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This time, secrecy has reason
(by Dave Lange - June 24, 2009)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
This time, secrecy has reason
Like the boy who cried wolf, City of Chardon officialdom again is beside itself over a mole who has betrayed its sanctum of executive sessions. This time, though, there might be something to the public hand-wringing over unkept government secrets.
Based on a memorandum from City Manager David Lelko regarding botched labor negotiations with the service workers' union, Chardon City Council voted 4-3 to offer a $5,000 reward for information leading to the exposure of the squealer who supposedly undermined the municipal position.
Unlike previous howls about leaked secrets damaging the city, a wolf really could be stalking the sheep this time. The discussion of negotiations with public employees is one of the legitimate reasons permitted by the Ohio Open Meetings Act for public bodies to meet behind closed doors.
Such private discussions are justified because of the very real possibility that the disclosure of a public body's confidential position could place it at a bargaining disadvantage. Simply put, if the union negotiators are privy to the best possible wage-and-benefit package that could be acceptable to the employer -- i.e. the taxpayers -- they have no reason to even think about accepting an offer for anything less.
According to Mr. Lelko, he was told by a union representative that information had been provided by a member of City Council. He said the union representative did indeed have information on council's position that could not have been obtained other than through the disclosure of confidential discussion in executive session. He said the union would not identify the individual responsible for the leak but did indicate that it was one of three council members. There is no reason to doubt Mr. Lelko's account.
Councilman Philip King, who voted with the 4-3 majority to offer the $5,000 reward, agreed with Mr. Lelko that the disclosure damaged the city's position. "It undermined the strategy of our labor-relations attorney, and it did cost us money and extracted negotiations," he said. Others among the majority also expressed anger that a colleague had betrayed their trust.
The purported betayal of trust by one or more members of Chardon City Council is nothing new.
Former Councilman John Park, who served as mayor at the time, railed about it back in 2002, when subject matter from executive sessions appeared in newspaper reports. Some of those reports gave the appearance that certain private discussions by government officials had no legal justification for their secrecy.
In early 2007, City Council was up in arms after one member revealed a secret plot to annex land owned by Chardon outside its municipal boundaries in Munson Township. A memorandum regarding that plan was designated as "privileged information," although annexation strategy is not exempted from public disclosure by the Ohio Public Records Act.
In 2002, the city's law director was directed to research Ohio law about the potential for imposing sanctions against the leaker. In 2007, council voted 4-1 to punish the unknown person responsible for leaking the "privileged information." Later that year, council voted 5-2 to enact "general standards of ethical conduct" in an attempt to stop the leaks. And now, the city is offering a reward to expose the latest leak.
Who knows, maybe the city's strategy is to confuse the labor negotiators, along with everybody else.
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