This is a very inefficient process we are engaging here! Tampa Meeting Regulatory Council Of Community Association Managers -- November 7, 2008 |
An
Opinion By Jan Bergemann Published November 25, 2008 After
listening to the tape from the Very little was actually achieved during the meeting. Most of the time was used for presentations from department employees and attorney Barbara Edwards from the Attorney General’s office.
Barbara
Edwards, Assistant Attorney General, started her "education" of
new council members with warnings like: "I tend to be a cautious attorney!
... and I want to keep you out of trouble! If I advise you against certain actions and you chose to ignore my advice you are probably acting knowingly under the law and that means you are disregarding the law.
If
however, I'm wrong, you shouldn't face the consequences. So if the Council disagrees with me there are no consequences to individual council members or the Council as a whole." So far, so good! But when new council member Terence Brennan tried to make a presentation titled: PROPOSALS FOR RESTORING TRUST IN CAM LICENSES a big discussion ensued with Barbara Edwards claiming that allowing this presentation to be made would actually violate the Florida Sunshine Law.
Brennan tried to introduce his presentation under the agenda item: "Prosecuting Attorney's Report" -- an agenda item that well suited his presentation. The fruitless discussion that ensued actually took 28 minutes away from the Council's valuable meeting time and ended with a tied vote, disallowing Brennan to read his presentation into record.
Please note: Brennan wanted to read his written presentation into record and hand every person present a hard copy of this presentation. Discussion to follow at the next Council meeting. Brennan had asked Executive Director Anthony B. Spivey to add this presentation to the agenda in a timely manner, but his request was clearly ignored.
Here are some of highlights of this discussion:
Barbara Edwards: "I'm a little bit concerned about it's not been a public record."
From the moment Terence Brennan asked to make his presentation to the moment the Council turned to the next agenda item actually 28 minutes passed. Listen to PART I of the taped meeting (8:08 minutes) The 5-minute break actually lasted more than 9 minutes. PART II (with vote) lasted 10:42 minutes
WHAT A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!
Asking for clarification of her opinion, I sent Barbara Edwards an e-mail and received this response: See: E-MAIL EXCHANGE!
Quoting
the 2008 Especially considering that the next two meetings (February and May 2009) are scheduled as telephone conferences makes the argument brought by Ms. Edwards that the public can't participate since the presentation is not a public record pretty difficult to comprehend. How to hand these presentations to any listeners at a telephone meeting? And how can they "come to the telephone meeting?" The
Council is supposed to make recommendations. How can that be achieved
without the council members presenting their views and ideas for
improvement? Looking at the AGENDA
of the In my opinion using the excuse of a presentation by a council member being a violation of the Florida Sunshine Law is abusing the intent of this law. Isn't this powerful law supposed to bring SUNSHINE in our government -- but not to censor council members? COUNCIL MEMBERS WERE APPOINTED TO IMPROVE THE SYSTEM -- A SYSTEM THAT IS OBVIOUSLY FLAWED -- BUT NOT TO SEE THEIR OPINIONS AND SUGGESTIONS TO BE CENSORED WITH THE HELP OF THE FLORIDA SUNSHINE LAW. WHERE IS THE SUNSHINE? |