Be Informed: Council Passes Verbatim Minutes

 October 19, 2009

Council passes an ordinance requiring all city council meeting minutes to be written in their entirety - verbatim.  Council felt like this was another step ensuring transparency in government and that the people have a right to know everything their elected officials and tax dollars are doing.

The ordinance goes above and beyond any state requirement for "sunshine." This was a straight up or down vote - either for or against complete transparency.  

Quoted directly from the minutes, I tried to persuade some of the "fence sitters" to vote for the ordinance:

Mohesky, "I'm not prepared to make a decision one way or the other. So that is my position. If you do want to vote it tonight, I will go "No" with it becasue I want to be able to sort this out in my own head."

Midkiff, "There is really nothing to sort out, Jeff. This pretty straight forward. You have had plenty time to think about it. I mean you are either looking at  100% transparency here or not."

Mohesky, "I'm not going to argue with you tonight, you got my answer. That is it."

Midkiff, "That is fine, but I don't understand what you don't understand about the vote - it is pretty black and white."

Who voted, how:

Mohesky        No

Witt                No

Midkiff            Yes

Groff                Yes

Overschmidt  Yes

Buddemeyer  Yes

Rhodes             Yes

Meyer               Yes