Transparency is a two way street. Just last week a member of council suggested an item should be pulled because it broke a council rule about project name being in the title. Accusations are hurled and suggestions made that the mayor and the administration play “shell games” or are somehow otherwise secretive.

What ever the reason, calling a special call meeting to define council’s priorities to the Charter Review Advisory Commission during the holidays, not mentioning it until the very end of a long first day back and then not appearing with the other meetings/agendas when the preceding week’s meetings were posted on Friday doesn’t appear transparent (while technically it was properly publicly noticed, there’s plenty the mayor has done that was technically “above board” but timing and opaqueness have led to the accusations). A special call meeting that won’t be streamed and isn’t in council chambers with the vague

The purpose of this Special Call Workshop is to discuss what City Council’s questions and priorities they want to forward to the City of Tampa Charter Review Advisory Commission.

Why? Nothing in the charter or the adopted ordinances says anything about council’s priorities in a charter review. That should be worked out when they appoint their members. From there it should be up to the citizens appointed and public comment to make recommendations to council. Council have their own Charter defined process for proposing amendments.

The Charter Review Advisory Commission is already overwhelmingly controlled by city council. And with 5 votes, council can control what makes it to the voters already.

It needs to be very clear this is not a mandate but I suspect the well is already poisoned.

Follow Up

This was written prior to the meeting, and my opinion stands. Per the minutes the purpose of the meeting was “to engage in open dialogue to collect questions and agree on what should be provided to the members of the Charter Review Advisory Commission.” And while the resolution adopted that “set forth the objectives and duties, and provides additional direction governing the organization, conduct of meetings, and scope of work of the City of Tampa Charter Review Advisory Commission” mentions under scope that council would submit questions, the City Attorney will only submit “proposals for non-substantive housekeeping changes”. Council having a meeting agenda for “setting priorities” and collectively deciding what should be provided to the members still looks like a mandate. Especially with members of the committee in attendance. They appoint members but it’s not their committee.

Maybe one order of business for the CRC would be to better define independence of the committee once they are appointed. They’re provided an independent lawyer and a facilitator with 7 months to provide recommendations.

Council as a body should play no more of a role than the mayor, especially when there’s so much discussion about balance of power. Any resident should be free to submit suggestions including the mayor and individual council members. Council chose how they want to name the 7 members and that should be the end of their role until they receive the recommendations. If there’s an amendment a council member wants to propose that isn’t in the recommendations, they’re free to suggest it then.