Canada man hates free speech

Mayor Colin Read hates the First Amendment. He can't stand political debate. He only wants to hear the sound of his own voice. It's really the only explanation for his latest master stroke--a 16-page Code of Conduct for city councilors and employees, which applies to everyone in city government except the mayor, funnily enough, and which flouts state law and the federal Bill of Rights.

There's lots of stuff in it, but we'll start here:

17. 7.17  Significant information provided to any member of Council, which is likely to be used in Council or in political debate, should also be provided to all other Council Members, and to the Mayor. 

Sounds like a common-sense step for open government, right? Take it away, Councilor Peter Ensel, in today's Press-Republican:

"I am also upset that the managers who are directly impacted by the code of conduct have not yet been given a copy of the proposed document. I will not agree to a vote tomorrow (Thursday) without their review and a thorough discussion."
Read said he was planning to send a copy of the proposed code of conduct to managers late Wednesday afternoon.

Evidently, the voices of the people who would have to implement and live under the mayor's diktats do not count. So he's already violating the alleged spirit of his proposed code, before it's even passed.

Not surprisingly, Read seems to want to ram this through the Common Council immediately. This has been his pattern. Come up with a scheme in private, then spring it on the press to distract from some recent failure, and force a shellshocked legislature to pass it quickly.

Read cut and pasted his code of conduct from the website of the City of Vancouver. Which is where Read is originally from. Which is Canada. Which is not this country.

But let's try to be fair. Certainly, there must be good reasons for this, right? The floor is yours, Elizabeth Izzo, in a smart story in the Sun Community News:

Read lamented the negative press coverage in the city’s newspapers, noting that while “dramas” were attracting taxpayer attention, there were positive things that city workers were doing everyday, from the Plattsburgh City Police Department’s work combating the opioid crisis to the Department of Public Works’ attention to city streets. 

But the city's newspapers don't write those stories because drama "sells newspapers," he said.

So this is motivated by hurt feelings brought on by the mean old press? I know it snows a lot in Canada, but I didn't think the place bred such snowflakes. (Also, too, point of information: The Sun is free, so it's not technically "sold.")

I could go on, about the section that prevents council members from speaking to city managers, basically at all, without the expressed consent of the mayor, and the language that limits political speech by politicians ("You can't fight in here. This is the War Room."), and....

Well, you're up, free-speech expert:

Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, believes that the policy appears to be an assertion of authority by the mayor, drawing close attention to how the policy defines “confidential information.” "That is so vague and subjective that I believe it would be inconsistent with law," Freeman told The Sun.

The document is so ridiculous that it ought to be read aloud, laughed at, spat upon, and set fire to in Trinity Park. But the councilors' reactions in the press so far inspire little hope. They seem to be hiding behind the City Charter as a way to not even discuss the awfulness of Read's scheme.

Yet this has nothing to do with the Charter. It's about the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The language in the Charter is designed to prevent councilors from going to managers for skeevy favors, either for themselves or for their constituents. "Hey, City Road Guy, can you pave my driveway?" That sort of thing.

What Read is trying to do is shut off the flow of information from managers to councilors and their constituents by directing it all through himself.

It is suppression of free speech, and of free flow of governmental information. Which may be great for Canada. But did I mention that Canada is not this country? If Read gets away with this, he could soon have us punting on third down and injecting an extraneous "u" into words like color and flavor.

Still, the mayor is right about one thing. The current atmosphere in Plattsburgh is negative. So I, too, decided to search far and wide for a "solution," as the Press-Republican headline called Read's plan, to all this negativity.

And after 3.8 seconds of Googling, I, like the mayor, found answers in Canada. Take us home, Toronto's Globe and Mail:

Mike Gooley, metro market manager at Robert Half International in Toronto, describes typical micromanagers as so controlling that they see every aspect of their employees' work. They also tend to follow up to the point of questioning the person's ability to do the job, he said. When the damage has been done, it lowers morale, stifles creativity, and holds back worthy employees from promotions. Employees may share the experience on social networking sites, he adds, effectively tarnishing the company's reputation. 

Or worse, they might quit. According to a recent survey of 150 Canadian executives, commissioned by Robert Half, 31 per cent of respondents said good employees would quit their job because they were unhappy with their managers. Micromanagers fall into that category, Mr. Gooley said.

Here's the deal. The mayor is running his government like a business. A failing one. He is the source of the negativity. He is the problem. He keeps proving, day after day, that he is not up to the demands of his job.

Where is his solution for that?

Dignity, like democracy, dies in darkness

Bad things happen when those in power force their employees, as a matter of policy, into confidentiality agreements. My bailiwick is sports, and this article about a team that insists on racist branding, and, evidently, sexist creepiness, came across the transom:

This account of the Redskins’ calendar shoot at the Occidental Grand Papagayo is based on interviews with five cheerleaders who were involved, and many details were corroborated with others who heard descriptions of the trip at the time. The cheerleaders spoke on condition of anonymity because they were required to sign confidentiality agreements when they joined the team.

Probably just trying to protect proprietary information, right?

For the photo shoot, at the adults-only Occidental Grand Papagayo resort on Culebra Bay, some of the cheerleaders said they were required to be topless, though the photographs used for the calendar would not show nudity. Others wore nothing but body paint. Given the resort’s secluded setting, such revealing poses would not have been a concern for the women — except that the Redskins had invited spectators.

Non-disclosure agreements, like attorney-client privilege claims, have become weaponized by weirdos.

Classified: Do Not Read

Perhaps the strangest aspect of the City of Plattsburgh administration is its penchant for treating a small municipality's affairs as if they were grave matters of national security.

The weirdest manifestation of this: labeling large swathes of public business as "confidential," and calling anything that gets into public view a "leak."

Bemoaning "leaks of confidential documents" makes people feel like they're playing on a big stage, I guess, but it's a disservice to the English language.

For instance, City Councilor Mike Kelly's recent email tirade against demoralized city workers and the Downtown Revitalization Initiative was described as a "leak" in the local press, and Kelly said he made his comments to the other council members "in confidence."

But an email chain on a city government server is tantamount to a public meeting. The public revelation of a city email is not a "leak" at all. It's a "forward." Or a "cut and paste." Usually, those revelations are "boring." But in this case, it was "news."

Nothing an elected or appointed official puts on public email in the course of public business has any guarantee of confidentiality. (That is how I treated my emails when I served on the city Charter Commission, by the way, so this is not just a whiny journalist talking--though partly it is. Anyone can FOIL those Charter emails. It's your right as an American, at least until Putin completes the takeover.)

The same thing happened when Read and Kelly were caught on the city streaming video feed prattling on about how sanitation workers aren't productive and how the City of Plattsburgh might be better off dissolving and how the Town of Plattsburgh is a bunch of Dick Tracy villains who stole $11 million from the city. (Or was it $1.4 million? Or was it negative $280 bajillion, after the city pays its legal fees? It's all so complicated, and only a great intellect can comprehend such maths.)

The video only existed because Read forgot to turn off the recorder thingy. But he wanted in the worst way to get at the dastardly "leakers" who circulated a publicly streamed video of a conversation about public policy between public officials in a public space. Did I mention that he forgot to turn off the recorder thingy? The point here: It's not a leak.

In fact, there really aren't many aspects of a small city's governance that are "confidential," or that could be "leaked"--especially not communications between Plattsburgh's wee legislative and executive branches.

We're not dealing with international espionage. Or ongoing law-enforcement investigations. Or family court or police personnel records, which are confidential under New York State law. (For a good primer on what stuff is and isn't public in New York, by the way, check out this Poughkeepsie Journal article.).

But the mayor wants to talk about them as if they are. And he really, really craves secrecy. So much so, in fact, that he apparently often labels emails to city councilors "Privileged Attorney-Client Correspondence – not subject to FOIL or forwarding." The sole arbiter of this "privilege" seems to be the mayor himself. He is The State, and will decide What Cannot Be Seen.

I made a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for those "privileged" emails to see what issues are so vital to Plattsburgh's interests that that they must remain hidden from public view. If I get any, I'll publish them.

Just don't call them "leaks." They're taxpayer property.

Cooperation: What a concept

Read this piece on the beleaguered Crete Center from Steve Peters, who used to work for the City of Plattsburgh but was fired because reasons.

It contains good some actual facts, like these:

But, determining success by just dollars and cents is not the whole picture. As of 2017, in any given week during the winter, 1500-plus kids and adults would use the indoor field in at least four different sports. Almost all marketable hours were used, and dozens of teams were turned away.

Youth sports clubs have been created and have been hugely successful partly because of the ability to hone skills at the Crete. There have been dozens of high school soccer state final four and championship appearances by local teams. These championships were due to many factors, but certainly one of them is because of access to the indoor youth programs.

And some good ideas, like this:

The lesson for the Crete Center is simple: Don’t judge the value of its programs based on the inadequacies of the facility. With a proper financial structure and physical configuration, we can eliminate the financial burden, enhance our regional fitness and create economic development initiatives all at the same time — but it has to be a regional approach.

In 2017, 60 percent of Crete and Plattsburgh City Beach users were not city residents. These facilities have a positive impact on the quality of life of the entire region. A revitalization of the Crete and the beach can have a substantial impact on our community — it’s a property that has the potential to define everything we are.

Nice to hear from people who don't see things the same way as Mayor Despair and the coterie, who appear intent on quickly selling off the city's public spaces, not necessarily to the highest bidder.

Breaking: Plattsburgh gov't selects official city anthem!

An elected official's thoughts on city workers and the DRI

In an email discussion among City of Plattsburgh Common Council members about the low morale of city employees, who have been quitting at an alarming rate, Ward 2 Councilor Mike Kelly, on his city email account, wrote the following response, which also included his thoughts on the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, or DRI, a $10 million state grant that the city applied for and won in 2016:

I rejoice at low city employee morale, as we will continue to weed out the folks who are "Retired in Place" or otherwise disengaged. I don't really care much about the DRI, either. Throwing $10 million at a city will not help it survive and thrive. Promoting growth that occurs organically and naturally is a better way to go, IMHO. I don't hold much hope that the DRI will do anything except create more divisiveness between interested parties as the money grab commences. I do hope very, very strongly that we don't build a freaking parking garage. That is one more piece of useless infrastructure that the city will not he able to maintain into the future. You can share that with the mayor if you wish. Don't build a freaking parking garage!  

I wanted to verify that this was, in fact, Kelly's writing, so I emailed him, and he sent the following response:

This was in response to a question raised by one of my colleagues regarding whether we should be concerned about employee morale in times of turmoil and scheduling meetings with the mayor to discuss our concerns. The question was also asked about whether or not we should be concerned about the DRI.

The answers sent to you are my honest, heartfelt answers to the above two questions. The day we have a governing body that is more concerned about taxpayer morale (about 8,00 people) than a handful of managers, then we will start to make some real progress in our fair city. Our management packages, and we have more than one, are bloated way out of sustainable control, and the only way to fix that is to either wait for the old-timers to retire or change it. Right now, unfortunately, we don't have the will on the council to do what needs to be done. I do think that will change in time, however.

Luke, I'm assuming that you're still gainfully employed in the private sector, so I would ask you to compare your benefits with those of our city managers. The packages they have would curl your hair. That would be the real story here. I would be happy to sit with you and show you their benefits package if you would like.

Regarding the DRI, I am and will remain very skeptical. Downtown Plattsburgh's progress to date has been pretty good absent any further injection of the people's treasury. I just don't see the need. However, the governing body I represent has spoken out strongly in favor of the DRI, so  I must go along. I do feel very strongly that another piece of infrastructure like a parking garage is the last thing we need. We are struggling currently to maintain the infrastructure we already possess. 

My comments were made in confidence to my colleagues, and I would prefer they stay that way. However, it is a public email account, so I guess you can write anything you want. If you wish to know any more details about what I'm thinking, I'd be happy to supply them.

(He's assuming a lot about my gainful employment--cough, freelance writer, cough--but let's move on...)

These comments should be published, which I told Kelly in a reply email, because they concern city business and are being communicated over city email. Transparency for taxpayers, and all that.

Here's an idea: How about holding these discussions and debates in an open, public forum?

People might disagree about stuff. Some subjects may even be divisive. That's a risk you take when you live in a democracy.

Deep thoughts II

It must be weird to wake up every day as an elected official, in a dump that's not your primary residence, knowing that many of the people working for you don't respect or like you, and would gladly testify against you in a corruption investigation.