5:37 AM: Scoop! ADN uncovers Alameda's "secret councils"!
You have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool the Noose! The Alameda Daily Noose and I have recently uncovered a secret, disturbing, and growing trend. In documents uncovered at http://ci.alameda.ca.us/gov/boards_commissions.html, we have discovered that the City of Alameda has secret councils covering everything from planning and transportation to golf and libraries.
This breathtaking discovery brings to light the truth that we have shouted to power on a nearly daily basis: the City is attempting to shut out citizens as the voice of the community. These secret councils, occupied by industry insiders and out-of-towners no doubt (more to come as we investigate further), are making decisions that affect our city without bringing to light their dastardly plans.
It is incumbent upon the City Council of Alameda immediately to put in place protections, such as public notification of all meetings, availability before these meetings of all documents used in the meeting, and a public nominating process that puts the residents of Alameda in the seats of power that are these citywide policy advisory committees. It is appalling that these "boards" and "commissions" have the tremendous power to make suggestions that might be given to the City Council, which ultimately makes the decisions that so often imperil our very way of life. We must have processes in place to regain local control of our decision-suggestion power. If you're not paying attention, you're outraged!
2 comments:
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. After reading this I did some fact checking by talking to a friend of mine who said that she heard that one of the members of these "boards" is a musician, another may be an artist and a third enjoys gardening! Are these the types of qualifications that we want in the people runnng the city??? How can these people possibly understand tht Alameda is UNIQUE??!!
We must call on the Attorney General and the Govenor to look into the "secret boards and commissions". If this is allowed to happen in Alameda it could spread like a wild fire to other communities and while we really don't care what happens in other communities they should still look into it.
This could lead to public meetings, in public buildings, where the public actually aired their views on subjects. We don't want this to happen because we all know, WE represent the VAST majority of people in Alameda. Just ask us.
Mrs. K couldn't be more right. We don't want people who have outside interests sitting on the "secret boards and commissions. We want people who have no life and will dedicate 100% of their time to making Alameda the kind of place we want it to be; Mayberry, 1959.
NoFactsDave
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