But We Remember When She Liked Us...

City Commissioner Joanne Mattick, in emails to City Clerk Alice Baird yesterday HERE, HERE and HERE, has suddenly taken vocal and repeated exception to blog posts finding their way to the City’s reading file, the repository where all correspondence subject to public records laws are stored. Any emails or correspondence subject to public records laws and not already on City email accounts are forwarded, or are supposed to be forwarded, to Ms. Baird at amclerk@cityofannamaria.com for safe keeping, so to speak, awaiting the next inevitable public records request to arrive on her desk.

Let’s be clear. We welcome all forms of distribution and, like the coffee stained front page section of the Bradenton Herald winding up on a conference room table after a morning meeting, if we indirectly find our way to City Hall readers, that’s okay with us. And if requested, we would gladly send posts directly to Ms. Baird, Mayor Barford, Commissioner Mattick or anyone else at 10005 Gulf Drive who is kind enough to ask. But, a post from this blog has never been sent unsolicited directly to Ms. Baird’s email address or to any other city email address to our knowledge.

Now, understand that in the year that this blog has been active, a number of citizens, residents and other folks interested in remaining informed, have been included on the blog’s limited auto-send list (which currently has a waiting list) and receive blog entries immediately as they are posted. That list has evolved and changed as subscribers come and go and at times it has included persons who just happen to also be subject to public records laws due to their public service. If their interpretation of public records laws compels them to forward a post to Ms. Baird, they are merely fulfilling their duty under the law.

Commissioner Mattick’s urgent pleas to purge City files of blog posts raise several questions and many concerns. First, is it now Commissioner Mattick’s demand that recipients of posts from this blog or any source who also happen to be subject to public records laws refrain from complying with those laws? Does her demand extend to material from other media or non-profit or civic sources whom may assert their right to comment or forward comment to the Mayor, Commissioners or Board members on contested issues in the City? If it were an Islander or Sun editorial, we suspect that Ms. Joy and Mr. Field would feel the same way we do. Does the City really want individual Commissioners becoming arbiters of what and what is not public record? And have we not just spent three months listening to lawyers and newspapers and vocal partisans cry foul when some public servant or another was accused of doing exactly what Commissioner Mattick is demanding that recipients of posts from this blog do, that is, possibly violate the law by withholding communications? As one local aptly put it, “Looks like you’re damned if you do and sued if you don’t.”

We assume that City Attorney Jim Dye will counsel that, one, there is not nor can there be a prohibition on anyone sending any communication directly to City Hall and, two, public officials remain obligated to comply with public records laws regardless of the source or content of communications they may receive. But, really, during such a contentious period when everyone agrees the City is stretching its financial and human resources to the limit, is this an issue upon which Mr. Dye should be asked to expend valuable time with the meter running?

Next, as valiant as it may be for Commissioner Mattick to defend John Cagnina’s honor so publicy HERE, if she thinks for a second that Mr. Cagnina’s reckless venture into public service and its ugly fallout “has nothing whatsoever to do with the conduct of city business” then she is in for a long couple of weeks as the rest of the City Commission debates and weighs how to handle that fallout and whether, as it should, it will pursue Mr. Cagnina for reimbursement.

And finally, we do not often agree with Commissioner Mattick but we do respect the fact that she has for years given her time and energy to public service, particularly in difficult times like these, when too few are willing to jump into the fray. But her complaint HERE that “the City would be serving as a conduit to further whatever agenda is being carried out by the supporters of that blog” seems a bit short on memory. Earlier this year, as her years-old “agenda” that focused on constructing a City Pier boardwalk with Department of Transportation dollars was nearing a vote, she actively sought and received support from “that blog,” as she refers to us. Her thanks for that support was immediate, emotional and heartfelt and we welcomed the opportunity to use our "editorial comment" to help communicate the value of the project to citizens and Commissioners alike. The project was approved by a unanimous vote of the City Commission.

And, by the way, that supportive blog post from us she so actively sought, received and thanked us for but would now ban as unacceptable “conduit” and “editorial comment,” found its way to that city reading file managed by Ms. Baird, where it has remained for months, without complaint one from Commissioner Mattick.

UPDATE: Mayor Barford today advised all City Commissioners by email HERE that "pending further research" the City will continue to retain a "hard copy of blog emails in a city file."

Bill Yanger