Assembly: Txting @mtngs OK

PALMER — Members of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly last week rejected a ban on sending text messages and e-mails among themselves during public meetings.

Assemblyman Warren Keogh proposed the resolution at the body’s Nov. 15 regular meeting. It would have prohibited the use of any electronic device by an assembly member or the mayor during a meeting, except for breaks or in case of emergency.

Keogh, a Chickaloon resident who was the subject of a failed recall effort this fall, was the only member to vote in favor. The resolution failed 6-1.

Several assembly members said they need their phones to communicate with family members or set their calendars.

Steve Colligan said he shares Keogh’s concerns about the public’s work being done in public and suggested the assembly discuss the issue as part of its ethics policy. But, Colligan said he couldn’t support a total ban.

Assemblyman Darcie Salmon said he favors a more common-sense approach.

“I don’t need to be ordained to not do it,” Salmon said. “If I use it, I’ll assure you it must be an emergency. But where are we going to stop ordaining what we can do and what we can’t do?”

Keogh said he wanted to address the potential for abuse if assembly members conducting the public’s business are getting messages from other members, lobbyists or special interests.

“Debate and actions should be restricted to what happens around the table,” he said. “I don’t see it as so onerous, a small step to clean up the way we conduct our business in a public forum.”

It’s not unusual to see assembly members — or other local government officials — whispering to each other during meetings. Sometimes elected officials pass or receive notes.

But Keogh thinks texting or emailing is different, he said in an interview. The public can see an assembly member whispering to another or passing a note.

They don’t know when somebody is sending a text.

“That concerns me,” he said. “It’s a matter of decorum. It’s a matter of courtesy. It’s a matter of simple appropriateness.”

Alaska’s open meetings law doesn’t mention electronic communications specifically. It says that actions of governmental units “be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.”

Asked if electronic communications are public record, borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos gave the lawyerly answer: “It depends.”

“It’s a matter of some debate and dispute now,” Spiropoulos said. “It’s not well-settled.”

Borough officials were still reviewing a records request for all emails and text messages to and from assembly officials at the meetings of Oct. 18 and Nov. 15 as of Friday. Former assembly member Michelle Church also requested the records.

The Anchorage Assembly — where members regularly can be seen thumb-typing away — has no policy on the use of electronic devices during meetings, and no plans are in the works to devise one, assembly chair Debbie Ossiander said.

”It’s never come up,” Ossiander said.

But several local government officials have expressed concerns about electronic communications during the Alaska Municipal League conference in Fairbanks earlier this month, executive director Kathie Wasserman said.

Wasserman said that “to be on the safe side” she would generally advise against texting during meetings.

“The reason for people having a public meeting is that everyone on the assembly or council can hear all the same information before they make a decision,” she said. “There could be the potential that someone is getting information that the rest of them are not privy to.”

Keogh said he decided to propose the Mat-Su Assembly policy change for several reasons.

Among them, his own “embarrassing” interruption of a presentation during a meeting when his cellphone rang and occasional cellphone use during meetings by Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss and other members.

But the reason that got the most attention was a conversation between assemblymen Ron Arvin and Jim Colver during an Oct. 18 meeting. Arvin participated via teleconference from Taiwan, where he’s working on the construction of a new embassy. He listened “blind” as the shouts of protesters opposing the proposed Wishbone Hill coal mine near Sutton interrupted the meeting.

Arvin, baffled, sent a text message to Colver asking what the heck was going on.

“Hey Jim, I sent you a text. Take a look at that and reply please,” Arvin was heard to say during a brief recess, to some laughter.

“I don’t know how to do those,” Colver replied.

The interaction took place on a break, Arvin said in an email later in the week.

He had asked DeVilbiss to explain the noise but got no answer.

“Mr. Colver replied to me by text stating that he thought an anti-coal protest was under way,” Arvin wrote.

Arvin, participating by phone at the Nov. 15 meeting, was terse in his comments before voting against the Keogh resolution.

“I will send a text to whoever I want to send a text to however I want to do it,” Arvin said. “Mr. Keogh, if that was the genesis of your resolution, you should have approached me on it first. Thank you.”

A national issue

The practice of elected officials communicating via computer or mobile devices with each other, or with constituents and lobbyists, is an issue of growing concern around the country.

The Texas Legislature and the Denver City Council this year considered measures prohibiting electronic messages during meetings.

The Denver council recently adopted the following language, to be read before public hearings, according to an email from the office of council member Charlie Brown, who sponsored the changes:

“Audience members, please understand that council members use electronic devices of various kinds to access the materials relevant to the public hearings before us. Be assured, however, that, by mutual agreement and common practice of this city council, these devices are not being used for texting, emailing or other communications during public hearings.”

San Jose, Calif., made electronic communications a matter of public record after a lobbyist urging a certain vote sent the wrong council member a text; the state of California bars lobbyists and lawmakers from texting on the floor or in committee, according to a story in Governing, a Webzine.