks that they should be on), but any Chairman who has been in office for as long as Chairman Davis has (isn't it 6 or 7 years?) knows all about open meeting requirements within the State of Georgia. Couple that with purposely going out of town to have a meeting completely indicates to me that he was trying to hide and ignore the state law.
It is my belief that he wanted to have an open dialogue with his fellow elected officials about many topics that need to be discussed - it just he didn't want to have to open it to the press or to the public.
I don't fault him at all for wanting to have a retreat and have it as beneficial as possible, but it is my opinion that he adopted the "It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" adage.
Those are fair enough points, but my point wasn't to necessarily say that Davis is or isn't guilty of some conspiracy. Rather I just noted that we have no evidence to suggest that he did deliberately ducked the public and, based on the emails and the statements on the record, it appears to be a mistake.
That doesn't mean it's not entirely possible that perhaps Davis did want to have some measure of freer discussion ... we just can't prove that.
It is worth noting, for the sake of it, that commissions (and boards of directors, etc.) frequently do leave town for work retreats. The commission going out-of-county wouldn't raise my eyebrows at all.
Sometimes a mistake is an example of a pattern of behavior and general contempt for people and the power of sunshine on clandestine meetings
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