Tonight, with Mayor Foster’s behind the scenes urging, the
seven other members of the City Council killed any consideration of several political
reforms I put on the agenda.
The reforms – which are in place in several other cities
(San Jose, Santa Ana, Los Angeles), would:
1. Make the Mayor and City Council members disclose if they are
communicating with a lobbyist or contractor or developer at council before a
vote on an issue impacting that lobbyist or contractor or developer. This would
let the public know of communications that effect votes.
2. Make the text messages and emails generated by the Mayor
and the City Council on their personal phones and computers public records if
the contents are about official city business.
3. Ban political contributions from lobbyists, contractors,
developers and those bidding on business with the city. The federal and state
government and several cities have this ban in place.
Let me be clear. My proposal was to send these items to the
Council Elections Oversight Committee so they could be discussed and worked
out. This council wouldn’t even let the ideas be discussed.
What a contrast between this Mayor and the Mayor in San
Jose, Chuck Reed who made open government a major platform of his
administration. Mayor Reed posts his calendar on line as does his Chief of
Staff and all of the Council members. Mayor Reed called and got the City
Council to enact policy three years ago making elected officials' personal
email and text messages about city business public records subject to
disclosure.
How sad that several of the council members who wouldn’t let
these items get further discussed are the first to tweet and facebook and email
how much they support transparency in government.
Taxpayers deserve to know what their elected officials are
doing and who they are communicating with. Playing the game that as long as the
communication isn’t on a city phone or computer that no one should see it, is
insulting to voters who understand that technology makes it possible for
instantaneous conversations and that those conversations should be public.
What is so special about elections in Long Beach that we can’t
step up and ban contributions to political campaigns and officeholder accounts
from lobbyists, contractors, developers and those bidding doing business with
the City? The federal and state levels and several California cities ban these
contributions to prevent the practice and appearance of “pay to play.” Long
Beach needs to do the same.
Since the Mayor would not allow discussion of the issue
after it was killed and no councilmember dare speak why they were against these
political reforms, the public was not given the opportunity to hear, just what
they were all so scared would happen if we made these communications public and
stopped the flow of political contributions. Democracy perhaps?